Word Complicated Wrote Over and Over Again

Put. down. the. thesaurus.

Yeah, I'm talking to you. All yous're doing with that thing is making yourself audio lightheaded. Yous're not impressing anyone with your million-dollar, higher words. It'due south just not the way into your reader's middle.

I get what you're doing information technology. I used to dear using my thesaurus. Using long sentences with large beautiful sounding words made me feel intellectual. But really, all it was doing was making me sound like I was trying too hard. And obviously, I was. If I had to look up a word, it wasn't part of my vocabulary. Oh, the indiscretions of youth.

Here'southward the trick to actually sounding smart- stop trying to sound smart!

Powerful writing is lean and clean. It's easy to read and easy to sympathise. So permit'southward talk about how to clearly communicate.

Sounding smart doesn't make you audio smart

Who doesn't love perfectly placed ingemination or feeling witty and intellectual? Isn't that the indicate of writing?

Not when it comes to writing for your business.

The point of writing for your business isn't to make y'all feel warm and fuzzy. The point of writing for your business is to help you sell.

You're not creating a masterpiece that will live forever in the hearts of your subscribers. They're going to read information technology and then continue on with their twenty-four hour period. More often than not likely, no matter how much time you spend on those 500-1,000 words, no one's going to recollect it ten minutes later.

I go that you desire to sound smart, but what you're doing is the exact opposite. Don't believe me? Princeton actually did an experiment on this in 2005.

In "Consequences of Erudite Colloquial Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Issues with Using Long Words Needlessly" (hilarious name, correct?), Daniel Oppenheimer proves that simple writing makes yous audio smarter.

For his experiment, Oppenheimer took existent higher admission essays and replaced some of the simpler words in them with more complicated ones. Then they gave these altered essays to study participants to read and rate the competency and confidence level of the authors. Come to find out, the authors of the essays with complicated linguistic communication were rated lower than the ones with simpler language.

And to make sure his first test wasn't a fluke, Oppenheimer then took essays that used complicated language and changed some wording around to simpler ones. Study participants still rated the simpler linguistic communication authors more competent.

Then, if you lot choose to live past the principles of this experiment, your writing should ever lean toward the easy-reader side of the spectrum. Not only will you sound similar you know what you're talking about, information technology volition likewise help your readers understand what you're talking virtually.

"If your employees struggle to sympathise what you're proverb, your policies and your communications to them are less effective." – Oppenheimer

Using linguistic communication that your reader has to stop and try to empathise volition only brand them A) frustrated and B) dislocated. And when they're confused that leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding and zilch gets done at that point.

5 steps to proceed your writing real

If the purpose of writing is to communicate and your reader tin't empathise what you're trying to say, what'due south the point of writing at all?

Being smart about how you communicate is all nearly keeping it real. Your writing should be understandable, approachable, and uncomplicated. If you're not sure how to make that happen, here are five steps to assist you go at that place:

Use laymen's terms.

"Don't use words too big for the bailiwick. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no words left when you want to talk well-nigh something really infinite." –C.S. Lewis

Sometimes that tin audio a petty offensive, only you don't do this because your readers are dumb. You do it considering yous're upwards against a lot of other distractions.

Remember about how many unlike directions a reader's listen is taking with every second. They don't want to recall about what a newsletter means. They desire to see an offer- evidently and just stated- and make a quick determination on whether or not to click to purchase.

In college when I took media writing courses, I was told to write at a fifth course reading level. At the fourth dimension I thought that was completely underserving the audience. But really it's more than to help them ingest data quicker.

So why endeavour when you can try ? Why commence when y'all can get-go ? And why inquire when you can ask ?

A tool I love to use to make sure I'1000 meeting that goal is Hemingway App. Val mentioned it in her half dozen Free Powerful Writing Tools post and it's a existent game-changer. Bank check information technology out. I copied this very commodity into Hemingway and in an instant I knew what reading level I was writing for, what words were too complicated, and what I might want to consider changing!

Edit!

"Before yous leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory."- Coco Chanel

Fifty-fifty fashion icon Coco Chanel knew the importance of editing. Information technology's all about taking one more glance at your work and removing at to the lowest degree one affair – because there's always something you can remove.

Sometimes writing a really long version of a piece is the best way to go your ideas out of your listen. Just don't let it stay that long. Hither's a couple tips for editing:

• Rewrite it over and over again to brand it tighter.
• Take out multiple quotes that say the same thing.
• Find the bigger paragraphs and cut out a sentences or two.
• Change passive verbs to activity verbs.

Equally long equally you get through your writing more than one time, you can be sure you're left with only essential information.

Impale the fluff.

Word count is not how you measure out good copy- specially if your words don't add value. What I mean is – don't employ filler words to add length.

Fluff words are the ones that can exist removed from sentences without altering the intention. They aren't necessary and therefore tin be shown out the door. Why be fluffy if you lot can simply state a fact?

Fluff words to get rid of:

• Very
• Little
• Rather
• That
• In order to
• Really
• And then
• Much
• Basically
• More
• All
• Simply

Let information technology feel effortless.

"What 1 takes most pains to do, should look equally if information technology had been thrown off quickly, virtually without effort. Have infinite pains to brand something that looks effortless."- Michelangelo

When you're going out of your way to use big words and long sentence structures, your writing is going to feel overworked. And when it feels heavy and forced similar that, it usually means it'due south not going to be fun to read.

Writing in shorter sentences and using common words makes your work seem effortless. No matter how much time and effort you put into your writing, you lot still don't want to it feel that way. Information technology shouldn't feel like you bankrupt your dorsum later on hours hunched over your keyboard. Reading your work should experience like the thoughts came costless-flowing from that brilliant mind of yours.

Put your reader beginning.

And as ever, the value your audition gets from your writing should be placed at the meridian of your priorities. Meaning- don't write to please yourself.

As Brian Clark of Rainmaker Digital said on the Reach Podcast : "It's all about providing value to others, solving their bug. Your needs are secondary only you do terminate up getting what you want if you alive by that code."

Think about what your reader needs when you're writing. Be direct and tell them exactly what they're looking for and then they don't have to search around for the meaning backside your electronic mail or blog. They've got a lot going on, so requite them a break. They're the reason you're here in the showtime place, so you're writing should serve them and them alone.

Your primary objective: Articulate communication

If your reader has to pull out a thesaurus to finish your email, you're doing something incorrect. If they get caught upwards in paragraph-long sentences and can't catch a breath, you're making it too hard.

It'due south time to abridge the superfluously byzantine and bombastic locution. It'south time to go along information technology simple.

That doesn't hateful your writing has to be a snooze fest. There's room for creativity. There's room to be playful. Just don't brand it ALL about the "fine art" of writing. Email marketing isn't the place for that.

Your main objective is to help your readers reach their potential –  the best way to practice that is to communicate as cleanly and merely as possible.

At present, get forth and write!

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Source: https://convertkit.com/stop-superfluous-fancy-words-killing-copy-bottom-line

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