A Few Strong Words…

Abstract

Writer’s block is an insidious and pandemic condition. Past recommendations on its diagnosis and treatment approach the problem as if it were one single disease with one single therapy. However careful study into its presentation and symptoms reveal that this should actually be treated as a group of afflictions, inter-related but highly individualized. It also follows that upon correct diagnosis, individualized treatment courses are required for successful outcomes.

(Authors’ Note: The term “writer’s block” will be used throughout, though “creative block” may be more appropriate. Those practising in other art forms may find it useful to adapt the recommendations in this study accordingly.)

Classification and Treatment of Writer’s Block

Writer’s block comes in many forms. Unfortunately, the current treatment methods of the day do not recognize this, and instead try to give a blanket treatment. Not surprisingly, the success rates of these treatments are spotty at best.

We have developed a classification system of writer’s block here, along with recommended treatments.

Blank Page Syndrome (pageis blanketum)

The classic presentation of “writer’s block”. Symptoms include:

• Indecision
• Fear of writing
• Inability to generate ideas
• Obsessive counting of cars passing in the street
• Sore wrists and forearms due to excessive impact with punching bag

Recommended Treatment: Patient should be encouraged to simply start writing anything mundane from grocery lists to a description of the cars passing by. In most cases, the simple act of writing will trigger an auto-response, whereby the patient will momentarily forget the fear and indecision thus unlocking the creative portion of the brain. Soon ideas should come tumbling to the page.

In extreme cases, patients should be given permission to call it a day, get a quart of ice cream, bottle of wine, or case of beer (depending on their predilections), and watch reruns of Cheers.

Stunted Start (writerus hiccupi)

Slightly different than Blank Page Syndrome, patients with Stunted Start have ideas in their head and know what they want to write, but are indecisive on how to approach the subject matter. Generally presents itself when the topic matter is fixed i.e. an assigned story, article, or web page. Symptoms include:

• Indecision
• Frustration with inability to “state the obvious”
• Confusion
• Irritability, even with the cat

Recommended Treatment: Patients should be encouraged to write several different opening paragraphs in succession, approaching the subject matter in slightly different ways each time. Eventually, the “natural” course of the writing should present itself through this exercise. However in extreme cases, the writer may find it beneficial to read over all the openings to determine the best one. It may also be helpful in these extreme cases to step away for a while and take a walk, do the dishes, or apologize to the cat, before returning to the desk.

Confused Subject Matter Syndrome (dunnoium whatiamwritingus)

Patients with Confused Subject Matter Syndrome often try to write an article or related piece without fully understanding the topic. This may be because of tight deadlines, an overloaded schedule, or just plain looking for a shortcut. The resulting writer’s block is more from gaps in knowledge than anything else. Symptoms include:

• Indecision
• Frantic writing
• “Cloud Piling”
• Illogical conclusions
• Long, rambling sentences that seem to be trying to get to the point but at the end of which you realize that the writer is actually and simply just getting paid by the word

Recommended Treatment: Patients should be encouraged to research their topic matter some more. In lucky circumstances, the writer may have discovered what information he or she still needs to learn, so outlining that information before further research should be fostered.

Trying to Remember that Great Idea You Had Just Before You Drifted Off to Sleep Last Night (sandmani thievium)

Although not a writer’s block in the strictest sense, it does present with similar symptoms and can often be cured with related treatments. Symptoms include:

• Frustration
• Repeated slapping upside the head to”jog” the memory
• Silent cursing of the happy squirrels outside
• Excessively loud cursing of the happy squirrels outside

Recommended Treatment: Patients should be encouraged to stop thinking about it, as this sometimes triggers the memory to suddenly jump back into the brain unbidden. However prevention is the best cure: patients should be encouraged to keep a bedside notebook or digital recorder so that ideas can be captured at these crucial moments.

Searching for the Right Word (tipus tongium)

This too is a frustrating affliction. The writer knows what word he or she wants to use, and can “feel” the word, but cannot remember what it is. Symptoms include:

• Frustration
• Excessive pounding on the keyboard
• Excessive pounding of the keyboard on the head
• Shouting at the passing cars outside
• Pleading with the cat for the answer

Recommended Treatment: Patients should be encouraged to think of a similar word and look up the synonym. Sometimes the thesaurus feature in Word is sufficient, but often an online thesaurus will work better. Alternatively, the writer can Google the synonym or a word that might lead to the word being searched. For example, if the patient has forgotten the word “silo”, he or she could Google “barn” or “granary” or “Old MacDonald”.

