Whether we are editing English for clients or writing original copy for them, we have noticed we are often asked the same questions. So we have gathered up the five most common ones and asked our Senior Copywriter and Editor Paul Murphy to answer them for us.
What is the key to writing good copy?
‘Good copy’ is about building a bridge from the client to the audience he or she is trying to reach. So, you need a thorough understanding of both the client and the audience, how they think and feel about the subject, in order to choose the right kind of language to use to communicate between them.
Building a bridge between the writer and audience
I think it is also very important to cultivate your awareness of ‘bad copy’, in your own writing as well as other people’s. As I work mostly as an editor, I spend a lot of time correcting and improving other people’s writing. However, we rarely make the time to look at our own writing so carefully and critically; we can easily assume that our own writing is just fine, that we are free of the faults we dislike in others. To produce good writing of any kind requires a lot of self-awareness, and a lot of painstaking review and redrafting.
How do you tailor your writing for different target audiences?
The key questions to keep in mind about ‘audience’ – whether you are writing a short e-mail to a colleague or a nationwide advertising campaign that is seeking to reach tens of millions of people – are how much do they know? about the topic already and how much do they need to know? Conciseness is a great virtue in writing, especially in business writing. You have to give people all the information they need to fully understand your message in as few words as possible.
Your message – in as few words as possible
The audience also determines the kind of language it is appropriate for you to use. For example, business writing is mostly very formal, whereas advertising copy tends to be much more informal. However, you might be rather less formal in writing a short internal memo for your work team than you would be in compiling a report for the CEO; and advertising copy directed at older consumers is usually rather more formal in its language than that which targets young people. You need to be aware of your audience’s ‘voice’ – the way they speak to each other – and use elements of that in your writing style.
When it is appropriate to use jargon?
Many audiences have elaborate technical vocabularies of their own: merchant bankers or computer scientists use a lot of jargon – words and phrases that are unique to their fields and are not widely understood or even recognised by anyone else. It is important to remember that many types of communication will be directed to a rather wider audience, to people outside of this specific industry or specialism who may not be completely familiar with its jargon vocabulary.
Even within the industry or specialism, not everyone will share the same level of expertise. And using too much jargon can make your writing difficult to read, even for people who know these words. You need to be aware of the jargon that is specific to a given company or industry, and try to restrict how much you use it even when communicating with an audience of fellow specialists. When addressing a wider audience, you need to consider greatly reducing or perhaps completely eliminating such jargon.
This is part one of a two-part post, the other two questions relating to the tone of your writing and handling difficult topics can be found here.
About the Author: Paul moved to China ten years ago, where he worked at first as a university teacher and a business trainer. However, he soon began to find work editing and polishing Chinese-to-English translations for academic journals, and later expanded into original copy writing for business information services, management consultancies, and PR firms.
Photo credit: Thomas Hawk & Ivy Dawned via photopin cc
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