We’ve all had those insightful moments where a brilliant thought or idea rushes through our mind. It’s this time that we run to grab our pencil and paper and quickly jot down our fleeting thought. Did you ever feel like your brilliant idea became a complete flop once you put it into words? Sometimes it’s not our actual ideas that need tweaking, but rather the language we use to describe them.
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13 12 2016
Grammar Rules: A Lesson on “However”
It’s a little tricky.
Many amateur writers use the word however incorrectly. The most common mistake—and we see it way too often—is using it as if it were a coordinating conjunction.
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Ahh, the music of language.
We’ve all heard the phrase before, but many of us haven’t given much thought to what it actually means. Is it how words sound? The “flow” of a sentence? Or something more?
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13 09 2016
What’s So Awful About Adverbs?
My new husband is a long-time Ayn Rand fan and has belonged to their Objectivist group for decades. I went to a meeting or two. There were some very nice, seemingly intelligent people there, yet I remained skeptical about some of their beliefs about altruism and their extreme anti-religion stance, among others. So, I thought, “I should re-read The Fountainhead.” I hadn’t read it since my pre-Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing degree. I remember, though, that I had some trouble slogging through the book, and although the characters were sort of interesting, I had been left with the impression that it was not a particularly pleasurable piece of writing. So, in order to further my fine connection with my new sweetheart, I decided I should try again.
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On any given day, we end up writing in some manner or another—more than likely, it’s in an email format. That, at least, is simple–there’s no question about knowing your audience when you write a personal email. But for other types of writing, this becomes a bit more difficult to pin down.
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[We want a to give a quick shoutout and thanks to our friends at PR News, where this article originally ran (May 2, 2016 newsletter). You can also find it in the PR News Writer’s Guidebook, vol. 2 (200 pages of invaluable PR professional advice). Want a copy? Get $50 off with coupon code Friendwriters16.]
Keyword-based SEO is a trap.
Most of us know that keyword stuffing is a bad idea, but many of us aren’t aware that most of the effort put into keywords is of low consequence. Keywords shouldn’t be viewed as a primary metric but rather as a natural result of creating quality content that brings value to the target reader. Algorithms are smarter these days, and effective conversion comes from truly understanding the voice needed to reach the ideal target market.
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05 07 2016
Copywriting Lessons from Trader Joe’s
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Trader Joe’s is doing some guerrilla marketing, isn’t it?
Don’t worry—the advertisers haven’t bought me yet. This has nothing to do with advertising and everything to do with me stumbling across some marketing materials that have plenty of copywriting lessons to share.
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Welcome to the first Language Ninja article of what is sure to be a blazing hot summer!
Ninja’s beat the heat tip: Switch out your heat-absorbing black shinobi shōzoku for a light-reflecting bodysuit made of mirrors. She’s pretty sure you can find one on Etsy.
Now that the practical advice is out of the way, let’s get started on the questions!
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There is almost nothing as metaphorically, if not physically, painful as watching two people who don’t know what they’re talking about try to explain something to each other.
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24 05 2016
Angels and Brats: Which One Are You?
To put broad strokes on the canvas of writing and editing merely for over-simplification, there are two overarching types of writers and editors: the brats and the angels. How they behave is distinctly different due to their different roles. The good news is, once a writer or an editor recognizes he or she behaves in one of these ways, it’s easy to change—though one way is obviously (at least to us) a better way to go about things.
