copywriting Archives - Dodge Digital Marketing, LLC

The Art of Self-Editing

Tiffany Razzano Content Creation July 13, 2020

Whether you’re a freelance copywriter tearing through contract gigs at home, a journalist working out of a newsroom with an increasingly shrinking editorial staff, or somewhere in between, it should go without saying that self-editing is an important part of your writing process.

But I still have to say it because it’s so easy to forget how necessary self-editing is.

It’s also the most difficult part of the writing process for many people. Personally, it’s my least favorite task – my adult ADD can’t handle reviewing the same content multiple times. Still, I know it’s important.

Here are my secrets. Check out a few things I do to make self-editing a less tedious chore.

Edit as You Write

I read through my intro to this piece more times than I would have liked (and I should probably read through it again), but proofreading content as you write it is one of the easiest ways to ensure tight, well-written copy.

Not many people will want to do this from the start. Admittedly, it’s easy to get stuck in the mires and never move on. But I tend to edit my work section by section, finishing one before moving on to the next. You still need to proofread the entire piece once it is completed, but it makes for less work than if you never looked at it until that moment.

Outlines Keep You on Track

Before I begin writing any piece, I start taking notes and outline each blog post or article.

This keeps my work on track and makes life easier later. If I don’t know what to write about or if I get stuck, I can easily move on to the next section.

When self-editing, if I focus on each section, rather than the piece as a whole, I can determine if my writing has met the goal of that specific section. When each section meets the needs that I wrote in the outline, then the article as a whole will start to come together.

Read Aloud to Yourself

Hands down the easiest way to determine if something you’ve written is garbage is to read it aloud to yourself. (I just read this to myself and moved a few words around.)

If you stumble over something as you read it out loud, assume your reader will have the same problem.

This has always been the best, fastest, and easiest way to find mistakes. If it sounds awful when you read it to yourself, then it’s not well-written or useful copy.

Ask Someone Else to Look It Over

Whenever possible, have another pair of eyes look over your work. Because you’re so close to what you’ve written, it’s going to be hard for you to find typos and other problems.

Again, I say whenever possible. I know it’s hard to find people available to give your work a proofread, whether in-depth or cursory, exactly when you need it. But if you can, ask a friend or colleague or loved one to give your content a quick once over, especially if that’s the final stop before publishing something.

My girlfriend loves looking over my work and finding mistakes. (In fact, she just read through all of this.)

No matter what you’re writing, it’s hard to catch your own mistakes.

Never Fully Trust Spellcheck

Notice that I didn’t say not to use spellcheck. I use spellcheck (and Grammarly) all the time and so should you. I just disregard most of the changes it tells me to make.

Before using it, you need to be knowledgeable about grammar. Sometimes you might have specific style guides to follow. So, you need to know which suggestions to ignore.

At the same time, spellcheck has highlighted some massive mistakes, including spelling and grammar errors. Modern technology means these tools are constantly learning and improving. (Somehow it knew I spelled Instagram wrong earlier today. I didn’t know it even knew what Instagram was.)

There are other useful websites out there as well, including Grammarly and Hemingway Editor, that help with self-editing and readability. Again, some cautionary advice: you might not agree with all of their suggestions for your particular project.

If your publication has a style guide, make sure it’s available in advance. If there is no style guide, create an informal one for yourself including any specific spellings or irregular grammatical rules your publication uses.

Create a Self-Editing Checklist for Yourself

Before you write anything, create a self-editing checklist. Depending on who is publishing your work, you might want to create a checklist for each outlet as they might have different requirements.

Things to consider include:

Your headline. Does it immediately create a sense of what you’re writing about and invite readers to learn more?
Your introduction. Does it get straight to the point?
Your subheads. Do you cover everything you need to? How is your formatting? Do you have enough visual breaks?
Your conclusion. Do you wrap it all up succinctly?

If you create a checklist for the things you want to consider before hitting submit, you’ll end up with a better piece.

Preview Your Post

You’re probably already doing this, but make sure you give your article one final read before submitting it. If you’ve done a lot of work to it after the first draft, you might find an errant word or two.

Hopefully, these suggestions bring you through the self-editing process which can help you to create a more polished piece.

Tiffany Razzano is a journalist and copywriter living in the Tampa Bay area. For the past 8 years, she served as an editor at Tampa Bay Newspapers. She also writes regularly for La Gaceta, Watermark, The Free Press, and Creative Pinellas. She’s the founder/president/creative director of the literary arts nonprofit Wordier Than Thou, which supports Florida writers and readers through community events, publishing projects, and educational opportunities.

It’s Okay to Use the First Person in Your Professional Blog Content

Amanda Dodge Branding, Content Creation March 2, 2020

As you start to develop your brand and blog style guide, you may become conflicted over the narrative voice that you want to use. Does jumping into the first person seem too informal? Should you even reference yourself in a professional blog, or is that too casual? These are common questions that I often answer when working with clients for the first time.

