Have you used an emoji in an email at work? Seriously, have you? I bet you have. At least one smiley face. AT LEAST a wink;)
But if I asked you if emojis are “professional,” most of you would probably say no.
Read MoreSlide decks come in two major types: those meant to accompany you talking and those meant to be read. The rules are different for these two types because one is supporting material and the other is center stage.
What they have in common is image and color. Slide decks allow for visuals in a way that reports, memos, letters, and emails don’t. The slide is meant to be seen rather than read. We expect a slide to have more color than black and white. We expect the text to be accompanied by images. We appreciate colorful headings, highlighted words, background colors, and other design elements that are typically not part of other written formats.
Read MoreAristotle is to be blamed for teaching us the so-called “rhetorical triangle” of ethos (credibility), logos (logic), and pathos (emotion). Of course, the reason teachers are still teaching ethos, pathos, and logos is because we have centuries of testing that shows they work. Your ability to persuade is determined by whether the audience can trust you, whether you can provide logical and relevant evidence, and whether the audience has an emotional stake in your content. We won’t listen to people we don’t trust (ethos): credibility is the foundation for all effective communication. But we also don’t listen to people who we don’t *care* about, or who don’t make us *feel* something (pathos). We want to feel connected or inspired or powerful; maybe we want to feel angry or sad. Whatever the emotion, persuasion will only work when we *feel* it.
Read MoreRoutine messages are messages that are…routine, as in you write them all the time or you get the same kind of messages all the time. These are your day-to-day, the main things you do, the things you probably should have built templates for so that you can just swap out the names at the top.
Read MoreIf you read our January blog post, then you already know: Email is a slow, written conversation. Once you start that conversation, you will inevitably need to end it.
The closing is important because it marks the end of the message. It reassures the reader that they have received your complete thoughts, all that you intended to send them…
Read MoreOur professional writing has to be concise because, unfortunately, no one wants to read anything. Most of the people who are reading your messages or are writing to you are doing so because they need to get things done, or we need them to get things done. They need to have information. Rather than reading to enjoy your emails, like they would a good book, they are reading the message trying to figure out: Why are you writing to me? And, what am I supposed to do with this?
Read MoreRecently, a few videos on “psychological tricks” have been popping up in my social media feed. One of the tricks that gets a fair amount of attention is that of mirroring. The idea is that if you mirror people’s body language, they are more likely to trust you. For example, if a person reaches for their drink, and then you reach for your drink, the similarity of the action subconsciously suggests that you are alike, which can build trust. So, if the person leans forward, you lean forward; if the person crosses their legs, you cross your legs.
Read MoreWe learn to write in middle school; how to get our own ideas out of our heads and onto the page. In college, we learn to add adjectives and extra words as “fluff” to fill space on the page. By the time we get to our careers, most people are still using the skills that they acquired as younger, less qualified versions of the people they are now.
Read MoreBeginning writers spend most of their time thinking about how to put words together into a logical message. Their focus is on getting the words out, writing down words that reflect the ideas in their heads. They feel finished when they have put their idea on paper, just put it into writing. This is a lot of hard work. It is a challenge to find the right words, to put them in order, to write as fast as your mind, or slow down your thoughts to match your typing speed. Your thoughts and your hands are constantly out of sync. So it is a struggle just to write.
Read MoreA few years ago, I was visiting friends in Germany. One of them is an English teacher and she asked me if I could explain to her the difference between "fill in" and "fill out". She gave an example, "Would you say 'I want to fill in the form'? or 'I want to fill out the form'?" I tried to imagine the situation. At the doctor or dentist's office, they hand you that clipboard with all the info you have to verify and say, "Please fill out the form." Ok, so "fill out", but "fill in" sounded just as right. On a test, it might say "Fill in all the blanks." So, I decided that the difference had to do with what was expected from the writer. To "fill out" seems to be to put in all the necessary information--to complete a form or provide information. To "fill in" seems to be to put back what has been taken out or removed. If there are obvious gaps in something, you fill them in. But if there are gaps and you need not complete all of them, you fill them out. Thoughts?
Read MoreI'm not sure if it's the happy and optimistic millenials flooding the job market or the newest generation of students who feel entitled to everything and expect rich praise for even the most basic of tasks, but I've noticed a serious increase in the use of "Thanks" in business writing.
Read MoreIn my seminars recently, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about tone. People feel that they themselves or others are too “abrupt” or “brusque” in email. This is not uncommon.
The problem exists because writing is a much more limited system than our other forms of communication. When we talk to people face-to-face, we interpret their body language, gestures, facial expressions as part of what they are saying. When we talk on the phone, we lose the body, but we still have the voice with all its inflection, tone, and volume.
I’m preparing to conduct my first business writing seminar, and I’m a little nervous. Sure, I’ve taught business writing for a while, but I’ve been focusing my teaching efforts on college students for so long that what I’m nervous about is tailoring the material to people who actually know what writing for work is like.
Read MoreOne of my students recently sent me this article:
Read MoreApparently, Americans are the most overly polite people in the world. At least, that's what my European friends have always said. I do think we are particularly trained to say our please and thank yous, but at some point, I might agree with the Europeans that we overdo it a bit.
Read MoreI've been teaching writing for almost 10 years. I've had a lot of students. The ones who succeed feel challenged and work to surpass that challenge. They recognize that writing requires practice, and they work at it.
Read MoreEvery time we sit down to write something, anything, we are writing to someone. Often, our writing is simply for ourselves: shopping lists, errands, books we'd like to read, or calendar entries. When we write for ourselves, we know our audience intimately, and so we don't have to put much thought into it: we need enough words to jog our own memory and clear enough handwriting to read what we wrote.
Read MoreI know we all have spellcheck and we've read those little poems that people write explaining how spellcheck doesn't solve all your spelling mistakes. Now we even have those forwards about text messages gone wrong. People love to revel in the surprising language that emerges from some of the smallest spelling mistakes.
Read MoreAdvancing technology has altered our perceptions of generic conventions in interesting ways. What exactly is the difference between a text message and an email? Do we expect them to have different kinds of writing in them? To address different people in our lives? Do we accept different responses as "timely"?
Read More