EduTech gEEks…We’re a new brEEd

Are my blogs wordy or worthy?

Maria Schneider, in her Writer’s Digest blog, The Writer’s Perspective by Maria Schneider, talks about keeping blog word count to a limit of 300 words or less.

GEEZ, Maria! That seems so short!

It (wordiness, that is) was actually listed as the #10 tip in her previous blog titled, 20 Tips for Good Blogging (I blogged on this article too under the same title…for easy referencing).

This time, after receiving many complaints from her readers, she goes more in depth about why a word limit is necessary. Her recommendation has logical significance behind it: avoiding fluff and keeping your readers from hitting the snooze on your blog.

Anywho…I like details, not too many details, but enough to explain and define my subject matter. My blog discusses eLearning/Instructional Design specific content, so defining and detailing is necessary for clarification and differentiation of terms.

I recommend taking into account Ms. Schneider’s professional advice. She is one of the more informative and knowledgeable writers/bloggers out here in our cyber world.

Yes, good sentence structure is necessary knowledge for IDs. The project manager for my current ID project has three writing rules:

1. First Person (It’s really second person if you’re referring to the learner as “you”.)
2. Active Voice (no passive language)
3. Present Tense for Verbs

I did not notice how many times I made these mistakes, until now. Writing passively seems to be my numero uno guilty pleasure. The good thing is MS Word allows you to set these parameters. Thus, correcting your mistakes as you work. Pretty convenient.

Today, I came across a Writer’s Digest article titled, The Four Commandments of Writing Good Sentences. According to this article, the four rules are:

1. You shall not write passively.
2. You shall not overuse weak verbs like “to be” and “to have.”
3. You shall not fluff.
4. You shall make every word necessary.

Pretty good stuff, right? I’d say…oops…I say so…or I believe so. Trying to avoid that passive voice.

Discussions of such techniques occur in business writing courses and websites. So, if you want to learn more, google these writing techniques:

1. Business Writing
2. Technical Writing
3. Professional Writing

My New Goal: To make the above mentioned rules a part of my natural writing style.