Judy Gregory, Author at Judy Gregory Writer

Text and design need to work together

It's one of the most common bits of advice for writers and designers: make sure that the writer's words and the designer's design work well togetherWriters/editors and graphic designers can't work in isolation from each other They need to collaborate to ensure that the writer's words make sense with the designer's layoutThis particularly seems to apply to headings The example below appeared in my local newspaper this week I guess that the writer has written a complete sentence: 'Join us for a...

Writing believable marketing copy

Have you ever stopped to question what makes for believable marketing copy Are you conscious that, as a writer, you use particular strategies to make your copy believable And, as a reader, do you notice that some organisations produce more believable copy that others It’s one thing to spin a great sales pitch about your product or service; it’s quite another thing to write copy that is believable to your customer base As a writer, I’m often conscious about the believability of my copy I...

Learning how to write with confidence

I've been thinking lately about the process of learning how to write I'm particularly interested in how people learn to write workplace documentsIn workplaces, I frequently encounter a type of 'learned helplesness' - where people don't know how to go about writing, don't feel confident in their writing abilities, and don't feel that they can learn anything useful There's also often a feeling that what they write doesn't actually matter, because supervisors and approvers will change it...

Relationship-focused communication

I've always thought that communication involves thinking about relationships For me, the relationship often comes first: it informs the decisions I make about how and when to communicate I frequently find myself making decisions about message content, tone, format, and timing on the basis of what I'm trying to achieve with the relationship Usually the decisions have something to do with building, maintaining, or enhancing a relationship with my audience or reader Most of the time,...

Break communication conventions at your peril

I visited Townsville this week to run a short course in workplace writingThe hotel where I stayed broke a basic communication convention: there was no logical link between the room numbers and the floor numbersIn most hotels, room 32 would be on the third floor This convention makes is easy to navigate hotels - with their confusing lifts and corridors - no matter where you are But this hotel put room 32 on the fourth floorFor two days, I had to make a conscious effort to match my room number...

Little mistakes that create confusion

My family got caught up in a little communication confusion during the recent school holidaysWe decided to see a movie -- 'How to train your dragon 2' (what else would boys want to see!) We decided to go to the Palace Barracks Cinema, and use the special offer flyer that the children had collected at schoolThen our little confusion began Here's the front of the flyer:My son thought that the discounted family deal for his movie of choice was only available on 19 June Pretty logical really, when...

Wayfinding difficulties at the art gallery

I'm emerging from a fog of overwork just in time for Christmas To celebrate my free day yesterday, we went to the Brisbane art galleries The two exhibitions that we saw were wonderful But finding our way around proved to be more of a challenge even though we've been to both galleries several times over the years It was the signage to find the cafe and toilets that caused us troubleAfter seeing the first exhibition, in the Gallery of Modern Art, we decided that lunch would be a good...

Technology that helps (and hinders) good communication

Last week I went along to an event for Science Week It involved five school students giving short presentations about their science projects and Queensland’s Chief Scientist speaking about the future of science It was inspiring – particularly for the children in the audience, who were given a glimpse of what science can offerThe communication technology used to support the event caught my attention – partly because the surroundings were deliberately high-tech, and partly because the...

Creating communication confusion

It's all too easy to create communication confusion - and often difficult to work out how or why it happensI recently managed to create confusion amongst some work colleagues, and it has left me wondering about how to prevent similar mistakes happening againThe situation was simple enough I was due to have a meeting with three colleagues, at the university campus where I work one day a week But a few hours before the scheduled meeting, I had a phone call from school: I needed to collect my...