Five secrets to good writing
Are you a mortgage broker using confusing terms specific to the property industry like LMI and LVR? Or a financial adviser speaking about liquidity coverage ratios or quantitative trading?
If so, readers may struggle to understand your writing.
Good writers think of their audience and keep things simple, by following these five rules:
1. Use fewer words
People have short attention spans, so get to the point quickly. Don’t use 12 words when 10 will do.
For example, a mortgage broker should write “I can get you a home loan within a week” instead of “I can help you get finance for your home within a week”.
2. Use short paragraphs, not big blocks of text
Readers get intimidated by long paragraphs because they seem like hard work. Long paragraphs are also difficult to skim – which is what most readers do.
The harder readers have to work, the more likely they’ll stop reading. So make things easier for them by breaking up the text.
Hunter & Scribe’s style is to use bullet points, headings and short paragraphs, which is easy to skim or read (like this article).
3. Use full-stops, not commas
A sentence is too long when it has too many thoughts separated by commas, not when it has too many words.
Here’s an example of a sentence with too many thoughts:
Peter decided to walk to the grocery store, because he wanted to buy a house within walking distance of a grocery store and the real estate agent had said the house Peter was thinking of buying was five minutes away from one, but it looked further away so maybe she had meant five minutes by car.
If you put every thought into its own sentence, readers won’t get confused. Here’s how Hunter & Scribe would write the sentence:
The real estate agent had said this house was five minutes from a grocery store, which was what Peter wanted. But they looked further apart, so Peter walked from the house to the store to check.
4. Use small words, not big words
Readers are more likely to be confused than impressed if you use big words.
Read More5. Use English, not jargon
Most readers won’t be impressed by acronyms and buzzwords – they’ll be confused.
Read MoreMake the change
Now you know how to write, look at your website and see if its content can be improved.
Need help with that? Hunter & Scribe can edit or rewrite your content. We specialise in translating property and finance jargon into plain English. Contact us for more information.
