Next week, STC offers another great virtual conference, Technical Communication Content Strategy in the Mobile Device Age, from 4-6 December. Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger invited the session presenters to talk a bit about their topics. Today’s post comes from Marcia Riefer Johnston, who will be presenting the session “Write Tight(er): What ‘Conciseness’ Means, Why It Makes More Business Sense Today Than Ever, and How to Achieve It.” See the STC website for more information on the virtual conference and to register.
“The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”
How could Pascal have put this (well, its French equivalent) more concisely?
Twain supposedly said something like this too. So did Voltaire, Locke, Thoreau, and others. They all understood that tight writing takes time and effort. And skill.
When it comes to your writing, I leave the time and effort to you. If you’d like to hone your skill, though, step right up! Have I got a presentation for you.
Why bother? Like it or not, we all write for tablets and smartphones now. On a screen the size of a credit card, bloated text stands out more than ever. Factor in the cost of translating those extra words, and you’ve got yourself a business case.
Sign up for the STC virtual conference today for tips, tricks, examples, and inspiration for making your writing tighter—and making your readers (and your CFO) happier.