A lot of people think my writing advice is wrong. When you apply the principles in my book at work, you’re going to encounter resistance, because the way I teach writing is not conventional. Here’s a set of objections and counterarguments for when people tell you you’re doing it wrong. Business writing has worked fine for many…
This is a puzzling election to understand, with unconventional candidates, unusual voting patterns, and hundreds of fluctuating polls. One site does the best at tracking the race (as opposed to the candidates and issues): Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com. And one very strange graphic on that site shows exactly what’s happening, what matters, and what’s changing. Here…
Matt Mullenweg, the originator of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, is fighting with Avishai Abrahami, CEO of Wix. (Both companies make it easy to build web content.) The question driving this fight is the appropriate use of open source code. But what’s really at stake is reputation — and on that front, Abrahami’s wry commentary…
FBI director James Comey has now dominated election news with his letters to Congress and to his staff about new developments in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the letters are the political equivalent of a rice cake: crunchy, but with no actual nutritional content. First, the sordid background. The FBI is investigating former Congressman Anthony…
To create effective infographics, you need to have something to say, and then you need to tell the story graphically. Today’s Ask Dr. Wobs answer explains how to do that. Dear Dr. Wobs I’m inspired by your infographics that illustrate how to write without bullshit. I’d like to create some of my own for my audience. How do…
Picking metaphors and similes is like picking vegetables — the fresh ones have the most flavor. A good metaphor isn’t as old and hackneyed as the presidential horse race, nor is it as bewildering as a new version of Windows on the first day. Learn from the masters of metaphor, like Matt Taibbi. Metaphors should be clever, but not…
It’s on the tip of your brain. An idea. You think you’re onto something. You’ve figured something out that nobody else realizes. What should you do next? Write an idea treatment. I’ll explain how. I hear from people who say they have ideas all the time. They say stuff like this: “I think I want to…
Managing reviews of your drafts is a pervasive problem. At my talk to PR professionals this weekend, only one person out of an audience of 150 said her review process worked well. Today, I’ll describe a key element of a disciplined process for soliciting, collecting, and combining reviews: the memo you send to reviewers asking for feedback. The reviewers’ memo: an…
The Las Vegas Review-Journal — owned by the politically active casino owner Sheldon Adelson — just became the first major newspaper to endorse Donald Trump. Endorsements are supposed to be biased, but the more over-the-top they are, the less persuasive they are. This endorsement is so full of florid language that it strains credulity. To understand…