When you're cooking up marketing or business development materials (brochures, profiles, flyers, email, tenders, proposals) it's tricky to get the recipe right. Between your two main ingredients - a capital letter and a full stop - there are different flavours of words, and occasionally a dash of commas, to give you a sentence. Not a very tasty one perhaps, but one you can mix until you get the flavour right.
How do you get the flavour right? With good editing.
Here are 5 tips to great editing:
1. Read your work aloud. You'll hear where it doesn't flow.
2. Leave it to bake for long enough. If you have time, leave it overnight. In the morning read it afresh. You will recognise your good work, and the parts you need to revisit.
3. Add some new ingredients. Seek alternatives for the words you keep repeating.
4. Reduce the fat content. Cut out unncessary words. Adjectives (these are mostly really lovely words ending in -ly) and parts of the verb 'to be" can often be cut. For example, instead of "...the magnificent views are carefully framed", edit to "frames the magnificent views".
5. Use present tense to makes your work shorter, and livlier. Instead of, "You will receive three issues for free when you...", try "Receive 3 issues free when you...", or "You receive 3 issues free when you..."
For more help, download our free guide Do You Make These Mistakes in English? or call Rosemary on (02) 9314 7506
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