Chronic Writing Fatigue Syndrome (wellus driedupium)

This is common in larger projects or in cases where the writer has many projects on the go. After a successive number of hours of writing, the patient will slowly become more and more ineffective. Symptoms include:

• Brain fog
• Brain cramp
• Blurred vision
• Caffeine imbalance (either too much leading to jitters, or not enough leading to an amplification of the brain fog and other symptoms)
• Periods of inactivity for seconds or even minutes where the writer sits motionless, fingers hovering over the keyboard, staring hopelessly at the screen
• Tiredness

Recommended Treatment: Sometimes it helps to switch projects, but often there is no clear way for the writer to “push through” this type of writer’s block. There is a point where he or she should either get away for several hours or simply go to sleep. The writer should be reminded that yes, deadlines are important, but they are useless if you cannot generate your best work. A letter of apology ahead of the blown deadline and a good night’s sleep should remedy the situation with no lingering after-effects.

Background Noise Distraction Syndrome (lyric interruptus)

In this affliction, patients will either subconsciously plagiarize song lyrics or ideas heard in the background from a TV or stereo, or purposefully stick them in while searching for other things to write (often in conjunction with other types of writer’s block). Symptoms include:

• Frustration
• Temptation
• So bad it makes them shake and cough
• Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov

Recommended Treatment: Turn off the damned radio.

Deadline Stress Syndrome (writerus panicus)

This often occurs when (a) the writer accepts a project with a tight turnaround, (b) the writer accepts too many projects, and deadlines start looming or (c) the writer forgot about the project until the last moment or — worse — when the client called to “check the status”. Symptoms include:

• Panic
• Fast, sloppy writing
• Excessive clock watching
• Panic
• Increased heart rate
• Nagging urge to stop squirrels’ happy chattering with extreme prejudice
• Excessive friendliness with and/or shunning of the cat
• Panic

Recommended Treatment: Prevention is the best cure — though this is a bad time to tell the writer that. Patients should be encouraged to add extra time to their deadlines to allow for unexpected events, and/or not accept fast turnaround projects. However once in the thick of it, the writer should be encouraged not to look at the clock, to breathe slowly, and to pretend the deadline does not exist. Focus on one thing at a time — often there really is enough time to get everything done.

Also, writer should replace coffee or Coke with water as excessive amounts of caffeine with only add to the internal tension that is gnawing at your nerves.

Conclusion

Writer’s Block takes many forms. As we have seen here, it is important to determine exactly what type of writer’s block the patient has to successfully determine an effective course of treatment. By pinpointing exact causes and symptoms, we can help our writers get through these various conditions and make a full recovery.

This is an ongoing project; those who have treated or experienced other manifestations of writer’s block are encouraged to outline below in the comments section of this paper. Thank you.

~Graham

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“Lipstick on a pig.” This seems to be a new catch phrase in US political circles. It means “dressing up an idea to make it look like it is more than it is” or “we’re scared of your VP choice, so we are going to take subtle pot shots at her to make her seem less than she is”.

I think it is an important term in marketing circles too. In this case, it could be seen as “over-marketing”, which can be a problem when you are accurately trying to describe a product or service. It can also be legally troubling…

I see it in my own writing all the time, and it is something I constantly have to keep in check. My job in most cases is to present my clients’ companies in the best light. That means touting successes, underlining benefits, and overall trying to show why one company is better than its competitors. (You know, in case you don’t know what marketing is about… lol)

My point is that often I can be guilty of putting lipstick on a pig. What I have to remember is (a) pigs are very attractive creatures in their own right and (b) pigs don’t wear lipstick.

For example, pigs are very clean, and many people love to keep them as pets. And to paraphrase Homer (Simpson, not the great Greek writer), they are the wonderful, magical animal that brings us bacon, pork chops, and ham.

These are the features we need to sell, if we are selling pigs. If we try to put them on the same playing field as say a Bentley, not only are we misrepresenting ourselves but we are doing a disservice to our clients. Customers will quickly see that although pigs may be more fuel efficient, the luxurious ride and “wow” factor just aren’t there, no matter how much lipstick you use. Worse, it hog-ties future marketing efforts for that company because customers will not forgive it for trying to put one over on them.

It all comes down to one thing: honesty. Yes, put your client in the best light but don’t stretch the truth. In fact you may even benefit from erring on this side of the truth. There is a lot to be said for promising a little and delivering more.

What do you think? Can you put a little bit of lipstick on a pig? Or is it best not to “ham it up” at all? Enquiring minds want to know — leave your comment below!