Spoiler alert: You can see where I stand on the issue. I believe there is a time and place for using I/we as long as it matches your brand goals.

This post will focus on the different narrative voices that you can choose for your branded blog. It will cover why some companies limit writers to the third-person and the pros and cons of using each. Finally, it will empower you to choose your narrative voice, whether it is the first-person, second-person, or all three.

Know Your Points of View

Let’s take a step back to grammar school and review the different points of view that you can choose for your writing. You have three main options:

First person: we recommend following the industry best practices… our clients have benefitted from…
Second person: if you are considering… the best choice for your brand is…
Third person: small business owners who need… if they find themselves lacking… their best option is…

As the team at ACM training explain:

“The first person (me) puts the writer centre stage. The second puts the reader (you) in the spotlight. And the third views things from an audience’s point of view (he, she, they) – way up in the cheap seats at the back of the auditorium if you like.”

Bloggers as a whole are split on which forms of voice are best. While some think the third person is the best option professionally, others think it is too formal. Meanwhile, other writers suggest avoiding the first person unless it is used to position the writer as a position of authority.

Consider what Georgy Cohen of MeetContent has to say:

“I believe the use of first-person is a privilege. It connotes a truth, an intimacy, an authentic perspective, and thus a power unlike any other. It is innately personal — in some instances confessional.”

He goes on to say that this privilege can easily be abused – and points to clickbait publications like Buzzfeed who use it as a shock-factor.

While he has a point, the first person, especially the first person plural, can be used to create a sense of community and connect a group of people. For example, the sentence: “While we try to stick to our New Year’s resolutions, many of us fail by the end of January.” is more engaging and inclusive than, “Most people can’t stick to their resolutions,” or “If you already gave up on your resolution…” It can be used to create more compassion and intimacy.

Your Age and Background May Reflect Your Narrative Choices

There are several factors that contribute to your point of view selections, including your upbringing and education. If you have an academic or journalistic background, then switching to a more colloquial writing style might seem unprofessional to you. Additionally, age may even play a factor.

One study from 2014 by the University of Pennsylvania’s World Well-Being Project (WWBP) looked at the Facebook posts of 75,000 volunteers. They found that the older you are, the less likely you are to use the first-person, preferring the third-person instead.

“When we are in new situations and are trying to establish an identity, we tend to be more self-focused, which comes out through higher rates of ‘I’-words,” social psychologist James Pennebaker, author of The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us, explains. “[But as people age] we become less concerned with our own shortcomings and can sit back and watch the world a bit more objectively.”

This doesn’t mean you can shake off any request to use the third person with an “ok boomer,” response, but it may help explain why someone writes a certain way. I would also like to add that since the days of MySpace and Livejournal, the internet has favored more colloquial writing. This means that younger generations may favor the first person along with a more casual writing style because it is how they feel comfortable communicating on the web.

Your Narrative Voice Reflects Your Brand

The challenge is that we don’t always have the luxury of writing how we choose. Brand managers and marketing executives set the tone for their blogs – and that includes the point of view. Copywriters need to put aside their personal preferences to match the tone and writing style of their clients or bosses.

Your blog content reflects how you interact with your customers – and how you expect them to interact with you. Opting for a formal way of speaking and professional manner of voice may convey a sense of authority, but it doesn’t always make your brand seem approachable. While a medical office or law firm may want to seem confident in their writing, they also need to be compassionate. This creates a conflict between the blog manager and senior marketing teams, who want to connect with the target audience without losing their authoritative branding.

It is Possible (and Likely) That You Will Mix and Match Your Narrative Voice

As you develop your blog content, it is likely that some posts will focus on the second person while others use the first person. An announcement about a leadership change will likely use the first person, while a how-to guide will sway more to the second-person. Allowing your writers to determine the best voice for your blog can help them focus on the message, rather than massaging sentence structure to account for an outdated style guide.

It is also possible that you will use different tenses within the same post. For example, if you are creating a tutorial, then you may start off using the second person, but then jump into the first person to explain why you do things a certain way.

The key to success when jumping around tenses is to have guidelines for consistency. You can use whatever tense you want as long as you have a reason for it. You may switch between the second and third person to break up the synonyms and improve flow, or you may require writers to stick to one narrative style throughout one piece of content. It’s up to your brand.

Test Different Writing Styles to Find Your Brand Voice

As you publish your first few blog posts this year, work to establish your brand voice that other writers and marketers can follow. This voice should be consistent across all site copy and printed materials.

Test different writing styles that match your brand to see how your audiences react. You may find that the first person point of view is more inclusive than you realize, paving the way to make it more acceptable in your blogging.

Image by Hugo Ataide from Pixabay

copywriting