The Truth About The New Rules Of Business Writing Part 15

Part IX: The truth about tricks of the trade.

Truth 48. Good headlines help your writing work-a lot.

Writing really good headlines that attract, entice, and even charm us into reading something is thought of as an art by many writers. In fact, top publications have headline specialists on call. To see just how good headlines can be, take a look at The Wall Street Journal.

However, even if you don't aspire to write headlines of that caliber, you definitely can learn to craft good headlines that work for your purpose. You need these for a wide range of media, including reports, proposals, blogs, press releases, and promotion pieces. Where to start?

Look to your content first. Good headlines grow from what is most relevant or interesting in your material. While using a preliminary headline can help focus your thinking and enable you to write better, it's easiest to come up with the best headline when your piece is basically complete.

Goal and audience-Just as for your "body copy," think headlines through in terms of goal and audience. The goal, whatever the subject and medium, is generally to grab readers' attention and pull them into reading the material. So, consider whom you want to reach, and then figure out what will appeal to those readers and make them want to know or provoke their curiosity.

Think of headlines as flags you're waving to draw people's attention. But you need to play fair: You don't want to disappoint readers once they're hooked. Headlines must deliver what's promised and represent the content accurately.

However, it's true that a little exaggeration can be effective. A reader is more likely to be attracted to "The most amazing character I ever met" than "The somewhat interesting person I talked to at the grocery checkout." "New cell phone features longest-lasting battery yet" works better than "New cell phone's battery lasts an extra three minutes." Just don't stray so far from the truth that you ultimately undermine your message.

What's in it for me?-In many cases, the WIIFM principle will give you a solid clue. The more directly you can offer a benefit to your target readers, the simpler and more straightforward a headline can be. Try to be as specific as you can: $50 off to first 50 Ajax swing-set buyers Free corkscrew with every bottle of wine Wash your windows with Superfab once, and they'll sparkle for a year.

If you're offering useful information, summarizing can be enough to pull in your audience. With slight variations, the following examples would work for a news release or article: How to use the new tax law to your advantage 10 surprising ways to use your cell phone Did you read the tiny type in your cell phone contract?

For a blog, it's better to put the subject up front for scanner-appeal, as in, "New tax law: How to use it to your advantage."

WIIFM can be applied to provoke interest on the part of a broad audience, as well: Shuttered gas stations: a brownfields crisis for the community Or, WIIFM can be audience specific. The following would work only if the intended audience consisted of heart specialists, and the article was in fact written for them: Drug-eluting stents-more good than harm for heart patients?

In general, headlines should be both self-explanatory and cut to the heart of the subject. Traditional guidelines say to include a subject and action verb, similar to the following sentence: Johnson wins major defense contract While active verbs are good for headlines, as they are for all writing, you don't really need to worry about incorporating verbs. Here are some useful approaches.

The rhetorical questions headline-These work in many situations: We're ready to walk. But where are the sidewalks?

Why craft better news releases? Because the payoff can be really big.

Two-part headlines-You'll see these everywhere because they're effective: When you hire writers: How to get results that make you look good Good corporate writing: Why it matters, and what to do Using decks-Decks are additional lines above or below the main head, which can be used to expand or explain: GREAT BUSINESS WRITING 1-2-3.

A 3-Workshop Series for EAF Program Managers Not a Joke THE IMPORTANCE OF SEWERS TO LONG ISLAND'S FUTURE Headlines that intrigue-You can play with the piece's content to come up with something that (you hope) will pique readers' curiosity: To do or not to do...What soccer tells us about our "action bias" TINY PLANTS, BIG POTENTIAL Q: What kind of plant life only grows in water, but flourishes in the desert? A: Micro algae Headlines to personalize-If there's a solid human element to your message, when you're writing an article, for example, build on that to create an interesting headline. For example, a newspaper article might build downward from the general to specific: New Tax Law Changes Savings Strategy for Millions Middle cla.s.s likely to lose loopholes, a.n.a.lysts say, while lower-income earners benefit How can Jenny Barlow plan for six college tuitions?

About Web site headlines-These must be especially concise and informative. When writing them, consider search engines as an audience in addition to the site visitors you want to reach. Build around your chosen keywords and phrases and try to lead with them. Specialists recommend keeping Web site heads under 65 characters.

E-mail subject lines-Use a must-read subject line. For example, if you change a conference site, don't say "News about Dec. 10 meeting," but "Location change, Dec. 10 ASC conference."

