Be Careful What You Write

Written by Bill Willard


Continued from page 1

But with prospects and clients? Very big deal.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but email goofs make a sharp cookie like you come across like a dim bulb in life’s marquee. Yet, SBOs who faithfully proofread printed correspondence don’t bother checking their email messages before hitting Send.

Spelling

Bill Willard has been writing high-impact marketing and sales training for over 30 years—but as Will Rogers put it: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.”


Beware: The Dreaded Article

Written by Staci Stallings


Continued from page 1

2.The Development ·English teachers ·Three sub-topics ·Example ·Supportive Information ·Table legs ·Example

3.The five paragraph model ·Eighth graders ·The model ·30-page papers ·A matter of organization

If you’ve been following, you already know where we’re going . . .

The Five-Paragraph Model

Without a doubt this isrepparttar skill that should be taught in every English class from second grade on. The sad fact, however, is that too many students have gone completely through school and never so much as heard of it. In fact, when I put all these pieces together for an eighth grade English class I taught, one student asked, “Why hasn’t anyone shown us this before? It makes writing so much simpler.” I have to agree with him—it does, in fact, it makes writing anything simpler.

The five-paragraph model is simply this: Paragraph one isrepparttar 138534 introduction. It tells in broad strokes what you are going to be discussing. Paragraph two presents your first sub-topic and each supporting leg under it. Paragraph three isrepparttar 138535 second sub-topic and its legs, and paragraph four isrepparttar 138536 third sub-topic plus its legs. The final paragraph, number five, isrepparttar 138537 conclusion in which you simply restate what you have talked about.

Now, if you are thinking in terms of word-count (how many of us spent hours in school counting words to make sure it was long enough? Ugh!), here’s a simple way to do that. Breakrepparttar 138538 word count down into paragraphs. So, if you have to write 250 words,repparttar 138539 first paragraph would be 50 words,repparttar 138540 second 50 words, and so on. For most of my students, 250 words seemed overwhelming at first, but 50 didn’t. By breaking it down,repparttar 138541 task seemed manageable, and they weren’t left looking at a blank piece of paper with no clue what to write.

This technique also words for longer papers. My seniors had to write a 30-page research paper (it was a school requirement). Many if not most of them were understandably panicked by this idea. However, when we brokerepparttar 138542 paper down inrepparttar 138543 form ofrepparttar 138544 model, it didn’t seem nearly so intimidating.

The first page was a broad overview. Pages 2-10 wererepparttar 138545 first point; pages 11-20 wererepparttar 138546 second point; pages 21-28,repparttar 138547 third point; and pages 29-30 wererepparttar 138548 conclusion. Admittedly even ten pages on a point is a lot, so we broke each of them down again so that each “leg” was more like a sub-topic with legs under it. Byrepparttar 138549 time we finished breaking it down, they were no longer looking at a 30-page monstrosity, they were now looking at 15-20 five paragraph papers. One paragraph at a time didn’t seem nearly so overwhelming as “I have to write a 30-page paper.”

My suggestion for you is to take this model and practice a few times. Don’t focus onrepparttar 138550 frightening notion of writing an article.

Organize it, then break it down, and write it section by section. I think you will be surprised at how much less intimidatingrepparttar 138551 process of writing becomes. With a little practice, you too will be writing e-zine copy like a pro.

Need more writing tips? Come visit the author of this article, Staci Stallings, at http://www.stacistallings.com You’ll be glad you did!


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