TMI #46: What does your brand stand for?

Have you ever read a blog with a speling eror or a structure of a sentence that was not right quite? 😉

Content with errors is ineffective. Period. As a reader, I stop when errors are present.

Bottom line? Editing is arguably just as important as the writing.

Here are 7 of our favorite editing tips from our talented editor Amalia:

1. Check for active vs. passive voice. Writing is stronger and more concise when using active voice. What's that? Placement of a noun before a verb in a sentence. Here’s an example of both:

Active: Tina rang the alarm at school when she smelled smoke.
Passive: The alarm was sounded during school as soon as Tina smelled smoke.

2. Spell-check does not find everything. They miss: the use of the wrong word in a sentence, such as homonyms, and the slight difference between words which makes the use of one more appropriate that the other. Here are a few examples:

They’re / Their / Their
Two / To / Too
Affect / Effect

3. Fact-check names, organizations, statistics and sources. We recently edited a blog written by a different writer for a client. The blog said Ukraine supplies 40% of the world’s wheat and linked to the stat’s source. When fact checking, we discovered that Ukraine accounts for 10% of the world’s wheat market. The article stated that World Food Program obtains 40% of its wheat from Ukraine. There’s a big difference there. We helped the client re-write the paragraph.

4. Use up-to-date stats. Best practice at Zissman Media is to use stats no more than two years old to ensure the information is relevant to not only the subject of the blog but how it pertains to the issue today. In this post-COVID world, using a stat from 2018 is no longer relevant.

5. Confirm hyperlinks actually link correctly. It’s great to add facts and stats within a blog, and hyperlinking to the source of that information only substantiates it— but only if the link works or actually connects to the correct information. When hyperlinks lead to a dead end, your blog immediately becomes less reliable.

6. Use your paragraphs as a tool. Writing is very formulaic. Paragraphs help substantiate and substantiate the point of your article. Consider writing an outline or having some sort of rubric in place before you write.

7. Make sure the content conforms to the right rules. AP style? Your organization’s style rules? Here are a few examples of how they could differ from organization to organization:

Comma usage. Some prefer to use the Oxford comma; others do not.
Noting sources or facts within a blog. Some businesses prefer to hyperlink to all stats or factual information within a blog; others prefer to hyperlink internal articles and use footnotes for external sources.
How titles and subheads are written. Some businesses would like to initial case titles and subheads; others prefer the sentence case format for both titles and subheads; while some take a hybrid approach.

Taking the time to edit your article before you hit send — no matter the format — will result in more organized and effective writing.

Thanks to our awesome editor, Amalia, for these tips!

Respond to this email and let me know what your biggest editing pet peeve is. We will publish a list of them in a future LinkedIn post.

All the best,
Mindi 😊