~Graham

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There are a lot of powerful marketing words out there. You have likely read articles and blog posts about using words like “free” and “secret” in your headlines, as well as other irresistible phrases to snare your readers.

The problem with many of these words though is that once you set the hook, you still have to reel them in. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a word that made your readers just jump into your boat?

Actually there is, and I’ve already used this word and its kissing cousin nine times in this post, including the title. That magic word is “you”.

Carnegie said it best: “Talk in the terms of the other man’s interest.”

Of course, today he would write “other person’s interest” (or at least his editor would…) The moment you hear or read the word “you”, you immediately prick up your ears because suddenly the conversation is on a topic that is a source of endless fascination. If I talk about you all day, I’ll likely have a captive audience.

One thing I noticed about myself though is that I can write a few pages of web content or some brochure copy, and consciously use the word “you” throughout. But as soon as I’m done, for some reason I just let it go. The rest of the day, it’s suddenly all about me for some reason.

Well, I think it’s time for me to change my errant ways (and perhaps you do too). So let’s talk about some ways that I can talk more about you.

Emails

I try to make a conscious effort to use the word “you” more often in my emails:

“Here is the article I wrote for you.”

“Great talking with you today.”

“I knew that this link would interest you so I forwarded it to you right away!”

Most of the time, the sentence would make perfect sense without adding you, but I think it adds that personal touch without making it too wordy.

Blogs

You are here for you, not me, n’est pas? So injecting more you into my blog posts would just make sense. For example, which blog post title do you find more inviting:

How to Make More Money Blogging

How You Can Make More Money Blogging

The second version subtly but definitely makes a stronger impact. Although the first title may be intriguing, it is not exclusive. The second version is all about you, which by default cranks up the intrigue factor. After all, not just anyone can make more money blogging, just you.

Phone Calls

“How are you today?”

“Yes, you are right!”

“Certainly I can do that for you!”

Using “you” is not limited to writing. You can make everyday conversation more intriguing by sprinkling a few “yous” in there.

When You Becomes Me

Of course the whole purpose of using “you” is to make friends and influence people. (And BTW, if you haven’t read the book — get it now!) The more you focus on other people, strangely the more they start to focus on you. And isn’t that what marketing is all about in its essence?

So make it all about you (by which I mean of course, make it all about me, not you) by making it all about you (by which I mean of course, make it all about them, not you).

Okay, that’s getting a little confusing and Pythonesque, but you get my point…

Any other ways I can make it more about you? You just let me know — leave a comment!

~Graham

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Wow. Two weeks now since my last post. I woke up this morning and wondered how I was going to find the time to put one together. I actually have a few ideas swirling in my mind — but then I also have a few projects that need finishing today as well.

It occurred to me that this is probably a common affliction. Not necessarily just with blog posting, but with all of our writing. Is there a way to squeeze extra minutes out the day, or make better use of the minutes we are given? (In case you’re wondering, there are exactly 1440 minutes per day, except for one day in the fall when there are 1500, and one day in the spring when there are 1380.)

I’ve come up with a couple of ideas here:

Focus/Write Faster

Jim Estill posted the other day on Copyblogger that it takes him 20 minutes to write a blog post. Okay, he fudged the numbers a bit — that 20 minutes does not include “incubation” time and warm-up writing. I suspect it also doesn’t include formatting and finding that perfect image to go with your blog post.

But hey, point taken. One of the best bits of advice I ever got was to write faster, and that’s something I’m attempting with this post as well. I don’t think I’ll match Jim’s speed yet (I’m at minute 13 already…) but it’s not a bad goal to shoot for.

Get Up Earlier/Stay Later

Let’s assume that you can write 500 words in 20 minutes. That means if you set the alarm for 7:10 am instead of 7:30 am, you’ll get 500 extra words in per day.

On the flip side, if you decide to skip watching The Simpsons every day at 5pm and write, you’ll get an extra 750 words down. (If you happen to watch them on CBC, this won’t be a huge sacrifice — they’ve gone back to Season 1 again. Do you really need to watch those blocky episodes for the 37th time…?)

Get Organized

This is related to the first point, but it bears a separate mention. I find that the more organized I am, the faster I am able to work. Often, when I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do next, I don’t just sit there and think about it. I surf, read emails, catch up on some blogs… perhaps you know the drill too.

Long-time readers of this blog know about my love affair with the Post-It Note (just bought some new pads the other day — colour-coded!)

