Making them up as I go (2)

1. Tell the truth.
2. Entice, or fail.
3. To emphasize, summarize.
4. If it ain't short, it don't work.
5. Be clear.


And so I don't forget:
Don't explain. Just tell a story.
Don't argue. Just say things that make sense.
Expect people to be bored by the writing, and shorten it.
Make the wording easy to take.

Remove Loose Ends -- the interesting one-liners that go nowhere.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Word Jumble

This comes up a lot at my work. Which phrase is better: 1) ... will help save you time. 2) ... will help you save time. Imagine each phrase as more than a 5-word sentence, and assume the "..." part must be important or those last five words would not be included. So you are concentrating on every word as you get to it. Which phase is better? I like number 2 because it says it will help me. I don't like number 1 because it says it will save me. So then I start thinking religious things, and that does not help me understand the page of instructions I'm trying to read. The thing of it is, I never even got to the last word. My mind was trying to shape meaning from the words as I read them. I don't know if everybody reads as I read. But for me, it helps to have the words in order so that I can understand what I read so far without waiting until I get to the last word.

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