Writing Tips Archives - Page 2 of 2

The Beauty of Rhetoric

February 18, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

Last week, I wrote about the various words for love in Ancient Greece. Today, I continue my homage to the Greeks by attempting to revive the honor of a word that often stirs up negative feelings. A word that every marketing professional should be familiar with, including nonprofit marketers. The word is rhetoric.

While studying Public Relations and Communication Theory in college, I ran into the word rhetoric a lot, as well as the negative reactions that come with it. (I also faced a lot of negative reactions to the term “Public Relations”, but I won’t get into that today). Clichés such as “empty rhetoric” have emerged in the political arena and elsewhere. Misuse of the word has made it nearly synonymous with manipulation. Even Merriam-Webster has added a dimension of dishonesty to its definitions of rhetoric.

Let’s put thoughts of spin, trickery and dishonest politicians away for a minute and take a closer look. First emerging as a word in Ancient Greece, rhetoric literally means the art of rhetor, or, the art of oration. Essentially, it is the practice of effective communication. You don’t even have to have persuasion as a goal to practice rhetoric. You can educate. You can motivate. You can commemorate. In short, you can get people to listen to your message. And that’s important when you have a mission you care about; a mission others should know about.

The Ancient Greeks viewed rhetoric as an art form to be learned. While the concept didn’t start in Greece, Greek scholar Aristotle famously studied rhetoric and coined these terms closely associated with rhetoric: Ethos, pathos and logos. You may feel like you are reliving your Public Speaking 101 course here, but for those who aren’t familiar with the terms, this is the breakdown summary:

Ethos, pathos and logos are components to include in speech to make your message effective. Ethos means demonstrating your expertise of the topic on which you are talking. Pathos is an appeal to your listeners’ emotions, to get them to connect to your message in a personal way. Logos means ensuring your message is logical. If your message is lacking one of these components, it is less likely to be remembered, and less likely to be successful if your goal is to change opinions or behavior. While rhetoric’s origin is in speech, these same concepts can be applied to your writing as well.

If you still aren’t comfortable calling your organization’s communication rhetoric, that’s okay. Word meanings change constantly and quickly in our society, and this one may be a lost cause. But I encourage you to remember Aristotle’s advice the next time you are speaking or writing about your organization: 1. Establish your credibility, 2. Include a story or something similar that your listeners can relate to, and 3. Make sure what you are saying makes sense rationally.

While there are many language tools you can use to make your message more effective (some of which I will cover in future blog posts), ethos, pathos and logos are a good three words to keep in mind. And this may be my inner history nerd speaking, but isn’t it cool to know that the same techniques that were used over 1400 years ago are still relevant today?

Use These Words with Caution – Part 1 [#WordsThatWow]

February 10, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

[This is the next installment in our series explaining each of the words on our 2014 List of Words that Wow. We covered the ‘Never Use’ category. Now were moving into the ‘Use with Caution’ ones. It’s a long list, so we’re going to split this into a few different posts. First up, inspire and impact.]

Inspire: Inspirational quotes flood our Pinterest boards, Facebook walls, and desk calendars. Artists need inspiration to create, entrepreneurs need inspiration to succeed, and many of us need inspiration to feel fulfilled in our lives. Inspiration is a wonderful thing, right?

Absolutely. It’s for this reason that many organizations are excited to use it in their mission statements. “We inspire change.” “We inspire hope.” “We inspire (insert group of people here).” I’m sure you’ve heard all these before.

And these phrases sound nice. But stop and think about them. Is “inspiring change” the best way to convey what your organization does, especially if you only have a few words to do it? This phrase could apply to the vast majority of nonprofits out there. It doesn’t make you stand out, or even sound very interesting. Your words should reflect the awesome and unique organization you are.

If you are adamant about using the word inspire, make sure you are not using it as a means to an end. Nine times out of ten, it’s not enough to simply inspire. Be specific about what you are inspiring people to do (and maybe even how you’re doing it). Show how the inspiration you are causing makes a difference in the world. For example, “We inspire youth to become leaders.” can change to “We inspire youth to question status-quo policies and lead their communities to progressive change.” Sure, it’s a few more words, but it’s a much more memorable and accurate description of your organization.

