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While I was working on another project he managed to crank out five pages of ad copy in two hours. He was crafting the copy in Word and after running it through spell check he announced he was done and emailed it to his client.
He didn't perform a single edit, I never heard him read the copy aloud. Five pages of copy in two hours is quite quick so I read the copy he had sent to his client.
To be blunt, the copy was bloated tripe. After running the red pen through mangled phrases like, "as good as", and "evidence of excellence" I started noticing the cliches. I found four on one page.
1. World Class
2. State of the Art.
3. First Class Service
4. Captured the Spirit.
On the second edit I noticed, "despite the fact that". I changed that to "because" when I ran into "in terms of". Yep, that one went too. Soon after I spotted "another alternative". More red ink.
By the time I finished I had removed 311 words, changed his touchstone/huckster ad premise to a parity ad and managed to spend 7 hours on his project.
I woke up this morning and started writing an email to a client and caught myself before I hit the enter key. I edited the email I had just written, removed 56 words and felt much better about that email.
Is the ability to instantly publish a detriment to crafting well-written email and copy? It's just so easy to hit the enter key...
I was once sent (reluctantly) on a course called 'Effective Written Communication'.
What an eye-opener. I got more from this course than any other I have attended. Perhaps that is just a comment on my skills at the time, but 15 years on, I still use this training every day.
At its simplest level, I scan over my text and highlight every word that could be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence. Many of these can then be removed to improve the 'readability'.
Delving into 'readability' as a concept is fascinating stuff.
Systems such as :
.. are all thought provoking ways to measure 'readbility - although I wonder whether they apply to how we read web pages.
hmmmm... its about time I did some more digging on this one, I think.
When writing anything that I feel is important I always print it out, leave my computer, and read it slowly, editing with a pen. For me editing at the keyboard is an oxymoron, but I realize that your mileage may vary.
Churchill was arguably the most powerful orator the English-speaking world has ever known, and his speeches during some of England's darkest hours changed the shape of our world today. Decades later his words moved me to tears as I was trying to analyze his craft.
His ideas were powerful; his words were simple. The program consistently ranked the complexity of his text at Grade Five or Six.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
I won't argue with you. Churchill was also a master of the well timed pause.
I've been reading and writing a lot of web copy lately and finding lots of words that aren't doing any work. I attribute that to the ease of cranking out words on a computer. If you are typing as fast as you can think you are probably using too many words. I know that when I write poetry I write more effectively with paper and pen simply because I slow down.
Copy that has been edited two or three times is better copy. It won't be perfect but a writer will never believe that their work is perfect.
Someone said, "Never let the pursuit of perfection impede progress". I think that quote is apt in all situations.
<added>What I noticed about the phrases my associate used is that they seemed to have been culled from several copywriting guides that listed them as phrases not to use. Touchstone ads require deft writing and he certainly wasn't deft in his approach. Avoid cliches like the plague. ;)</added>
[edited by: digitalghost at 5:20 pm (utc) on April 12, 2003]
Though I do agree that the text should be edited.
I'll need to research this whole 'editing' thing a bit more, too.
It's a whole new art form to write copy that will "sing" for human readers while also providing tasty spider food!
The only thing is, when trying to get keywords into your copy, cliches can be your best friends. Sometimes.
Must go and re-edit some things...
