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Self-Promoting Puffery, Technical Tripe, and Creative Crap

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cut out bloated wordsPeople’s time is scarce, and their attention is precious. If you want to get your audience to read your emails, newsletters, posts, etc., then follow Jill Konrath‘s advice and cut the following words out of your writing.

They fall into three categories.

Self-Promoting Puffery

  1. One-stop shopping
  2. Industry leader
  3. Breakthrough
  4. Partner
  5. Groundbreaking
  6. Impressive
  7. Unique
  8. Innovative
  9. State-of-the-art
  10. Powerful
  11. Outstanding
  12. Cost-effective
  13. Experienced
  14. Number one
  15. Premier

Technical tripe

  1. Next-generation
  2. Disruptive
  3. Flexible
  4. Robust
  5. World-class
  6. Easy-to-use
  7. Cutting-edge
  8. Value-added
  9. Mission-critical
  10. Leading-edge
  11. Turnkey
  12. Best-of-breed
  13. Enterprise-class
  14. User-friendly
  15. Scalable

Creative Crap

  1. Outside the box
  2. Revolutionary
  3. The big idea
  4. Synergy
  5. Dramatic
  6. Strategic
  7. Game changer
  8. Customer-centric
  9. Voice of the customer
  10. Critical mass
  11. Buzz
  12. Make it pop
  13. Break through the clutter
  14. Next level
  15. Impactful

Jill has given us a good list of the jargon that annoys people in business. What would you add to her list?  What are some of the cliches, buzzwords, and overused terms you see in the nonprofit sector?

Nonprofit Writing: Follow the Golden Rule

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Golden Rule

You know it and I know it: a lot of nonprofit writing is just painful to read.

We donate to our favorite causes. In return, we get newsletters full of jargon, emails full of typos, fundraising letters that sound like they’re written in French–because the organization says “We, we, we.”

As people who work for nonprofits, and to ensure their success, we can and should do something about this! Make sure your organization asks itself these five tough questions:

1. Are you listening long enough before you write?

2. Do you think longer and more complicated is more impressive? (Your readers don’t!)

3. Are you writing memos when you should be telling stories?

4. Are you burying the lead? (Does the reader know from the start why he or she should read on?)

5. Are You as Good a Communicator as Shakespeare’s Fools? (Will people invite you to speak truth fearlessly to them because you leaven it with humor?)

None of us wants to cause pain to our supporters. But that means we must think what our supporters want to read! The golden rule of writing is to write unto others the way you wish they wrote unto to you.

How Your Nonprofit Can Listen like Austen, Write like Hemingway

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Jane Austen

Listen like Austen

Jane Austen was one of the most beloved authors of the 19th century.  She wrote all her novels by sitting in company and paying attention to what people said.

Her dialogue sparkles: it sounds like real people talking, and with every word, they reveal what they care about and who they are.

Be like Jane Austen. Before you start to write, listen. On social media, in person, every way you can: find out about your audience and what  moves them.

That way, people will want to read your nonprofit’s messages!

Write like Hemingway

Write like Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was one of the most read authors of the 20th century. When he sat down to write, he chopped away adverbs, adjectives, and description. He told the whole story through dialogue and action.

Be like Ernest Hemingway. Whether you’re writing a newsletter, blogging, using social media, or asking for money, be brief. Leave out everything your audience doesn’t care to read. (There’s an app for that!)

Listen like Austen, to catch every detail. Write like Hemingway, to be read.

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