XML FeedsCategory: Style
What advice can you give regarding paragraph length in a newsletter?
By Henry Ruddle on Aug 24, 2010 | In Writing/Editing FAQ, Style
--Nancy H.Nancy -- Newsletters should bear no resemblance whatsoever to research studies, five-paragraph essays, technical white papers or rambling personal letters. They should tell the reader who, what, why, etc. and then stop. Paragraphs of one se… more »
Creative Writing
By Henry Ruddle on Sep 12, 2008 | In Writing/Editing, Style, Humor
A creative writing class at Oxford University in England was asked to write a concise essay containing the following elements:
ReligionRoyaltySexMystery.
The prizewinner finished with just one sentence: "My God," said the queen, "I'm pregnant. I won… more »
I support a government agency in which acronyms are more often used than the phrases they represent. Do you have any guidance on how to balance their use in our publications?
By Henry Ruddle on Apr 12, 2006 | In Writing/Editing, FAQs, Writing/Editing FAQ, Style, Grammar, Newsletters-Internal
--Kay Grinter, InDyne, Inc.
Kay -- Ah, the old "everybody knows what that means" conundrum. It's amazingly common, even outside acronymland. There is no scientific answer because the boundary between terms that "everybody knows" and those that need ex… more »
Making Taxes More Taxing With Gobbledygook
By Henry Ruddle on Apr 12, 2006 | In Writing/Editing, Style, Humor
Since April is tax month for most people in the United States, we're going to celebrate it by sharing a few humorous bits of nonsense. First, this gem from the Australian Taxations Office for its Goods and Services legislation
‘For the purpose of maki… more »
Hyphens
By Henry Ruddle on Oct 11, 2005 | In Writing/Editing, Style, Grammar, Format, Newsletters-Internal, Newsletters-Marketing
Small, Tricky and Guaranteed to Break Every-
Body Up (at least when "everybody" is at the end of a line)
There are two kinds of hyphens -- the "link hyphen" used for compound words such as "co-opt," and the "break h… more »
