It’s there. At the bottom of your press releases, on the “Who we are” section of your website, at the end of your whitepapers. It’s the “boilerplate” description of your company. And it’s terrible. You’ve got 50 to 60 words to tell the world who you are, but if you’re like most companies, what you’re…
I help people with book titles and taglines. It’s not a linear process, and progress is impossible to measure. That’s a feature, not a bug. I had this insight recently when working with a client on a tagline for his business, along with some other language. (A tagline is a short description of what you…
Trends are great topics for writing, because they’re always changing; people are eager for advice on what to do about them. But to write persuasively about a trend, you need to know what stage it’s in. So let’s go over strategies for writing about trends. I’ll start with the Gartner Hype Cycle, which is a…
Late last night, Donald Trump threatened Iran with an all-caps tweet. Today, I’ll analyze its effectiveness using the Without Bullshit rubric for all written communication, ROAM. Here’s Trump’s tweet: To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED…
Mark Zuckerberg got himself in hot water by explaining why he couldn’t kick Holocaust deniers off of Facebook. That sounds indefensible until you try to figure out how you’d do it. It’s a hard problem, but I have a solution. Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg told Recode in an interview with Kara Swisher: Zuckerberg: I’m Jewish,…
I hate fluff. I also hate wimpiness, cliched platitudes, endless bloviation, and bad grammar. This affects how I behave as an editor. It reduces the number of clients I have, and changes the way I approach content. Let’s say you come to me with a potential editing job. I look at what needs to be…
On Monday, in Helsinki, Trump said he couldn’t see why Russia would hack our elections. Yesterday, he said he was wrong. Even if you believe him, switching from denial to acceptance isn’t a step forward. Let’s look at the transcripts. At the joint press conference in Helsinki, Vladimir Putin denied interfering in the election: Putin:…
Trump met with Putin in Helsinki, then defended the Russian president. Democrats were outraged, of course, but this time many Republicans chimed in with disapproval as well. What does the language of these Republican protests tell us about the probability of an impeachment? Trump got everyone upset with this response to a reporter’s question: AP…
The analytical thinker (and writer) must soberly use facts to argue the case for the truth. But if you hate the Yankees — just viscerally hate them — and you’re literary enough, you can throw that out the window. That’s what David Bentley Hart did in his New York Times opinion piece. Here’s how it starts:…