For some people their idea of the perfect job could be working as a sampler in a chocolate factory; guys might fantasise about being a dresser at fashion shoots... 
South Africa, Republic of (Press Release) April 8, 2008 --
...and others might think being a traffic cop giving out tickets could be a gas. Me – I love editing, cutting out words and making long winded writing shorter and readable. I shouldn’t really write this because I could effectively be doing myself out of possible work – but I can’t resist it. You write too much – at least most of you do.
I recently edited a 90 page strategy document down to 60 pages, without changing the context of the work. That may sound a bit drastic but when I sat down with the original author he told me that firstly he felt he had to use ‘big words’ so that people reading it would think he was very clever and secondly he had to repeat certain things to make sure he ‘got through’ to his audience. You really don’t.
The point is that it’s not so much in the writing of documents, releases or even emails that counts, but the editing. Taking out words that in fact will make your document easier and even more importantly, easier to read. Put yourself in the reader’s position. You’ve been in meetings all day long and you turn on your computer, hit the email button and up comes a message that you’ve got 30 odd emails waiting for you. Your first thought is ‘I hope I can delete half and answer the rest quickly, so I can get down to work’...
The same applies when you have to open an attachment and you watch the pages loading and to your horror they keep coming… Very often you’ll have to read 20 pages just to get to the punchline of what’s expected of you and why you’ve been sent the document. So this is just to say think of the other person when you write anything and keep it short and simple. Be brave, read your work out loud, listen to what you’ve said, breathe in and hit the delete button where you’ve repeated yourself or used ‘extra’ words – you and your correspondents will be happy you did.
Marion Scher
Media Mentors
www.mediamentors.co.za
pr@mediamentors.co.za
I recently edited a 90 page strategy document down to 60 pages, without changing the context of the work. That may sound a bit drastic but when I sat down with the original author he told me that firstly he felt he had to use ‘big words’ so that people reading it would think he was very clever and secondly he had to repeat certain things to make sure he ‘got through’ to his audience. You really don’t.
The point is that it’s not so much in the writing of documents, releases or even emails that counts, but the editing. Taking out words that in fact will make your document easier and even more importantly, easier to read. Put yourself in the reader’s position. You’ve been in meetings all day long and you turn on your computer, hit the email button and up comes a message that you’ve got 30 odd emails waiting for you. Your first thought is ‘I hope I can delete half and answer the rest quickly, so I can get down to work’...
The same applies when you have to open an attachment and you watch the pages loading and to your horror they keep coming… Very often you’ll have to read 20 pages just to get to the punchline of what’s expected of you and why you’ve been sent the document. So this is just to say think of the other person when you write anything and keep it short and simple. Be brave, read your work out loud, listen to what you’ve said, breathe in and hit the delete button where you’ve repeated yourself or used ‘extra’ words – you and your correspondents will be happy you did.
Marion Scher
Media Mentors
www.mediamentors.co.za
pr@mediamentors.co.za
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