academiblog

A guest post by Ellen Finkelstein, a Presenting, Powerpoint and Speaking Expert See below for invitation to her free webinar! You publish your work in order to inform the academic community about your research or field of study.  It matters that your audience understand what you write, or you won’t achieve your goal.  The process of submitting to an edited journal may help your writing become clearer, but what process do you use to spiff up your speaking? Speaking is different from writing: You write alone but speak to a group. You can edit your writing before you submit it, but can’t take back what you say. Your writing audience can stop reading when they get bored, but your live audience pretty much has to sit there, even if you bore them to tears. When you get a reader’s inquiry about your writing, you can think about how to respond; when an audience member asks you a question, you need a quick response Your audience members look at your writing up close but usually h

5 ways for PR pros to sharpen their writing  by Megan Krause I LOVE this article from PR Daily (click on title to read).  The advice is spot on, and it goes beyond the typical advice, such as "use the active voice." My favorite tip is:   Stop Being Wishy-Washy.   As the author states: When you're done writing, go back through your copy eyeing timid words and phrases. Strike out any instance of "just"—as in, "I'm just writing to say" or "I just want you to know"—you don't need to qualify what you're saying. It's OK to have an opinion. I've given the same advice to my academic coaching clients.  And I agree that you should edit later to find the wishy-washy phrases, as opposed to trying to write that way in your first drafts.  See the article for the list of words to look out for. The wishy-washiness goes beyond words that weaken the sentence.  Writers can be wishy-washy about getting to the point, even hiding th