I’ve found that writing out the day’s tasks and sticking them to my monitor helps keep me focused. Once one project is done (or done for the day…) I give it a satisfying strike-out and move on to the next item up for bid. It certainly helps to put everything in order of importance if possible, but the main thing is to get everything down.

A Last Word

We all have a thousand things tugging at our shirtsleeves — sometimes literally. Kids, bills to be paid, mowing the lawn, the damn dishwasher, replacing that loose board in the walkway so that nobody trips and sues you… it never ends.

And that means we need to make the most of our writing time when we have it.

What tricks do you have to squeeze those precious minutes of time? Please let me know by leaving a comment below — I need all the help I can get!

~Graham

(BTW, total writing time not including recovering from a crashed database and adding an image: 29 minutes. Not bad.)

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As some of you may remember, I wrote a post about my love affair with Find and Replace, which is the most useful tool in Word next to CTRL-Z.

Well, this weekend I found a new and nifty trick. At one point, while I was writing some web content, I discovered I wanted to change the name of one product — but only in one section of the content. Usually I would use Find and Replace, and just click the “Next” button until I got to the right section.

But this time, on a hunch, I tried highlighting the section first, and then going into Find and Replace. Sure enough, I was able to replace every instance in the highlighted section only.

Anyone else have a handy Find and Replace trick (or any other Word shortcut for that matter…)? Let us all know by adding a comment below!

~Graham

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Last week I was driving along when “You May Be Right” by Billy Joel came on the radio. I still have a soft spot for this song — Glass Houses, the album it is from, is the first rock album I ever bought. It got me thinking for the hundredth time in almost 30 years what the album title meant…

Of course I’d heard the adage “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” But I couldn’t figure out why he would name an album that.

It dawned on my on this particular day how different it was from his previous albums. Billy Joel was stating with his choice in album name that he was consciously tearing down all he had done creatively to start in a new direction. If you want to start fresh, why not throw stones at our glass houses?

Personally, I think it is too easy to get into a rut. I know that in my own work, after writing the “About Us” page for two dozen clients, the 25th one starts to feel routine. This is good in a way, because it saves time. But it can also lead to stale language. I realized that I needed to shake it up a bit — not just with About Us pages but with all my writing.

Here are a few of the stones I’ve thrown over the years to help keep my writing fresh and allowed me to push my creative boundaries. And let me know yours as well by leaving a comment below!

I May Be Crazy

You might call this one “writing like a lunatic”. Sometimes if I’m trying to get a particular page of marketing copy just right or if I feel I’m exploring new ground, I’ll put aside all the research, let it simmer for a while, and then just riff on some ideas on the page. It may be little snippets or slogans, a sentence or two, or even a whole paragraph.

It rarely makes any sense or fits together in any coherent fashion — yet. The point is to turn of the internal editor, free-flow ideas, and get some words down. I find that new ideas come along I never would have “consciously” thought of, and take me in some new directions.

Once I’ve explored some ideas, I start looking for common threads and connections, and start putting it together so it flows logically. It may take a few passes and extra polishing, but the results tend to be fresher and more original.

Lonely For a Man

e e cummings, that is. I took a creative writing course in university, and the best writing exercise I ever did was trying to write an e e cummings poem. If you’ve never heard of him, he’s a pioneer of unconventional poetic style — a style he made his own. Rather than try to describe it, just check out some of his poems here. As with the method I described above, it seems very disjointed and illogical. But read a little deeper, and you “feel” the logic behind it.

I’m not suggesting that this is the type of writing I deliver to my clients. But I find writing some free-association poetry helps stretch the creative muscles, ultimately (I hope) making me a better writer.

Enjoy Some Madness for A While

One of the best ways I find to expand my literary horizons is to read — and read with intent. That means finding the “best of the best” writers, and not just read but study their books and short stories. I try to discover why I like a particular passage or turn of phrase and compare it with my own style to see where I can improve. I also find reviewing snippets of their work every once in a while to be a great help.

For me, Fitzgerald is that writer (though I’ve heard some good things too about that Hemingway fellow). But as long as it is someone whose writing you admire, you can only benefit from sponging up their words.

Some people have also talked about reading crap, just to see what not to do. I don’t actually recommend this. The idea is to get yourself in a strong creative mindset, and that means reading the positive influences, not the negative. Besides, we come across enough crap in our day-to-day lives that studying it surely would be of no benefit!