Impact: Like inspire, impact is a word that doesn’t mean much on its own. Your organization is impacting lives. So what? How are you impacting them? When you answer this question, my guess is that you’ll find you can remove the word impact from the equation completely.

So, the next time you’re about to tell someone that your organization is inspiring change or creating impact, stop a moment. What are you really doing?

Consistency, Finding Content, and… Kittens?

January 28, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

This scenario may sound familiar to you: You’re sitting around your office’s conference table, brainstorming topics to put in your organization’s newsletter. You’re coming up with nothing. Nothing seems newsworthy. After a substantial pause in conversation, someone chimes in and says,

“We should only issue a newsletter when we have something important to share.”

On the surface, it seems like an appealing thought. We don’t have meetings unless there’s something to meet about, right? Why write when there’s nothing to write about?

The answer is consistency.

Nonprofit communications expert Kivi Leroux Miller explains, “You want people to remember you and look forward to receiving your newsletter.” The key phrase here is look forward to. They can’t look forward to reading your newsletter if they don’t know when it’s coming. Even if it’s infrequent (Miller suggests you can go as long as once every six weeks), you want to be consistent. Consistency also shows your audience that you are an awesomely organized and reliable organization, and you don’t do things willy-nilly. Added bonus!

Your next question may be: How do we get them to remember us, then, if we don’t have good content? You do have good content, you just have to find it.

There’s tons of advice available online and elsewhere about how to write engaging content. A quick Google search will show you that. But any writer will tell you, when you’re stuck on what to write, you just need to sit down and start writing. You have a lot hidden in your subconscious that doesn’t come out until you sit down and start typing. This technique is known as steam of consciousness. Type whatever comes into your head and don’t stop typing. You’ll end up with some nonsense, but I bet anything you’ll also come up with some great ideas.

If need some extra motivation, use this fun tool called WrittenKitten. For every 100 words you write, you get rewarded with a cute cat picture. It may seem silly, but it works. It’s actually addicting; I finding myself writing more just to see what the next cute little furball will look like. And when I’m done, I’m rewarded again with paragraphs of text filled with ideas.

So give it a try – you have nothing to lose and some extreme adorableness to gain.

mindle

Confident Writing is Sexy

January 21, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

[Note: Last week, we said hello to Tessa Srebro, who has joined the Claxon team as an intern. This is the first of many posts she’ll be doing about language, words and how you can use them to make the world a better place. How confident is your writing?]

“Confidence equals success.”

“Be confident in your choices.”

“Confidence is sexy.”

We hear phrases like this all the time. There are countless self-help programs and written advice on how to build your self-confidence. I hear from friends, both men and women, that they want a partner who is confident. If you think about it, the same goes for the organizations we support. We are more likely to trust an organization that appears confident. Who wants to support an organization that sounds like they don’t have confidence in their programs and their ability to produce results?

We, as humans, are drawn to confidence. It doesn’t only manifest itself in the way a person speaks or carries themself. In this world where our first contact with others is likely to be through websites, blogs, LinkedIn profiles, etc., it is important to convey confidence in the way you write, as well.

Here are a few ways to convey confidence in your writing:

1. Action Verbs = More Powerful Statements.

Which sounds more confident?

a. XYZ Organization is eradicating poverty by XYZ methods.

b. XYZ Organization eradicates poverty by XYZ methods.

Eliminate “to be” verbs such as “is” as much as possible!

2. Stay clear of wishy-washy extra words.

Your organization doesn’t “attempt to make change”, you “make change”! You aren’t “working to fight injustice”, you are “fighting injustice!”

3. Make your personality evident.

There are few things that show more confidence than being proud of what you are, and letting your supporters see that. Are you and your co-workers a little quirky? Embrace that. Don’t shield your personality behind a layer of status-quo, overused language.

Grammarly Photo

4. Take chances.

Part of having confidence is not being afraid of failure. If you find that something isn’t working, simply make an adjustment. The more often you fail, the less scary it becomes.

So get out there, get writing, and let your confidence shine!