What case?-Whether you use upper- and lowercase for headlines or just an initial capital is a matter of style. In some circles, capitalizing only the first word is seen as a more "modern" look. Don't use all-uppercase headlines, which tend to "scream" at the readers, unless you have something truly cosmic to announce: for example, "WAR BREAKS OUT!"

Truth 49. Skillful interviewing is a major (but unrecognized) business a.s.set.

You're not a reporter, you say, so why should you be interested in knowing how to interview someone? Consider: * Do you ever need to draw information from other people, such as in-house specialists or outside experts? This is critical when you're responsible for a proposal or report, but also, you often want to elicit knowledge, ideas, or advice.

* Is networking valuable to you, and would active listening and questioning techniques help you build relations.h.i.+ps?

* Do you lead teams? Collaborate with other people, departments, clients, or suppliers?

* Do you need to know how to negotiate effectively? Is selling part of your job?

Interviewing techniques help with all of these. Moreover, they make you both a better interviewer when you're hiring employees and a better interviewee when you're an applicant yourself. And, interviewing techniques can equip you well for many kinds of confrontational situations.

Journalists generally learn how to interview by trial and error. Even today, the subject is not often taught, even in journalism schools. Here are some strategies worth adopting.

Do your homework-You'll get much deeper information and relate to people better when you equip yourself ahead of time. In fact, reporters find that when they ask intelligent questions, the subject becomes much more interested and may say amazing things they didn't expect. So, read up on your subject to avoid having to start from scratch and ask for basic information.

Know your goal-Formulate exactly what you want from the interaction: To elicit specific information? Generate ideas? Establish cordial working relations.h.i.+ps? Find out what someone can contribute, or what he or she wants from you? If you've figured out what you need to come away with, you're way ahead.

Come up with a good list of questions and write them down-Then juggle the questions into a logical sequence and take account of how much time you'll have. If you are getting only five minutes with a VIP, the most important questions should be at the top of your list. A 20-minute session can have a whole different pace and depth, and an hour-long interview differs even more.

Set a friendly tone-If appropriate, explain what you're doing and what you need. This often will relax the other person because it automatically sets limits and creates focus. Try to make the interaction feel like a conversation, not an interrogation. A good interview usually requires the interviewer to share some information about himself or herself.

Ask your questions-If it's not appropriate to have your list in front of you, make a point of remembering the first few questions and the gist of what you want to know. Even if you refer to the list you drew up, there's no need to tick the questions off one by one. Once the conversation is launched, it will follow its own logic-although you should be ready to steer it back on course as needed-and you can check the list at the end to make sure you haven't forgotten something important.

Listen hard-Really focus on what's being said, and you'll not only draw out good material, you'll make a good impression. It's estimated that we generally listen to one-third of what other people say and spend most of the other two-thirds preparing our response. Concentrated listening is one of the qualities that make us think some people are charming. Look interested, maintain eye contact as much as possible, and offer all the conversational cues to keep things going: "Oh!" "And then what?" "Hmm!" "Really!" Listen, too, for the sparks that signal that something the person cares about or feels strongly about has come up. A good reporter will always follow that lead, and many times, you should too.

Project enthusiasm-On-camera interviewers know that people tend to respond on the same emotional level the questioner sets. You can ask basically the same question in different ways. We once saw a video director ask a nonprofit's client, "How did this agency help you?" He spoke in a flat monotone, looking at his notes. The answer was equally flat and noncommittal. Ten minutes later, someone else-focusing directly on the subject and speaking in a bright, interested tone-asked another client: "Tell me, what are all the ways this agency has helped you?" She got a great, detailed testimonial, spoken with conviction. The idea applies equally to general conversation: Treat something as important and you'll get better results.

End well-Investigative reporters typically reserve the toughest questions-the ones that can get them thrown out-for the end, when the rest is safely recorded. In the business environment, you don't typically need to ask those questions and shouldn't want to: It's hard on relations.h.i.+ps. But another reportage technique works really well. Ask, "Is there anything else that didn't come up which you think is interesting or important? That you wish people knew?"

A note on recording your interviews: Journalists are all over the place on this one. Many still write it all down in a version of shorthand or scribble as fast as they can, while others use voice recorders or even the tiny video recorders now available (which capture expressions and atmosphere). Many take notes and record, not trusting technology 100%. But don't record without permission.

If you're taking notes, try to maintain eye contact as often as you can or the other person's enthusiasm will wane. Note-taking, by the way, at meetings, during a client phone conversation, or on many other occasions, is an invaluable habit to develop. Later, you may be the only person who knows what was actually said.

