Newer entries

Pair Your E-Mail with a Phone Call

To really get your idea across, reach for the phone AND your computer. The phone adds urgency and personality to your e-mail, while an e-mail can quickly convey and store detailed or complicated information. Your goal is to keep your correspondents from having to jot down notes on the phone, while letting them know that your message is important enough for a phone call

Getting Past Your Inner Critic

From poets to public relations writers, we all get stuck in front of a blank screen from time to time. As Gail Godwin writes in her essay, “The Watcher at the Gate,” most of us have inner critics who throttle our ideas. She calls her critic the “Watcher

A Winner of a Workshop

“The trainer’s enthusiasm was contagious” wrote one participant at a recent Write It Well workshop, “she was responsive to questions and interactive with the audience.” “I thought an e-mail seminar would be a waste of time. I ended up wishing it could have lasted longer and gone into more detail,” wrote another participant

Spell-Check Failures

When I worked for a newspaper, the staff met each week to discuss all the mistakes that slipped past our editors’ notice. Alert and well-rested, we were always amazed at how many glaring errors reared their ugly heads in the light of day. Just the night before, our words had looked so perfect

Turn Off Distractions

Good, clear writing sticks to its point. Good, productive writers never get off track, either — right? Not exactly. It’s easy to lose focus when our writing tools are also our newspapers
Older entries