(During the time I was writing this post, I read Jesse’s post at Robust Writing “The Easiest Way to Become a Writer“. He elaborates on this topic a bit more; it’s well worth the read…)

Only Having Fun

As many of us have learned already, a blog is a great way to improve your writing skills. It has an immediacy that most other forms of corporate writing do not. I’ve used this blog as an opportunity to find new ways to reach people through my writing, learning what people react to and what they do not. Although there is perhaps no direct correlation between blog writing and other forms, it is another tool I use to improve my craft.

Even Rode My Motorcycle in the Rain

Just as reading can expand your horizons, so too can trying new things. It helps you see the world differently, and these new layers of experience can only help your writing. Travel is one of my favourite things (though I don’t indulge as much as I used to — perhaps when the kids are grown and gone I’ll hit the trail again…) But it could be as easy as going to a park in your hometown that you’ve never been to, or taking up scuba.

On that note, having other creative outlets helps too. For example, I like to get out with the old camera and take photos. I don’t think this directly impacts my writing, but I think it does help the creative process because it forces my creativity in a different direction.

It’s All Because of You

The purpose of all of this of course is to improve yourself as a writer, and to break out of any creative ruts you find yourself in (or perhaps more urgently, haven’t found yourself in yet!)

What tips do you have? Don’t be afraid to share!

~Graham

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How much time do you spend writing your blog? Do you put other things aside (i.e. paying projects) because you feel the need to “catch up” with your blogging?

Part of measuring the success of your blog necessarily involves determining how much time you are going to invest in it. As mentioned in previous posts, it is difficult to add a dollar figure to that time (I’m still working that part out) but what is clear is that you have to manage your blogging time.

On Monday, James at Men with Pens announced that they are Cutting Back Posting Frequency to help avoid reader burnout. I believe that the first seeds of this notion came about a couple of weeks ago during their great series on guest blogging, when James touched upon blogger burnout.

I took the opportunity to comment to this post and challenge the long-held idea that a blogger needs to post every day. I thought that keeping up this hectic schedule would not only drive you mad, but it would reduce the quality of your posts.

(Of course, I think that MWP is the exception to this rule – honestly, I don’t know how they kept up both the pace and the quality for this long.)

So how do you find that balance between keeping your readers interested and keeping your sanity?

Scrambled Blogs

One thing that I’ve come to realize is that piecing together a blog post just because it has been “too long” since the last post does not do anyone any good. The blogger, I think, is forced to scramble, and it likely shows.

Now don’t get me wrong. I like “Link Love” posts and similar concepts because they tend to be a “best of” type of post, and allow readers to see what the blogger is reading. I’m also a fan of “hey, look what I just found!” posts. Although they are short, both in terms of content and in prep time, they are not necessarily “dashed off”.

I think the difference comes from whether or not you are writing from the heart. When you truly want to show your readers something, that sincerity comes through. Likewise, when you cobble together a post in a stress-filled frenzy, that shows too.

Perhaps it comes down to this: you’ve got to have heart. Doing anything purely because you feel an obligation to do it doesn’t usually give heart-warming results. It should come naturally, or not at all.

Blogging Myths Exposed!

Yesterday, Brian Clark at The Copyblogger wrote a piece about “The Steven Wright Guide to Content Marketing”. In this brilliant post, he pointedly suggests that you “post when you have something interesting to say.”

You’ve heard all the blogging nonsense… post every day, post five times a week, post twice a week, but always on the same two days. Bah.

Bah, indeed. I’ve long suspected this, but it is reassuring that The Copyblogger himself makes this statement on the very day I’m working on this post. Perhaps we should add too that you should only blog when you have time to do the topic justice.

Personally, I’ve cut back on the number of posts per week – in fact I don’t really track that anymore. I’ve tried to concentrate instead on providing solid content rather than regular content. Some weeks I have more time to do this than others, which is as it should be I think. And I’ve seen a steady increase in my subscribers (thanks to all of you!). I think I have a few thousand feet to go as a blogger, but I am trying to climb that mountain.

For my sanity, for the sake of my work schedule, and for the sake of anyone who reads my posts, I think the path to that peak is through quality content, not necessarily the regularity of posts.

How do you feel? Should bloggers chain themselves to their desks and blog every day? Or should they find truly great ideas, and polish those nuggets into gems no matter what the time cost? Leave a comment and let me know!

~Graham

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Who are you talking to? Who is your reader?