And at times, it's good to have that notepad to focus on. A CEO once recounted his experience when, new to the organization, he met with key department heads and clients and took notes on their opinions. "They were very impressed that I took them so seriously," he said. "But often I was thinking, 'Thank heavens I have something to look at so they don't see that I'm trying not to laugh because what they're saying is so totally absurd.'"

Truth 50. Readers are global: Try not to confuse them.

You may recall that a few years back, the Mars Climate Orbiter failed to get to the correct alt.i.tude for its...o...b..t and was destroyed, due to a little misunderstanding. It seems that the engineering team had calculated some crucial data in English measurement units, while NASA's navigation team had expected to receive more conventional metric units and used the data that way.

Basic communication gaffes can litter the path to mutual understanding, and as globalization breezes along, the problem can only get worse.

Many of us work for organizations that have branches, collaborators, or markets all over the world. So promotional materials, company information, instruction manuals, employee communications, and more need to be translated as soon as written. At the same time, more and more people around the world are using English as the language of international business (and one billion of them already do), or read it as a second language. Also important: Most U.S. companies are multicultural mini-worlds today. Appearing to disregard the sensitivities of employees who are not native English speakers is extremely undesirable.

Bottom line: If we write for these readers or for translation into another language, we need to be aware of the ways in which our words may mislead, confuse, or confound. Here are a few ways to avoid doing that.

Humor, idioms, slang-The simplest thing to do with humor is to skip it completely when writing for readers whose first language is not English. It's too easy to be misunderstood, and business writing needs to be as clear as possible. It's also too easy to offend someone with misguided humor that may seem funny here but can hurt feelings elsewhere.

The same thing applies to idioms and slang expressions: Just say no. An idiom like rolling out the red carpet, for example, may leave a foreign reader clueless as to what the writer really meant and may also have an entirely different meaning in the reader's home language.

Contractions-Contractions may make your writing seem less stuffy, but if a foreign reader doesn't understand I'll or we're, your otherwise well-written article or instruction manual may not be read at all.

Acronyms-Don't use them! Always spell them out. It's usual in American writing to spell out the acronym when it's used for the first time and then use the acronym later in the piece. Unless your article is extremely short or you're writing for people who use the acronym daily (and you're sure about that), spell out the acronym each time.

Industry jargon-How about infotainment, results-oriented metrics, modularize, and repurpose? If you need an interpreter, think how your readers in another culture might react.

Word choice-Foreign and English as a Second Language (ESL) audiences provide a whole additional reason to make simplicity your watchword. Foreign readers (and many local ones) may get tangled up in complex constructions, with clauses and phrases that modify and confuse. Aim to be unambiguous and cut all unnecessary words ruthlessly. Choose the simplest words, the one- and two-syllable ones. Make sentences and paragraphs short. Use plenty of subheads to break up text.

Make it say-able-Besides helping you keep your sentence structure simple, reading the material aloud will underscore any words that could be difficult for foreign-language speakers.

Know the protocols-Many cultures employ specific formalities in business letters, and in the interests of good relations, you would be wise to check them out when these challenges fall to your lot. Use common sense to avoid needless offenses. For example, our neighbors to the north and south most definitely do not think of the United States as "America," and neither does most of the world.

Get your work checked-If your company has a resource to advise you on tactful cross-cultural communication, use it. Or, find people who speak other languages to comment on your translate-ability, and tell you if any unintended messages lurk. Some languages, such as Spanish, have variations depending on the country or region in which it's spoken, so check your work with a person who is familiar with the area you're targeting. You can also do your homework through research. An excellent book on writing for translation is listed in Resources (available online on the book's Web site).

Measurements, temperature-Because much of the world uses the metric system, it's a good idea to give the metric equivalents in parentheses for distances, weights, and volumes. When citing temperatures, use both Fahrenheit and Celsius.

Times, dates-Many countries and the U.S. military operate on a 24-hour clock, so provide the equivalent to 2:00 p.m. as 1400 hours. If you do use the 12-hour clock, keep in mind that most countries use a period to separate hours and minutes, rather than the colon that we use (7.25 a.m. vs. 7:25 a.m.).

It's best to spell out dates, because the numeric system varies in other parts of the world. For example, 10/6/2004 can mean October 6, 2004, or June 10, 2004. And, some countries start dates with the year, then the month and day: 2004/10/6. One more thing: In some cultures, Monday is considered the first day of the week, so be more specific than writing, "The meeting will be held the first of the week."

