‘Tis the season for ambitious goal-setting in all areas of our lives. While you may have set New Year’s resolutions related to your health, your career, and your relationships, you may want to also think about ways that you can improve your writing in 2018.
Well, at least I did. Even though I make my living as a financial writer, I still have areas for improvement as a writer. One of the benefits of having a professional copy editor on my team who thoroughly reviews all of my work is that I get a valuable stream of feedback about the mistakes that I make and the things that I can do better.
Here are five ways that I’m looking to improve my financial writing in 2018:
- Use shorter sentences. Often, when I’m reviewing a first draft that I wrote, I realize that many of my sentences are long and complex. When you’re explaining complicated ideas, like I do when writing white papers and other forms of thought leadership, you frequently need to use compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. There is nothing wrong with doing this occasionally, but I need to guard against stringing several long sentences together. Instead, I need to look for ways to break one long sentence into two shorter ones. Also, I should intersperse short, punchy sentences into my paragraphs. The occasional two- to five-word sentence is a nice change-of-pace and can have an outsized impact on the reader. I promise.
- Be more concise. Many people’s resolutions focus on tightening their physiques. I, on the other hand, have resolved to tighten my writing. When my copy editor reviews my drafts, he occasionally finds phrases that don’t add clarity or impact. For example, I might write, “In 2017, investors enjoyed broad-based gains in their equity portfolios, as all major indices delivered their highest returns for investors in four years.” I could convey the same information by writing, “In 2017, the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all delivered their highest returns since 2013.”
- Include more concrete examples. Many of the financial concepts that I write about are fairly abstract. I think that I succeed at explaining these concepts in ways that make sense to the reader, but I know that I can make the ideas even more tangible and relevant by using more case studies and illustrations. For example (See what I did there?), rather than just articulating a portfolio manager’s belief that the market isn’t giving a company enough credit for its track record of successful acquisitions, I should also list a few of those acquisitions and include details quantifying the impact on the bottom line.
- Ask more follow-up questions. Being able to provide more concrete examples means that I have to do a better job of getting the bankers, portfolio managers, and other subject-matter experts (SMEs) whom I interview to further elaborate. Often, an SME will bring up a high-level idea during the interview and quickly move on to the next topic. By neglecting to ask the SME to elaborate on that point and provide specific examples, I’m doing my readers a disservice. (Note to my clients who are reading this blog post: Be ready for more follow-up questions from me in 2018.)
- Be consistent with contractions. This last resolution is about a minor mistake, but it’s one that I make frequently: I jump back-and-forth in my use of contractions in the same document. For example, in an article about tax reform, I might write, “You will be limited to $10,000 of deductions for state and local taxes starting in 2018” in one paragraph. Then, in the next paragraph, I might write, “You’ll also be limited in the amount of mortgage interest you can deduct if you take out a new mortgage of more than $750,000.” Neither approach is wrong, but it’s important to be consistent.
If you adopt only one writing-related resolution for 2018, I recommend that it be creating a style guide for your firm. A style guide is an invaluable tool for ensuring consistency across your firm’s written communications—and for preempting time-wasting debates about grammar rules.
To get you kickstarted on creating your style guide, I’ve created a free template.
Good luck with your writing, and non-writing, resolutions in 2018!
About the Author
Scott Wentworth is the founder and head financial writer at Wentworth Financial Communications. Scott’s resolution to eat fewer baked goods lasted until he realized that his wife had an extra batch of her famous Nutella-filled chocolate chip cookies in the freezer leftover from Christmas.