Writing workshops, communication consulting and writing services
It feels so good to talk about ourselves.
Talking about yourself activates the same pleasure centers in the brain as food, money or sex, according to Harvard neuroscientist Diana Tamir and her colleague Jason Mitchell, whose research on the topic was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.… Read the full article
Yes, reading that blog post does make your butt look bigger. But mushy thighs are just one of the symptoms of screen reading.… Read the full article
Fear appeals persuade. But they can also paralyze.
Strong fear appeals persuade … The stronger the fear appeal, the more likely it is to move your readers to act, according to 50 years of research and 100 studies reviewed by researchers Kim Witte and Mike Allen.… Read the full article
Want to write more readable messages? Increase engagement on your webpages? Otherwise boost your writing skills?
As we plan our upcoming Master Classes, I’ve been creating a lot of new slides.… Read the full article
Think of subheads as the icing on the cake.
Skimmers look at subheads to learn what content you’re offering on a web page, blog post or news release.… Read the full article
What’s in a name?
A great headline can mean the difference between a story that gets read — or one that gets passed over.… Read the full article
I’m often amazed at the amount of energy writers put into perfecting the sentence structure in the fourth paragraph of their piece when those same folks toss off a headline in the 17 seconds before happy hour on a Friday afternoon.… Read the full article
Readers would rather read 800 words if you delivered it in a package of shorter bites — say, a 400-word main story, a 300-word sidebar and a 100-word resources box — than if you ran it in one long river of text.… Read the full article
Here’s an interesting dichotomy: Killing time is the killer app for mobile devices. But mobile users are in a hurry and “get visibly angry” at verbose sites that waste their time.… Read the full article
Readers are busy. Fluff takes space. Space takes time. So let’s cut the fluff and get on with it.
To cut the fluff, aim for a fact-to-fluff ratio of at least 1:1.… Read the full article