Every writer should discover exactly who the target audience is before sitting down to write that web content, brochure, ebook — or blog post for that matter. I think it just makes sense. Before you can talk to somebody and connect on their level, you need to find out what their level is…

Many copywriters think that this is venturing into that unknown territory of Marketing, which they believe is either none of their business (the client will tell me what he/she wants) or is too scary to even contemplate. However, your client might not know how to market to the target audience. Besides, it is a remarkably easy thing to do, giving you a value-added skill you can offer your clients.

Here are few tips to get you started.

Ask Your Client

The first thing you should do is ask your client what the target market is. He or she will likely have a whole list of research and marketing plans that go into this.

However as mentioned above, your clients might not know who their audience is (they should, but they may not…) But if you ask the right questions, you can usually dig it up.

For example, they may collect customer information during each sale. This can tell you many thinks like the gender of the average customer, the geographic location, perhaps even age and occupation.

If your client sells multiple products or services, find out which ones are most popular. Also, ask your client if they have any testimonials, or if they have received any customer feedback. You’ll usually find some good nuggets in here — maybe customers are even using the product in ways never imagined by your client (that happens often…)

With these answers, you will start to build up a good profile of who currently uses the product.

If it is a new product, ask your client why he/she developed it and what perceived market hole it is designed to fill. In the long run it may not give you a 100% accurate view of your target audience, but in the beginning it is a good place to start.

Consider the Product Itself

Is your client selling $10 keychains? Or is your client selling yachts? It should be immediately apparent that these two items will likely appeal to completely different people. If it is a product you are interested in yourself, consider what about it strikes you most: price, ease of use, fills a need, etc. Often just thinking about how the product is used and what its price-point is will help give you ideas.

Check Out the Competitors

Sometimes it is obvious: if a competitor website is wallpapered with bikini-clad babes, you know your audience is likely men.

Usually though, you will have to try to find out who your competitor is targeting by reading between the lines. The best place to find this information is in the features and (especially) benefits section and the “About Us” page. Most good writers spell out exactly who the target market is in these places in an effort to connect with them.

Remember though, don’t take a competitor’s approach as gospel. Like all things on the Internet, this information should be taken with a grain of salt — after all, your competitor might get it completely wrong! But if you see two or three competitors addressing the same type of person, you can usually be safe in doing the same. (Just do it better…!)

Told You It Was Remarkably Simple!

Once you have identified your target audience, you can do even more research to find out what they respond to. For example, doctors tend to read plenty of scholarly reports; depending on the product or service you are selling, you might decide that using this fact-oriented, straightforward writing will be the best way to get your point across.

You might even simply look for articles on the subject by Googling “how to sell to men” or similar phrases.

The bottom-line: take the time to find out as much about your target market as possible. You’ll connect better with your reader and ultimately improve sales.

Can you think of any other ways to help profile your client? Leave us a comment below, and let us know!

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One dime is all it cost me and,
I found out for sure you know
That you double-crossed me.
Just how much can I endure?

That little refrain opens the song Innocence by Harlequin for those of you who don’t recognize the words. Of course “one dime” is a metaphor for “a phone call”, harkening back to the days of payphones. But in twenty years from now — maybe less — kids listening to this song will have no clue (a) what a payphone is and (b) that it used to cost a dime.

This also assumes that (a) Harlequin will be still relevant in 20 years and (b) that they ever were…

Although it is interesting to see turns of phrases recede into history, this is not a good thing for the copy that we write for our clients. Often we don’t even think about the copy we write as “aging”. But it does, if we don’t write it correctly. It reflects badly on us (and our clients) giving an unpolished, unprofessional feel to the marketing materials.

Luckily, there are a few things that we as writers can do to prevent it.

Use Absolute Dates

You’ve likely seen this yourself: on one page of a website, it says that the company has been around for “15 years” and in another spot see that the company started in 1991. When you do the math, that’s 17 years. Either they can’t count, or they haven’t updated their marketing materials in a while… If they are this unconcerned about their own business, how concerned will they be about yours?

Use absolute dates where possible. Unless the company started recently, give just the year (for new companies, you can give the month and year). By all means, if it is relevant to the copy, use the exact launch date. But don’t say “seven years ago” or any similar phrase that will be wrong next year.

Update Your Website Copyrights

This is a common one, and especially frustrating because it is so easy to fix. Have you come across a website that says “Copyright 2005″? How does it make you feel? For me, I wonder if this is just another site that got forgotten. Who knows what’s been going on in the past several years?

Here are two ways to keep your copyright notices up to date:

Find and Replace

In Dreamweaver or any other HTML editor, use the Find and Replace tool to change “Copyright 2005″ to “Copyright 2008″ or (better yet) “Copyright 2005-2008″. This lets people know that you are still around, and in the case of the latter, that you’ve been around for a while.

