Techniques

Powerful verbs: Beyond the passive voice

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“Carthago delenda est!” Do you think the passive voice is weak? That passive-voice construction (“Carthage must be destroyed!”) brought down a powerful nation.

Most writers at least vaguely recognize that the passive voice is often a bad thing. Fewer of them know why, or even what it is. People trying to sound smart use the term “passive voice” for many things that aren’t. It’s just one of several ways that verbs are often weaker than they could be. Let’s take a look at them and learn the differences.
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“Link juice” and other content marketing superstitions 1

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged business HTML writing on by

Small minds are attracted to zero-sum thinking. They believe that anything that benefits someone else must hurt them. That’s where the myth that sites should never expend “link juice” comes from. The idea is that if you have any links in your articles, the site you link to will gain in search rank and you’ll lose correspondingly.

How much influence do these people think they have over search ranks? Unless they’re operating a leading site in the field, their effect is negligible. Besides, presumably they aren’t linking to their competitors, so giving another site a slight boost doesn’t do them any injury.
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Maximizing the value of each word

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged style writing on by

When I’m polishing text that I’ve written, I find myself thinking about the value each word contributes. Can I replace a long phrase with a short one with equal value? Can I use a high-value word in place of one that has relatively little?

By “value” I mean the precision and impact which each word contributes to the statement. A precise word has more value than one with a broad meaning. A straightforward word or phrase has more value than a cliché. A sentence with a high value per word has more impact than one that’s full of low-value words.
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The right word 4

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged usage vocabulary on by

Of all the crimes against good writing, the worst is using the wrong word. A grammatical error looks sloppy, but as long as it doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence, people will get what you mean. Use the wrong word, though, and you fail to convey what you’re trying to say. That amounts to failing as a writer.

Usage errors fall into several categories. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it includes the types of errors that annoy me the most.
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HTML for blog writers

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If you write for websites, you need to know the basics of HTML. Even if you do your writing in Microsoft Word, Open Office, or a Web editor, it will get turned into HTML (or, less often, PDF). You need to understand how it will work in its final form.

HTML is a markup language. It’s text which contains plain human language plus tags that tell the browser how to render it. The tags are more guidelines than rules. They indicate an intent rather than dictating an exact appearance. In different browsers, or even different settings in the same browser, you might see differences in fonts, spacing, colors, and so on.
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Finishing what you start 3

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged writer's block writing on by

For some courses of action, the first step is the hardest. Joining the Army. Making a dental appointment. Talking to someone you find attractive. For writing, it’s getting to the finish that’s usually hardest. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, getting an idea and writing a few sentences isn’t hard. But somewhere along the way, you’ll often get stuck.

In my case, writing factual pieces, it isn’t writer’s block in the normal sense. It’s usually that there’s something I don’t understand well enough. A lot of times, I write about something that I generally understand but I’m not an expert on. I have to pick up a more complete sense of the topic. What I’ve researched fits together, yet there’s something left unsaid that I need to figure out in order to create a satisfactory article. Sometimes it’s actually an unimportant detail, and eventually I decide I’m just obsessing over it. But usually it’s something central to the topic, and if I don’t understand it, I could be basing my whole article on a false premise.
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Can you rely on Grammarly?

This entry was posted in Techniques Tools and tagged grammar Grammarly on by

Mistakes in spelling or grammar can torpedo an otherwise great article. Grammarly is a popular online tool for catching them. I use the free version regularly to check articles before submitting them. It does a decent job at catching the worst of my blunders. It hasn’t impressed me enough to go for the paid version, too. It has its quirks, being obsessive on some issues and plain wrong on others.

My cat Mokka guarding a dictionary

Mokka sternly protecting a dictionary. December 30, 2008.

If I agree with Grammarly’s recommendation, I use it. If I don’t, I leave my writing as it is, or I make a different change. But I get the impression that a lot of writers take its recommendations as Holy Writ, and I wonder how much it’s affecting writing styles on the Internet.
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What writers should know about HTML

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged HTML writing on by

When you’re writing for the Web, usually your material will end up as HTML. With modern online editors, you may never have to write it directly, but you still need to understand it. The formatting of your writing has a close relationship to the final HTML, however it’s dressed up.

Properly using HTML tags helps a page’s accessibility. Browsers may present the content as spoken text, with enhancements for readability, or otherwise modified. Mobile browsers will present it differently from full-sized ones. Good markup will let all representations of the page work better.

HTML markup should focus on the semantics of a document. The site will use CSS to make it look however the webmaster wants. Tags shouldn’t determine how an element looks, but what role it plays. There are several common mistakes, and they cause problems in the final page.
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Which English are you writing in?

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My writing work goes to several countries. Just in the past couple of days I’ve written for American, English, and Australian customers. Keeping the customer happy requires writing in the kind of English they want. You can’t always assume it from the country they’re in; I have a regular customer in the UK that wants American English.

Spelling

Spelling is the easiest part to adjust. Britain tends to use “-ise” where Americans use “-ize,” “-our” where we use “-or,” and “-re” where we use “-er.” Australia and New Zealand generally follow Britain. Canada does sometimes, but not always.
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