Judy Gregory, Author at Judy Gregory Writer

Those way wood sheep

Sometimes I come across a writing error that makes me laugh out loudLast week I was reading a magazine article, and encountered this sentence 'On January 1, 2009, I shuffled along a country road, keeping an eye out for the usual hazards - farm dogs, way wood sheep'I wonder whether those wayward, self-willed, and unpredictable sheep had any idea what was ahead of them as they went the way of the woodsI hesitate to call this sort of mistake a typo, because there's an assumption with a...

Seeing (but not reading) red

Churches and schools around Brisbane often use display signs to announce upcoming events or communicate words of wisdom Most remain outside the digital age, and have a manual sign like the one shown above They all seem to have a set of black and red letters, and the signs usually incorporate a combination of black and red words within their messagesI often notice that key words are put up in red presumably to attract the attention of passers-by There's some logic in...

Learning about document structure

Last week, Radio National's Life Matters program featured an interview with Cyril Peupion, author of 'Work Smarter: Live Better' Cyril was talking about people's inefficiencies at work - particularly with tasks like email Cyril noted that most people start their working lives with little idea about how to work efficiently It's not something that's taught either at school or university Given the 1,131 email messages currently in my In Box, with 282 of them being unread, maybe I need to pay some...

Communicating through distraction

This morning I attended a fascinating breakfast seminar about distraction It was called 'Neuroscience of Distraction: Managing Distraction and Maintaining Focus', and was presented by Geoff Grahl from Australian Aeorspace The organiser was NeuroLeadership Solutions Geoff made several comments about distraction that resonated strongly for me For example:The more information we receive, the more likely we are to be distracted (this reminds me of Richard Wurman's book 'Information...

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...