Clear Writing Becomes Part of Your Personal Brand

  • 0 min read

Clear writing comes from clear thinking.

Whether writing an email, a proposal, an article, here’s a simple 4-step test to ask yourself. It’s a must after each completed document before you hit “send.” It is equally important after each paragraph, even each sentence:

  1. What am I trying to say?
  2. Have I said it in a concise manner?
  3. Is it clear to someone reading it for the first time?
  4. Why should the reader care; what’s in it for them?

This last question is to nudge the reader’s curiosity along to continue reading. The author of “On Writing Well”, William Zinsser, says #4 is to cajole with freshness, or novelty, or paradox, or humor, or purpose — with an unusual idea, an interesting fact, or a question — something to make the reader smile and linger on what you wrote. He also writes that your writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things you keep out that shouldn’t be there.

So this post is a reminder to try and write even the most mundane message in a clear and direct way without being pompous or pretentiousness. That’s where your humanity and warmth will cause people to always want to read what you wrote and will more likely positively respond.

Picture of Debra Benton

Debra Benton

D.A. (Debra) Benton has been helping great individuals and organizations get even better for over 20 years. Just as exceptional athletes rely on excellent coaching to hone their skills, Debra's clients rely on her advice to advance their careers. She focuses on what is truly important to convert what you and your organization want to be from a vision into a reality. TopCEOCoaches.com ranks her in the World's Top 10 CEO Coaches noting she is the top female. And as conference keynote speaker she is routinely rated in the top 2%. Her client list reads like a “Who's Who” of executives in companies ranging from Microsoft, McDonald's, Kraft, American Express, Merrill Lynch, United Airlines, and PricewaterhouseCoopers to the Washington Beltway and U.S.Border Patrol. *She is the author of ten award-winning and best-selling business books including The Virtual Executive and CEO Material. She has written for the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Fast Company. She has been featured in USA Today, Fortune, The New York Times, and Time; she has appeared on Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and CBS with Diane Sawyer. To learn more Debra advising leaders, coaching, facilitating a workshop, or speaking: www.debrabenton.com

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

A song engineered with a sound therapist to slow your heart rate has been available since 2011 — and almost nobody who talks about anxiety has mentioned it to you

A song engineered with a sound therapist to slow your heart rate has been available since 2011 — and almost nobody who talks about anxiety has mentioned it to you

The Vessel
A Pew Research survey found 64% of American adults still choose print over e-books — and the reason has less to do with nostalgia than attention span

A Pew Research survey found 64% of American adults still choose print over e-books — and the reason has less to do with nostalgia than attention span

Global English Editing
For a while we assumed the slow cooling of a long marriage was just the price of time — until researchers found that couples who spent about seven minutes, three times a year, describing their worst fight the way a neutral outsider might see it simply stopped sliding apart

For a while we assumed the slow cooling of a long marriage was just the price of time — until researchers found that couples who spent about seven minutes, three times a year, describing their worst fight the way a neutral outsider might see it simply stopped sliding apart

The Vessel
When researchers had people confide something painful to a friend sitting right beside them, the ones whose blood pressure climbed the highest weren’t leaning on someone difficult — they were turning to a friend they genuinely love and still, just slightly, hold their breath around

When researchers had people confide something painful to a friend sitting right beside them, the ones whose blood pressure climbed the highest weren’t leaning on someone difficult — they were turning to a friend they genuinely love and still, just slightly, hold their breath around

The Vessel
The writers whose work reads as unmistakably human aren’t the ones avoiding AI on principle — they’re the ones who never stopped writing like themselves in the first place

The writers whose work reads as unmistakably human aren’t the ones avoiding AI on principle — they’re the ones who never stopped writing like themselves in the first place

Global English Editing
Some of the loneliest people you’ll meet are the ones everyone describes as easygoing, agreeable, and low-maintenance, they learned long ago that having needs was the fastest way to be left out

Some of the loneliest people you’ll meet are the ones everyone describes as easygoing, agreeable, and low-maintenance, they learned long ago that having needs was the fastest way to be left out

Global English Editing
Load more
CATEGORIES
Explore