« How would you respond to this message?
Your White Paper Landing Pages - A Podcast »

Surefire Tip to Improve Your Writing

By Michael Stelzner

Have you heard the phrase, “Write like you speak?”

Here’s a simple tip to improve your writing—and it involves speaking!

The Tip: Simply read your writing out loud.

Yes, it’s that simple, just talk and see what you think.

For example, I originally wrote the second sentence above as, “Well, I have a little tip that will greatly improve your written words.”

But when I heard myself speak those words, they sounded awkward.

Thus, I changed it to read, “Here’s a simple tip to improve your writing…”

Do you practice this verbal QA check? What do you think?

PoorOkayGoodGreatExcellent (2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading …
SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend Receive email updates when new articles are posted.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 5:05 am and is filed under Writing White Papers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Thats what I do when I talk on AIM and other messaging stuff like Email or social networking or whatever, I speak the same way as I would when talking on the phone or in person.
  • Geoff, Curt and Sean;

    Thanks for your comments!!! I need to keep reminding myself to do this.

    Glad I am not alone!

    Mike
  • Sean Romanoff
    As a writer and a writing professor, I use this tip all the time. It is a great way to catch missing words or awkwardly written sentences, and it stops you from writing in a pompous voice.

    If you can't "speak" what you write, how can you expect anyone else to be able to read it?
  • Curt Eiworth
    ...and don't forget to read it out loud to another person...
  • Most storytelling comes from an oral tradition. Being able write in a way that is pleasing to the mind's ear is a big advantage for writers.

    And the more difficult the topic is, them ore valuable this skill is.
  • Hey Jeff - Glad it helps! I know you love talking :) - Mike
  • You told me this quite awhile ago, and it's been a tremendous help. The quality of my writing, and better yet, my readers' responses have both improved as a result. Thanks
  • Dianna - It seems so simple, yet it is easy to forget to do this. I should do it more than I do. - Mike
  • Mike, Yes, I use this tip. It's a good one. Once I've written something, I print it out and then read it aloud while making all kinds of notes. I pace up and down the hall outside my office -- I can't sit and read aloud.

    Then I make my edits, print the doc again, and do the process two or three more times.
blog comments powered by Disqus