Effective Communications: 5 Tips for Writing in the 2000's

These days, to capture someone's attention and make your point, you don't have much time.

Given the rising demands found in conducting business in "real-time" today, we are becoming a rather attention deficit society. Business owners and professional service providers, take heed. This applies to you, too.

Whether writing an internal memo, correspondence with a customer, an article (non-academic type) or copy for a marketing initiative, or even a blog, there are new standards for writing these days.

5 EASY TIPS:

1. Sentence Length.  Average sentence length should be less than 14 words. The shorter the opening sentence, the better...8-10 words is really good. (oops, I went over...thanks for sticking with me anyway, tho)
2. Paragraph Length. Aim for less than 6 lines of text and/or a max of 3 sentences in a paragraph, just 2 if one of the sentences is pretty long.
3. Reverse Your Order. State your point right off, don't leave it for the finale. Most people will never get there. The way we were taught to write in school--with our conclusion at the end--doesn't work anymore.
4. Break it Up! Separate sentences to emphasize them and give the reader's eye a white-space break. It's okay to continue/substantiate a point in the next paragraph.
5. KISS. Apply the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid (no offense...). Use the smallest words possible to make your point such as "use" vs. "utilize." Don't put your readers to sleep with long strings of long words...it makes them work too hard.