Many people sit down to write and suddenly seem to think that they need to add additional words. You may have found yourself doing that at some point too: using words you know don’t come naturally to you and just adding fluff to your writing.
The truth is that the best writing (especially online writing) is writing that makes the reader feel like you’re speaking directly to them. You can’t use irrelevant words to do this, but you can’t leave out what’s important either.
Craft a job title
Starting with a headline is a great way to narrow down what you’re going to tell your readers. You can always perfect it later. Crafting a headline involves understanding the reason for your message.
Make a scheme
After you’ve written your job title, it’s time to make an outline. He just writes a few bullet points about the topics he wants to tell his audience about.
Avoid redundant words
Common redundancies like “absolutely perfect” and “true facts” can add to or subtract from the meaning of your words. Most of the time you want to avoid unnecessary redundancies like “last and final” because it doesn’t add anything to the meaning of your words. There may be an argument for certain kinds of irreverent writing to include these redundancies, but for concise writing, avoid them as much as possible and edit for meaning.
combine sentences
You were probably taught in school to write short, direct sentences. But sometimes it’s appropriate to combine sentences to get a more concise copy. Combining short sentences helps you avoid boring your listening. When you can easily combine two sentences, without creating a continuous sentence, you should. It will improve the comprehension of the copy and improve the flow.
that, who, which
Sometimes these words are necessary, but when you’re editing your work, pay special attention to when it’s used, by whom, and which ones. Try the sentence without these words to see if it changes the meaning or changes the emphasis of the words.
use active voice
It is very easy to fall into the use of the passive voice when writing. But, most of the time, using the active voice is more appropriate. A key to knowing when the passive voice sneaks in is the words, “is, was, and for“. If you notice those words while editing, try reordering the sentence by changing the passive voice to the active voice.
See nominalizations
When an action word becomes a noun, it becomes a nominalization. (for example, “illustration” vs. “illustrated”). These should be avoided. They have a negative effect on your copy by making reading monotonous and easy to misunderstand. Instead, focus on making active sentences and using nouns as nouns and action words as action words.
edit carefully
No one can write good copy in a draft. In fact, you may need several drafts to perfect your copy. Take the time to perfect each sentence for each type of text you write. Start with a smooth copy, leave it for a while, then come back to it and improve it.