JavaScript

This is my favourite method because every year on January 1, the script updates my copyright notice automatically. It does involve a bit of code, but it is not that difficult. Here is the code that I use for this site:

var d=new Date();
yr=d.getFullYear();
if (yr!=2007)
{
document.write(’<span>© Copyright 2007 ‘);
document.write(”- “+yr);
document.write(’ ‘);
document.write(’<a href=”http://www.strongwhitepapers.com” target=”_top”>Graham Strong</a> ‘);
document.write(’All Rights Reserved<br>’);
document.write(’For more information, please ‘);
document.write(’ <A href=”mailto:gs@strongwhitepapers.com”>Contact Graham Strong</a>’);
document.write(’<br>’);
document.write(’ <A href=”http://www.strongwhitepapers.com/privacypolicy.htm”>Privacy Policy</a> / <A href=”http://www.strongwhitepapers.com/termsandconditions.htm”>Terms & Conditions</a>’);
document.write(’</span><br>’);
}
else
{
document.write(’<span class =”footertext”>© Copyright 2007 ‘);
document.write(’<a href=”http://www.strongwhitepapers.com” target=”_top”>Graham Strong</a> ‘);
document.write(’All Rights Reserved<br>’);
document.write(’For more information, please ‘);
document.write(’ <A href=”mailto:gs@strongwhitepapers.com”>Contact Graham Strong</a>’);
document.write(’<br>’);
document.write(’ <A href=”http://www.strongwhitepapers.com/privacypolicy.htm”>Privacy Policy</a> / <A href=”http://www.strongwhitepapers.com/termsandconditions.htm”>Terms & Conditions</a>’);
document.write(’</span><br>’);
}

Basically what this code does is tell the computer to check the year. If the year is the same as the launch date (in this case, 2007) then it simply says “Copyright 2007″. If the year is not the launch date, then it says “Copyright 2007 - Current Year” (i.e. 2008). You can see the results at the bottom of this page.

Feel free to cut and paste this into your own HTML editor, and change as necessary. You’ll notice too that I’ve added some links to my privacy policy, etc. You can remove these lines if they do not apply. Don’t forget to change “2007″ to the year you launched your website. Then save the whole thing as a JavaScript file like “copyright.js” and upload to your server.

Then place the following code at the spot on the page where you want to insert it:

<script language=”JavaScript” src=”copyright.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

Save, upload, and you’re done!

Copyrights on Brochures

Sometimes you’ll find the need to add a copyright notice to a brochure, ebook, PDF document, or some similar document, which can lead to dated material. First you may want to consider whether it is worth adding in the first place. After all, in this day and age, people will take any information that suits them, and a copyright notice will not stop them.

(Not that this is right, mind you. My point is: Why put up an ugly chain link fence to keep tanks out of your yard?)

However if you feel that you must add it, then you should update it every year, or at least before you send out the copy again. There is no easy way to do this — you’ll simply have to go through these documents and do it manually. (Find and Replace is a great shortcut though.) Sometimes you can do this right on the PDF file if you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat, though usually you will have to change it on the original file (Word, Quark, etc.) and reprint the PDF.

Version Control

Quite often we use a date at the bottom of a document to designate the version. Usually, this is in the form of a date i.e. Jul08. Obviously, this can lead to a dated feel to your documents.

Sometimes this is fine. For example, if it is an internal document like a policy paper or a guidebook, it might actually be beneficial to have the date listed somewhere in the document.

But if the document will be sent out the general public, this will make the document look dated after a number of months or years.

Here are two ways to track the document date/version:

Encode the Date

You can easily convert the date on a Gregorian Calendar (the one we use now) to what is called a “Modified Julian Day”. The description of this calendar is fairly extensive so I won’t go into it here (Google it if you are truly interested) but essentially it is a calendar based strictly on the number of days. For example, July 30, 2008 converts to 54677.

The math used to calculate a Julian day is fairly straightforward, but luckily there are converters on the Internet that will do the work for you like this one:

http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/conv.htm

Today’s date will automatically be inserted, so just scroll down to the “Modified Julian Day” box to find out the number. Add this to the bottom of your documents instead, and only the very enterprising will know how to convert this back to the original date.

In the future, when you want to check the date on your document, go back to a converter, enter the Julian number, and calculate the date.

