Here’s a collection of items related to writing and editing that have caught my attention lately.
TOP OF THIS LIST: Buzzwordify, by Eric Rice, Oct. 21. Recoiling in horror from yet another buzzword-laden web page, Rice suggests a blogger rebellion. I’m with you on that, Eric – and I’m doing my part right here!
Read the rest of this list…
- For Your Exformation, by Crawford Kilian, Writing for the Web, Oct. 29. A great column about exformation, short for “explicitly discarded information,” which is “the information you strip out of a message because you know your reader already has it. The more you share with your reader, the less you have to say.” Brilliant.
- Whitewater Editing, another gem from Crawford Kilian, Oct. 28. Excerpt: “When technologies and audiences change before our eyes, editing is rarely a task performed in tranquil contemplation of eternal truths, using style guides carved in stone. Instead we try to adapt our skills to new media, for audiences we scarcely know, and our only constant is the knowledge that tomorrow we’ll probably have to adapt yet again. This is whitewater editing.”
- Use Your Subhead, Oct. 27. Man, Crawford Kilian is really on a roll this week! Way to go! Excerpt: “It’s not that the Web has reduced my attention span to that of a gerbil. I’m just less tolerant of text without navigation guides.”
- Being Personal isn’t about being their ‘Buddy’, by Nick Usborne, Excess Voice, Oct. 2004. Usborne slams copywriters who, while attempting to sound conversational, get overly familiar with their audience.
- Copywriting Tip #16: Be Flexible in Your Tone, Oct. 11. More good advice from Nick Usborne. Excerpt: “To change your voice rings false, and is usually manipulative. To change the tone of your voice is simply human.”
- A Word a Day, a pretty good vocabulary-building resource. They offer daily e-mail alerts, but (alas), no webfeed, so far.
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