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Many people will read what you write. We call these people your audience. When you write, your document or manuscript is the tool you use to communicate with them, so understanding them helps you communicate in an appropriate manner. However, unlike some other forms of communication, you actually have two audiences, which we call “primary” and “secondary” audiences. We’ll look at each in turn.
Your primary audience is the person or group of people who will directly receive, or buy, what you write. For example, if you write a book, your primary audience is the person who buys the book. If you are writing a financial report, the primary audience is the person to whom you deliver the report. If you are writing text for your website, the primary audience is the website visitor you are most trying to attract.
When you write, you are trying to communicate information, ideas, impressions, emotions, etc. Whether you are writing fiction, nonfiction, technical documents, or poetry, you have to determine what to include in your document and how to deliver that information. (more…)
Strength-training isn’t just for the beef-heads at the gym. It’s for you, sitting at your desk preparing a business letter, writing the next award-winning novel, or banging out a killer blog post that will ignite the world’s consciousness. Strength-training for you doesn’t mean training yourself to lift small cars (in case you don’t know how to use a jack); strength-training means building the power of your subjects to lift your ideas.
When you use power subjects, you transform listless, weak, vague, and uninspiring writing into writing that is active, engaging, inspiring, clear, and persuasive writing. (more…)
Once upon a time, in the world of writing, using the word “he” was a perfectly acceptable way to name an unknown person. For example, few, if any, readers would blink at “If a person wants to write well, he will need to use good grammar.” Now, many readers argue that this is sexist writing because it only refers to male writers. After all, some would argue, women write, too.
We could revise this sentence to read, “If a person wants to write well, she…,” but this would have the same problem. The language is still sexist. To remove this gender bias in writing, some writers may revise this sentence to read, “If a person wants to write well, they…” The gender bias is gone, but now the sentence has incorrect grammar. Can you spot the grammatical problem?
“A person” refers to one person, but “they” is a plural pronoun referring to more than one person. To prevent this problem, a writer (with good grammar) may write, “If a person wants to write well, he or she will need to use good grammar.” Even worse, the writer may write “he/she” or “s/he.” Yuck. This is awkward to read, especially when reading aloud. The writer could also revise the sentence to read, “If a person wants to write well, the person…,” but this is cumbersome to read. (more…)
