Check Your Website's Usability Quickly and Cheaply

Anybody who hasn't done a usability study desperately needs to. No one knows yet how to design the perfect user interface, so even simple do-it-yourself studies often show you serious problems.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Choosing the Right Style Manual(s)

Editors should consider at least four points in selecting, or reevaluating, primary and secondary manuals.

Mulford, Carolyn. Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Style Guides>Writing

Divide a Sales Letter Into Hook, Line and Sinker

A writer/sales trainer tells how to structure effective sales letters and avoid common mistakes. Many sales letters fail not because of content but because of poor structure.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Correspondence

For Good Media Relations, Treat Reporters Like Customers

Know their needs, advertise your products, give good service, offer specials, educate and keep in touch.

Writing that Works (2003). Design>Web Design>Marketing

Go from Brochureware to E-Care

Online brochures don't attract return visits or serve your customers, so turn your Web site into a customer interaction center.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Writing

How Do You Handle Letters to the Editor?

Letters to the editor can be a headache. Many editors play fast and loose with them, often under orders. Among the worst and most common offenses are choosing letters to bolster a policy and having staff members write letters under other names to influence or misrepresent readers' views.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Editing>Business Communication

How to Control Interviews Even When Outranked

Expect anyone you're interviewing to try to control the interview, says writer/trainer Thomas Hunter. Anticipate special difficulties if that person outranks you. You must make on-the-spot judgments during every interview, but Hunter suggests steps to take beforehand, alternative approaches to consider during interviews and techniques to use after unsatisfactory ones.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Writing>Interviewing

Lengthen Your Planning and Shorten Your Text

Writing for the Web requires your old skills, but you must change your approach and alter the writing process.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Look at Common Style Differences in Choosing Manuals

Style manuals often differ on important points, and one way to choose a manual is to compare them on some of those points.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Style Guides>Writing

Measure Your Publication Program's Dollar Value to Your Organization

Get no respect? Then do the math to prove how much money your publications save and make for your employer.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Publishing>Assessment

Nourish Old Writing Skills, Add New Ones for the Web

The Web requires many of the same writing skills as print, but successful writers develop new ways of breaking up and linking.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Writing>Web Design

Painless Ways to Improve Colleagues' Grammar

Instead of confronting individuals, raise all staff members' awareness. Use humor to help people recognize errors and remember correct usage.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Workplace>Style Guides

Prepare Web Content and Organization For Your Audience

Communicators must know whether the audience consists of viewers, users or readers before selecting, writing and organizing content.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Web Design>Rhetoric>Writing

Quotations Give You Wisdom of the Ages

Quotations allow you to tap a wealth of wisdom and ideas that have survived the test of time, or caught your attention amid information overload. They also give credibility to the speaker's points. But you must take care in choosing and using others' words.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Six Survival Techniques for a Communications Pro

A top-level corporate communicator tells how to improve odds of survival and success.

Writing that Works (2006). Careers>Business Communication>Communication

Strategies for Placing Stories in Top Markets

Start by studying prime targets. Then write pitch letters showing editors how to meet their readers' needs with minimal effort.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Journalism

To Draw and Hold Readers' Attention, Apply a Hollywood Technique

Find the one thing you want people to remember as you write a posting for a Web page, a subject line for an e-mail or a headline for a newsletter.

Writing that Works (2006). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism

Use Metaphors to Communicate, Not Decorate

Good metaphors emerge from the writer's experience and observation. They connect the readers' knowledge to new ideas or information through concrete images.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Tropes

Writing that Works

Writing That Works is a monthly how-to newsletter on practical business writing, editing and communications.

Writing that Works. Journals>Writing>Business Communication

Writing, Editing and Designing: a Unified Process

What's in it for me? That's what magazine readers must see at first glance, or they will flip on by. Winning their attention requires thoughtful blending of words and design from the beginning of the publication process.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Writing>Editing>Visual Rhetoric