Record the Date Internally

You can simply keep a version date built right into the original document. For example, you could name your Word file “My Document 080730″ so that the date is right in the file name. When you create your PDF, leave the date out so that the name is simply “My Document”. Not as slick as the above example, but just as effective.

Dated File Names

This one was just mentioned above, but it warrants its own section. Don’t add dates to PDFs or other file names that you are sending to the public. Yes, people can look up the date in the PDF or Word properties, but there’s not much you can do about that short of reprinting every few months.

Remove “Last Modified” Tags from Your Website

Um, really? This is a classic case of “just because we can do it doesn’t mean that we should”. Back in the old days, it was cool to show when you last updated your page. Microsoft FrontPage made it even more popular by adding a button to the program that automatically inserted this on your page.

But really you are just setting yourself up. Yes, the information may still be current, but that won’t be the perception if you advertise the last time you set your rates was January 23, 2004.

On the flip side, you can easily add a line of script that tells the website visitor that your website was Last Modified today — every time they come to visit. I do not recommend this. Not only is this misleading, but your visitors are not stupid. They’ll figure out the trick eventually, and could be ticked off that you are trying to throw one over on them. (Because hey, you are…)

And does having the last modified date on your web page really add any value anyway?

My advice: take out these tags altogether.

Conclusion

There are likely times when you do not have control over your clients’ websites, ebooks, brochures, and other finalized documents. Perhaps you are just there to write the copy, and a graphic designer does the rest. If this is the case, the only things you have control over are how dates are presented within the copy.

But if you notice other things about your clients’ content (i.e. out-of-date copyright notices on their websites, etc.) it wouldn’t hurt to mention it to them. They may not act on it, but they’ll appreciate your attention to detail — and that will certainly help you get the next project they have.

What about you? Any ideas for avoiding dated content? Let me know by leaving a comment!

~Graham

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One of the most time-consuming aspect of editing text is the “clean up”. Double-spaces between sentences, bulleted text with generic asterisks instead of bullets, and extra bits of code that seem to transfer when you copy and paste…

Well, you’ll be happy to know that you can fix many of these problems faster with the good ol’ Find/Replace tool. One secret you don’t often hear about is that you can actually replace a line of text with — nothing! That’s right, you can actually go through and in essence delete all the left over text that you don’t need.

Below are some examples.

Getting Rid of Double Spaces

To get rid of double spaces between sentences:

1. Open the Find/Replace tool
2. Insert a period with two spaces in the “Find” text box
3. Insert a period with one space in the “Replace” text box
4. Click “Replace All”

Don’t forget to repeat this with all possible punctuation, e.g. “!”, “?” and even quotation marks.

Getting Rid of “Generic” Bullets

Say that you are rewriting web content for a client. Usually the best way to start is to go to their current website, then copy and paste all the content into a Word document. You’ll notice that any bulleted text won’t transfer correctly. What I normally get is this:

*some bulleted text here
*some more bulleted text
*…

What it amounts to is four or five spaces with an asterisk. The old way of dealing with this is to go through and manually highlight, then delete from each line. But by using Find/Replace you can:

1. Enter the number of spaces and the asterisk currently in the document in the “Find” text box (cut and paste for best accuracy)
2. Enter nothing in the “Replace” text box
3. Click on “Replace All”

Now you will get an unbulleted list, which you can re-bullet in Word.

Adding “Smart” Quotes

Often, especially when transferring from the web to a Word document, you get the generic quotes. You can turn these into “smart” quotes (the nice curly kind) by using Find/Replace:

1. Enter a quotation mark in the “Find” text box (doesn’t matter what it looks like)
2. Enter a quotation mark in the “Replace” text box (doesn’t matter what it looks like)
3. Click on “Replace All”

All quotes will automatically turn into smart quotes. Don’t forget to do this for single quotation marks/apostrophes as well.

Getting Rid of Excessive Code

Sometimes some background code gets displayed in the transfer of text. For example, if you copy and paste text from Word into WordPress incorrectly, you can get bits of code between paragraphs that look like this:

To get rid of this, simply:

1. Add the line of code into the “Find” text box
2. Add nothing to the “Replace” text box
3. Click on “Replace All”

All the extra code will now be gone!

Do you have any of your own shortcuts using Find/Replace or some other feature? Let us know!

UPDATE: August 25, 2008 - Found a new trick: you can use Find and Replace in only one particular section of your document by highlighting that section. For example, if you wanted to change “one” to “two” in just one part of your file, highlight the section where you want to make the change, and Find and Replace. Anything outside of the highlighted section will remain unchanged!

~Graham

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