Get To The Point

Written by Dan J. Fry


As a scientist I attend several international conferences every year to give talks, show posters, and exchange ideas with my colleagues. Many ofrepparttar talks have time limits of 7 minutes with 3 minutes for questions. Have you ever sat down and timed yourself to see what you can say in 7 minutes? Its not much, let me tell you.

Even from a discipline that prides itself on sticking to simplicity, a 7 minute talk is a challenge. It forces you to say quickly and in as few words as possible your premise and findings.

This is not so different from advertising onrepparttar 129001 internet. Wait a minute you say, you are trying to relate internet marketing to doing scientific research? Well, classified ads for instance require a short but catchy headline (your premise) and a few sentences describing benefits (or findings). There simply is not enough room to discuss anything in a classified ad.

Sales copy is different. You have much more room for discussion. Does this mean you should run off on some literary commentary? No. To keep readers attention you must still remain focused to your initial premise. The big difference is benefit elaboration. Space now exists to list benefit after benefit by delivering one scenario after another to prove your premise.

Now think aboutrepparttar 129002 things just stated:

(1) remain focused to premise, (2) list benefits, and (3) prove premise.

This is essentially identical to what we do in a scientific talk. Is online marketing scientific? In some ways, yes. One must research and brainstorm ideas to formrepparttar 129003 premise and benefit list. Sales copy is then drafted with these research results and one other underlying condition: getting torepparttar 129004 point quickly and staying highly focused to it throughoutrepparttar 129005 copy.

Write a Better Technical Article in Half the Time

Written by Christine Taylor


Good technical articles are challenging to write. They’re time-consuming, demanding to research and hard to organize. But they’re valuable weapons inrepparttar PR and marketing arsenal, and you need them.

If you can outsourcerepparttar 129000 article, great. That’s what writers like me are here for. But if you can’t – or don’t want to -- then read and applyrepparttar 129001 tips below to save time and energy on research and writing, and come out with a much better product.

Get Ready 1.Review your resources – hard copy like books and articles, Web access, interview contact information. 2.Arrange for interviews if you need them, it always takes a while to track downrepparttar 129002 interviewees. Note: If you’re ghostwriting an article for a company, you may not have an interview pastrepparttar 129003 initial meeting. 3.Make sure you knowrepparttar 129004 following: a)repparttar 129005 reader’s challenge, b)repparttar 129006 key message relating to their challenge, and c)repparttar 129007 type of reader you’re writing to. 4.Understandrepparttar 129008 main messagerepparttar 129009 client want to communicate. Many technologies are similar, but your client will have a defined slant on their implementation. (If they don’t, they should – this is your chance to offer them your strategic message building services.) 5.Even “vendor-neutral” articles are written with a point of view – eitherrepparttar 129010 writer’s orrepparttar 129011 companyrepparttar 129012 writer is working for. This is only a problem ifrepparttar 129013 article bias makes for a misleading article, or tells a whopping big lie.

Outline 6.Never skip this step, for your own or your readers’ sakes. Outlines speed up your writing, and readers will follow your argument much better. 7.Organize your research into three themes. Some thematic organizations are obvious – for example, I wrote an article on three steps to optimizing your storage. In other articles, there may be several possibilities. There is probably no one right choice, so if two or three seem fine to you, just pick one and go with it. 8.Remember your junior high school/high school/college outline lessons? They apply. If you don’t remember your lessons, here’s a reminder: I. Introduction (Outline problem, introduce solution, state theme) II. Body A. 1st major point B. 2nd major point C. 3rd major point III. Conclusion (short case study/example, restate solution, concluding paragraph) 9.Put your outline on paper and let it guide you as you go. It’s not iron-clad – if a new organization presents itself while you’re writing you can change it – but don’t do it too much or you’ll defeatrepparttar 129014 outline’s purpose.

Writingrepparttar 129015 Rough Draft 10.Here’srepparttar 129016 key to writing your rough draft: Just Do It. Write without thinking about it. Paste in random chunks of text from your research. Write some more. Write in any bizarre, random order. All you want to do at this point is get down large masses of information onto paper. 11.Keep going until you’ve got 2-3 timesrepparttar 129017 words you actually need, then you can stop. 12.Once you have your mass of information on paper, you can organize it into your outline. No big deal – just cut and paste paragraphs underrepparttar 129018 points they best fit. 13.Now that you’ve slapped all of your rough text and research into your outline, guess what? The draft is done. Congratulate yourself and take a break.

Subsequent Drafts 14.Now it’s time to whip this rough mass into shape. Start by saving your rough draft under a different name. You’re going to be doing a lot of deletions in this stage, and you don’t want to accidentally delete something you meant to use. 15.Working withrepparttar 129019 new copy, start your edits. Paraphraserepparttar 129020 notes you have from other sources -- memos, product briefs, other articles, brochures. (Journalists do it allrepparttar 129021 time. It’s called "research.") 16.I'll often download online research but mark it in a different color, so as not to commitrepparttar 129022 embarrassing – not to mention illegal -- mistake of repeating someone else's writing. When I’ve learned what I need to fromrepparttar 129023 research, I capturerepparttar 129024 facts in my own words and deleterepparttar 129025 original notes. 17.Borrow freely from your client’s Website and other materials. Don’t repeatrepparttar 129026 text – that’s bad policy and bad writing – but you’re not going to be accused of plagiarism. Laziness maybe, but not plagiarism. 18.Music can be helpful on writing assignments. Personally, I like Vivaldi for drafting and movie scores for revising. Quiterepparttar 129027 combo. (As I write this sentence, The Last ofrepparttar 129028 Mohicans is playing. Baroque is better forrepparttar 129029 draft stage.) 19.You might find that dictating works better for you atrepparttar 129030 rough draft stage. Probably notrepparttar 129031 old-fashioned kind, whererepparttar 129032 hard-bitten boss called in his trusty secretary to “Take a memo!” You’re more likely to use an application like Naturally Speaking. This type of application needs a lot of training beforehand –repparttar 129033 application, not you – but can be very helpful for writers who try to critique themselves outrepparttar 129034 gate.

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