March 2011 - Judy Gregory Writer

Grabbing the attention of disinterested audiences

I was talking last week to our local school Principal about the difficulties that the school faces in communicating with parents The Principal often receives complaints from parents that they don't know what is happening - whether it's a special activity at the school, some type of social function, or a request for a form to be completed Parents often say that they would have been involved in an activity, if they had known it was happeningThe Principal is at a loss about what to do She works...

Success with email

This month in The Writing Circle, we've been talking about email - about our email successes and failures, and about our likes and dislikesOne theme that came through very strongly is the speed with which emails are read and acted upon, and the problems this can create for both writers and readers We talked about the way that readers often don't read an entire email message Instead, they read the first paragraph or two, jump to some conclusion about what they're meant to do, act upon that, and...

Versus, verse, versing

I'm fascinated by the way that language changes And while it's often tempting to speak out against the 'incorrect' use of language, most often the force for change is so strong that we can do little more than take noteOver the past year or so, I've noticed that the words used by children to describe sporting competitions do not follow typical dictionary definitions They've taken the preposition 'versus' and turned it into a word with great flexibility During the sports report at our local...

When (and how) to end

Ending a document (or a chapter or a section) can be troublesome How do you tie all the ideas together and come to some conclusion How do you give readers a sense that the document is coming to a closeAnd then there are questions about the placement of ideas Is this the best place for the main idea The final thought The real take-home messageIf you're writing a novel, maybe you want to build up to a dramatic conclusion My children love Enid Blyton novels, and she's a master of a...

Sound structure = sound document core

As a writer and editor, I spend a lot of time thinking about the structure of documents A poorly structured document can create so many problems for readers ideas that belong together may not be presented together, ideas may not be introduced in a logical order, and important concepts may be explained in the wrong placeWhen I edit the work of others, it's the structure that I focus on most As I read through a draft document, I put together a brief document map (a few-word...

2 space or not 2 space

When you write, are you a double spacer or a single spacer That is, do you leave two spaces after a full stop, or just oneIf any question is guaranteed to start an argument in a writing discussion, it's this one People who learned to type on typewriters (remember them) tend to advocate strongly for two spaces People who have actually been taught wordprocessing (and they're few and far between) prefer to use one And then of course, there are people who don't know, don't care, and don't...