{"id":84,"date":"2013-10-19T17:06:52","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T17:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/?p=84"},"modified":"2024-10-02T08:42:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T08:42:50","slug":"tricks-of-the-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/2013\/10\/19\/tricks-of-the-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Video Post: Tricks of the Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By <strong><a title=\"Chris Sparks\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/about\/chris-sparks\/\">Chris Sparks<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>We&#8217;re halfway through the six videos from the videos from the <\/em>Writing Project <em>series.\u00a0 This week, QMUL historians share their <\/em>&#8216;Tricks of the Trade&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/oI4iKsgPZro?rel=0\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>One of the things that struck me when we were recording our interviews was the sheer variety of the responses. None of our interviewees had quite the same approach to any of the questions we asked them \u2013 they wrote in different ways, in different places, and with different tools. I shouldn&#8217;t have been surprised.\u00a0 Writing is personal, like all human communication, and the best writers bring something of themselves to their work.\u00a0This is why we talk about writers \u2018finding their voice\u2019.\u00a0Everyone has one, and the best way to find it is to start writing.<\/p>\n<p>Writing can be hard, though, and no-one can tell you exactly how to do it. Just as all writing is different, there&#8217;s no one way of writing well. That\u2019s why we don&#8217;t have a video called \u2018how to write\u2019. But one of the great things about the diversity of writing methods is that there&#8217;s always something new to discover, and\u00a0hopefully some of the tips in our video will work for you.<\/p>\n<p>We could only fit so much in five minutes, though, and there are plenty more tricks of the writer\u2019s trade. \u00a0In this post, I&#8217;m going to share three of my own writing tips. It&#8217;d be great to hear some of yours, whoever you are and however much writing you&#8217;ve done.\u00a0Post them in the comments below, or <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=%40QMWriteMatters%20\">share them with us on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Respect your readers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All writing is going to be read, even if only by its author. It&#8217;s only polite to consider the reader when you&#8217;re writing.\u00a0Imagine you were the intended reader, and ask yourself, \u2018what do I want from this piece?\u2019; \u2018does it make sense?\u2019; \u2018has it engaged me?\u2019\u00a0Above all, try not to bore them. This applies to all writing, whether it\u2019s a novel, job application, or e-mail. And if you can&#8217;t be interesting, at least be clear and concise.\u00a0 Which leads me to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Spurious use of multisyllabic verbiage and abstruse terminology does not aid communication or increase readers&#8217; respect for your intellect.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Or, to put it another way, big words don&#8217;t make you look clever. It&#8217;s tempting to stuff your sentences, particularly when writing to a word count.\u00a0This won&#8217;t make your writing better or your argument more convincing.\u00a0Quite the opposite: it will confuse your meaning and annoy your readers.\u00a0Making sense of complex ideas using everyday language is far more impressive.\u00a0 George Orwell wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtholyoke.edu\/acad\/intrel\/orwell46.htm\">a brilliant essay about this in 1946<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtholyoke.edu\/acad\/intrel\/orwell46.htm%5d.\u00a0\">.\u00a0<\/a>His six \u2018rules\u2019 can help to make good writing great, though <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/blogs\/prospero\/2013\/07\/george-orwell-writing\">they need not be followed slavishly<\/a>.\u00a0And finally&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Ask for feedback, and act on it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Persuade a trusted friend or colleague to read your writing, and offer to read theirs in return.\u00a0Ask them to give you feedback.\u00a0You don&#8217;t need to know whether they agree with your argument, but whether your piece made sense.\u00a0You may not accept every suggestion, but try to take all feedback seriously. If you think, \u2018she&#8217;s totally missed my point there\u2019, then you might need to think about how you can make the point clearer.<\/p>\n<p>These are just my tips.\u00a0 Not every trick will work for every writer but nearly every writer will have some. Taking the time to think about what works for you may seem odd at first, especially as it is usually something we do when we think we are &#8220;doing it wrong.&#8221; But taking the time to think about your own habits can help you to see what you are doing right, which (for what it&#8217;s worth) is another useful trick for writing, and life!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Chris Sparks We&#8217;re halfway through the six videos from the videos from the Writing Project series.\u00a0 This week, QMUL historians share their &#8216;Tricks of the Trade&#8217;. One of the things that struck me when we were recording our interviews was the sheer variety of the responses. None of our interviewees had quite the same &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/2013\/10\/19\/tricks-of-the-trade\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Video Post: Tricks of the Trade<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/writingmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}