Many readers like specifics—they bring characters and settings to life, allowing readers to visualize them in greater detail.
Learn to use Microsoft Word’s Track Changes function (under Review > Track Changes) to show what you’ve changed in a document. This is especially handy if you decide to work with a professional editor, so that you can both see what changes are being made or suggested and so you can learn from the experience to make your next piece even better.
Therefore, read the content first, then edit. Pretend that you’re a reader who’s never seen this piece before and look at it with fresh eyes.
Once you start to notice your recurring errors, you can start to correct them during the writing process naturally.
9. Use Specific Language
In writing, specifics can be found in the details that you incorporate. General phrases like “she was a wonderful lady” should be avoided. Rather, specify what exactly makes that lady wonderful.
To isolate yourself from your content so that you can better assess it, read it slowly and out loud—we catch many issues when we change modes, and you’ll notice things when speaking your work aloud that you might have glossed over when reading silently.
Have a good night’s sleep and go back to your manuscript the following day. Even when dealing with that short document that you finished writing within a couple of hours, look at it again the following day. You will be able to locate all the errors easily when you have a little space.
It becomes difficult to follow what an author is saying if sentences run on for too long—if you want your sentences to be clear, keep them shorter than 15 words. Use ideas from descriptive essay topics to help you.
Tip: Visuals that were included in a presentation deck can be a great starting point for creating visuals for a white paper — especially if they were already well-received by internal audiences.
If needed, you can produce a series of papers based around a single study. This ensures that each paper is easy enough to digest, while also enticing readers to actively look out for more content from your company — thus driving constant, rather than one-off, engagement.
It can be hard to know where to start when it comes to writing a white paper, so we’ve compiled a list of best practices that hold true regardless of the topic or audience you’re writing for:
White papers don’t just present research findings
4. Tell people what they’re going to learn at first glance
The age of text-heavy white papers is long gone — today, beautiful design and visual storytelling are necessary elements for consumption. When reviewing the data points that will go in your white paper, select about a third of all key findings and plan to include complementary visuals that will bring these points to life. This is especially important for more complex points, relationships, and models. If you’re not sure where to start, color-coding and icon-coding always go a long way in making more complex white papers easy to navigate and digest.
Through conversations with clients, we’ve seen that agreeing on the scope of a white paper tends to be the most important and complex decision to make. Long-term research studies produce an overwhelming amount of data, and as a result, prioritization is key. It’s necessary to decide on the most important or widely applicable findings to ensure that the paper isn’t too dense.
Kelton Case Study: We collaborated with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to conduct an ethnographic study designed to closely examine the daily social/emotional experiences of teachers. We then took the insights we learned and collaborated with HMH to produce a white paper that examined teaching in a high-tech, high-touch world.
Tip: Bold titling and numbered sections or topics can ease the navigation process and ensure your readers are staying connected to the story.
Poetry and politics combine in this lesson where students write a free verse poem in the voice of Cesar Chavez.
This strategy guide introduces the RAFT technique and offers practical ideas for using this technique to teach students to experiment with various perspectives in their writing.
What did the wolf think of Red Riding Hood? Once Upon a Fairy Tale offers his side of the story and more, providing vivid examples of how voice enlivens narrative. After comparing versions of the story, students apply the concept of voice to Fractured Fairy Tales and other writing activities.
Students watch a sample of artistic video clips online and respond through creative writing while using the vocabulary words they are currently studying.
Research Basis
Students learn that you don't have to raise your voice to raise a point. Writing a persuasive letter to your principal is a great way to get your opinions heard.
RAFT assignments encourage students to uncover their own voices and formats for presenting their ideas about content information they are studying. Students learn to respond to writing prompts that require them to think about various perspectives:
The more often students write, the more proficient they become as writers. RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their role as a writer and how to effectively communicate their ideas and mission clearly so that the reader can easily understand everything written. Additionally, RAFT helps students focus on the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students to write creatively, to consider a topic from multiple perspectives, and to gain the ability to write for different audiences. In the book, Strategic Writing, Deborah Dean explains that writing for differing purposes and audiences may require using different genres, different information, and different strategies. Developing a sense of audience and purpose in writing, in all communication, is an important part of growth as a writer.
- Role of the Writer: Who are you as the writer? A movie star? The President? A plant?
- Audience: To whom are you writing? A senator? Yourself? A company?
- Format: In what format are you writing? A diary entry? A newspaper? A love letter?
- Topic: What are you writing about?
The great writer George Orwell once said that good writing is like a clear pane of glass. Clarity is the all-important hallmark of good writing. Don’t confuse your reader. Know what you want to convey and do it as simply as possible.
Timeliness cuts through the fog of an oversaturated internet. If you're writing on a subject that’s topping the headlines, put a new spin on it. If your subject is as old as time itself, present it in a modern, relevant light.
Consider the advice of Joe Sugarman, one of the best copywriters of all time. Sugarman says that the main purpose of the first sentence is to make you want to read the second sentence.
Who is reading your article? What is their life like? Do they have a family? Are they starting a career? Knowing why someone is coming to your article is a major step in knowing what to say to them and, most importantly, how to appeal to them on an emotional level.
7. Open a Dialogue
In addition, stories help us to draw conclusions. They help you to lead your readers in the right direction.
- Subheading 1
Summary sentence - Subheading 2
Summary sentence - Subheading 3
Summary sentence
A solid understanding of some basic writing strategies will help you create successful blog posts, copy or articles, but it's just as important to know what not to do. Check out this Writtent post on writing tactics to avoid.
Once kids master the basic strategy, add the phrase SH! as in SH! C.O.P.S. The "S" stands for sentence structure and the "H" stands for handwriting. Now kids have a comprehensive tool they can use to make their writing look and sound good.
- Teach the phrase and what each letter stands for.
- Show examples of sentence or paragraph revisions using the strategy by narrating each step out loud.
- Offer partner or individual exercises to practice the skills and keep a poster in sight with each step explained.
For example, in a book report, kids know they need to capitalize the title of the book and the author's name, so they can make note of this in their outline. The point of the planning phase is to organize thoughts before writing so that takes care of the "O." As a child plans the type of writing for the project she determines if special punctuation marks like exclamation points would be acceptable. If she's writing a persuasive essay or opinion-based review these punctuations would be acceptable whereas in a research paper they may not be.
Developed by the University of Kansas, this acronym was developed to help kids with learning disabilities, but it can help kids write better, regardless of ability. While it was initially created as the C.O.P.S. editing strategy, it can be used in many other ways including as a writing strategy for children.
Standard Use
As a child writes every word, sentence and paragraph, each of the aspects of the C.O.P.S. strategy should be active in his brain. As he writes a sentence, a student could say to himself, "I capitalize the first word, make sure my subject and verbs agree, spell each word correctly in the context of my sentence and end with the correct punctuation." If he does this as he writes, the revision process is easier.
Click on the checklist image to download and print a two-sided document featuring the SH! COPS acronym kids can use for all their writing and editing. If you have any trouble accessing the checklist, consult the Adobe Guide for troubleshooting tips.
An editing checklist helps children double-check their work by prompting them to look for specific things each time they read through their work.