April 17, 2006

The Smart Way to Write a Smart Tip

When you review job listings for communicators, one of the most frequently cited requirements is excellent writing skills, which makes us wonder then why it's so hard to find examples of corporate writing that are clear, succinct and jargon-free.

Since Smart Tips has been showered with awards and numerous reader compliments, we decided to give you a behind-the-scenes peek at the steps we go through to write each issue. Hopefully, these best practices will help you write faster, sharper and more on target.

Ways to make your writing smarter

Step 1: Know your audience
Our audience is generally always the same: internal communicators from a variety of levels working in large, complex organizations. But there may be slight variations regarding the level (intermediate vs. senior) or focus (writers vs. HR) of the people we're trying to reach.

Step 2: Make it meaningful for your audience
Many of our Smart Tips topics are culled from the problems our clients are facing. To select each topic, we first ask ourselves:

• What does our audience care about?
  
• What challenges are they facing right now?
  
• What are some practical, meaningful ways to solve that problem?

Step 3: Determine your objectives
Before putting fingers to keypad, we take a few moments to identify the one to three things that we most want people to think about or do. Then we write accordingly.

Step 4: Write to fit best practices for the format and vehicle
Smart Tips is an electronic vehicle, so we follow the best practices associated with that format:

• Be succinct.
  
• Stick to established word counts (about 450 in our case).
  
• Begin by outlining the challenge or problem and then offer the “tips” that solve it.
  
• Use subheads and bullets, and avoid long paragraphs to make the article more accessible.

Step 5: Bring it to life
This is one of the hardest elements of writing: How do you make it concrete vs. conceptual? What we do:

• Create visual appeal: Avoid long paragraphs and dense blocks of text.
  
• Make it genuine: Write about real problems using examples (disguised if necessary) and authentic, attainable solutions.
  
• Make it useful: The tips should be easy to implement.

Step 6: Edit and revise
Each article is read and edited by at least two other staff members. Reading aloud can help you identify awkward wording as well.