Numbers, money-In many countries, numbers of four or more digits are written with a period instead of the comma that we use (3.456 vs. 3,456). And, in turn, these countries use the comma as a decimal point, so it's best either to put the equivalent in parentheses after the number or just to spell the number out. There's also a difference in the way we use billion (a 1 with 9 zeros after it) and the way most other countries use the term (to represent a 1 with 12 zeros). Our billion is a milliard elsewhere.

Consider that the dollar sign is used in several countries, so add the country abbreviation: US$400, Can$400, AUD$400, NZ$400, and so on. And, the dollar sign signifies pesos or other currencies in at least 11 other countries, so be as specific as possible.

Truth 51. Clarity is next to G.o.dliness.

How often have you said: "I can't stop now to think about grammar; I've got to finish this report because the department head is waiting for it!" You're right: Now is not the time. But, here are a few pointers so that you'll be prepared next time.

Commas can bedevil you-What are commas for? Many people say they use commas to create a pause in the sentence. Don't believe that for a minute! Commas are really there to clarify the writer's meaning. Here are four examples in which commas can change the meaning of the sentence.

That vs. which-Karen Peters wrote the request for proposals that was sent to vendors on Monday.

and Karen Peters wrote the request for proposals, which was sent to vendors on Monday.

In this example, the first means that Karen wrote the one request that was sent to the vendors. The second means that Karen wrote the request and that on Monday it was sent to the vendors.

Another example: The ThriftSave Bank proudly sponsored the annual children's exhibit that included a large, hand-crafted carousel.

The ThriftSave Bank proudly sponsored the annual children's exhibit, which included a large, hand-crafted carousel.

In the first sentence, the bank sponsored the one exhibit that had the carousel. In the second, the bank sponsored an exhibit that incidentally also had a carousel in it. The difference in meaning is often subtle-but real-and can lead to the reader misunderstanding the writer's intent.

Setting off explanatory words-Explanatory words, known as appositives, are nouns or p.r.o.nouns that identify, explain, or modify another noun or p.r.o.noun. Here's an example: When the engineer approached IBM sometimes called Big Blue with his idea for a patent, the company rejected his suggestion.

When the engineer approached IBM, sometimes called Big Blue, with his idea for a patent, the company rejected his suggestion.

In this example, sometimes called Big Blue explains something about the company and should be set off with commas for clarity.

In other cases, the meaning can be more directly affected by the use or nonuse of commas to set off an explanatory comment. In this sentence, for instance: Dr. Meade and his daughter Julie attended the Kline-Jones Medical Conference in Haiti last month.

Dr. Meade and his daughter, Julie, attended the Kline-Jones Medical Conference in Haiti last month.

In the first sentence, the meaning is that Dr. Meade has a daughter and he took her to the conference. The second example implies that Dr. Meade has more than one daughter, but it was Julie he took to the conference.

Run-on sentences-A run-on sentence links two or more complete sentences without punctuation, or with only a comma between them.

An example: Architect Tony Johnston designs high-end condos he's trying to sell them.

This example could be fixed in at least three ways: Architect Tony Johnston designs high-end condos, and he's trying to sell them.

or Architect Tony Johnston designs high-end condos that he's trying to sell.

or Architect Tony Johnston designs high-end condos; he's trying to sell them now.

What's needed in these examples is a conjunction (and) between the two complete thoughts (clauses), punctuation (semicolon), or a p.r.o.noun (that) to link the thoughts.

Another example: Jim Kelly had developed plans for a multilevel shopping center near the sh.o.r.e, however he couldn't find investors willing to underwrite the project.

Jim Kelly had developed plans for a multilevel shopping center near the sh.o.r.e; however, he couldn't find investors willing to underwrite the project.

This example is readily fixed with a semicolon after sh.o.r.e and a comma after however-both of which clarify the meaning for readers. Alternatively, the statement could be broken into two sentences, with "however" beginning the second one.

Commas in a list-How to use commas when you're citing a list is another common question. Should a sentence read Janet Smith is in charge of accounting, auditing, debt service and ethics.

or Janet Smith is in charge of accounting, auditing, debt service, and ethics.

Both are correct, but consistency is good. Some style guides (see Truth 52, "You can fix your own grammar goofs") tell writers to use the "serial comma" (that's the comma before "and" in a series). For example, in the sentence, "John, Mike, and Sally will have roles in the play," the serial comma is after "Mike." Style guides used by many newspapers advise writers to omit the serial comma, so that sentence would read: "John, Mike and Sally will have roles in the play." If you're devising your own style, consider that using the serial comma adds clarity to your sentences.

Truth 52. You can fix your own grammar goofs.