While the goal of “improving your content writing” may seem complex, it’s not necessarily more complicated than improving each sentence you write.
Better sentences add up to better content.
So, let’s break down content writing into sentence writing.
I’m not about to show you how to write a “perfect” sentence. Instead, these three tips will help you remember that every sentence you write is an opportunity to practice.
And during your writing practice, you can implement smart changes that keep your reader focused on your message.
1. No sentence is an island
Even if you’re examining just one individual sentence, it’s helpful to review the sentences that surround it.
There are two main reasons why:
- You may have overused a word. Sometimes you’ll intentionally repeat a word for emphasis or because it fits the rhythm of your writing. But we often overuse words without meaning to. When you review your writing, vary your word choice to create a more stimulating reading experience.
- You may have belabored a point. Give each sentence you write a specific purpose. If you communicate the exact same idea in two different sentences, it’s probably wise to delete one.
When you look at the broader context of your writing while aiming to improve one sentence, you kick off a sort of domino effect. Noticing one weakness helps you correct other weaker sections.
2. Writing skin needs exfoliation
The most “advanced” skill you can learn is to examine your own writing with a critical eye.
A critical eye doesn’t mean you’re so hard on yourself that you get discouraged. It just lets you swiftly identify areas of your sentences that either hinder comprehension or lack the details that magnetically hold attention.
I like the comparison to skin exfoliation because rough drafts, like dry skin, are … rough.
For example, you’re probably already familiar with the benefits of using active verbs instead of passive verbs.
Changing a sentence from “Joplin was devastated by the twister” to “The twister devastated Joplin” exfoliates the sentence to make it smoother.
Removing extra words is another form of exfoliation.
Here’s an example from my recent article on finding more loyal readers. I’ve bolded the extra words in the draft of this paragraph.
Edith likes Frank’s article idea, but she needs to consult with him and educate him on the type of content that is the right fit for Cosmopolitan. She’ll give him their writer guidelines so he can use them to match the tone and style of his article to the publication’s specifications.
Here’s the published version of that paragraph.
Edith likes Frank’s article idea, but she needs to educate him on the type of content that is the right fit for Cosmopolitan. She’ll give him their writer guidelines so he can match the tone and style of his article to the publication’s specifications.
To give you one more example, in the draft of this article I wrote, “Here’s the final version of the paragraph that we published.” As you can see above, that sentence turned into, “Here’s the published version of that paragraph.”
Developing an eye for excess will sharpen your writing.
3. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
When I edit, I always have a browser tab with a Google search bar open.
Why?
Because I’m constantly looking up the meanings of words or idioms that I don’t consider straightforward — anything that sticks out and makes me question whether or not it is correct.
Even if I’m 95 percent certain, it’s always beneficial to verify that it’s the most appropriate word or phrase.
My Google search browser tab is also helpful for double-checking the spellings of proper names, places, products, and companies.
The bottom line here is valuing professional editorial standards that help guarantee accuracy. Take the time to ensure your readers effortlessly understand your content and aren’t distracted by a misspelling, or the incorrect use of a word or idiom.
Over to you …
How do you determine if you’ve written a strong sentence or a weak sentence?
What are your favorite ways to review your drafts?
Since it’s also content challenge week on Copyblogger, I challenge you to critically examine each sentence you write before you post your comment below.
Reader Comments (30)
The more you write – and read! – the better you get at identifying what works – and what doesn’t 🙂
For sure, Andrea! 🙂
You make an excellent point about the young not getting the training required in school these days to write effectively. Your article and future tips will go a long way in helping me and others improve our communications.
In my early days of marketing, I wrote every headline, story, press release. When getting started that is what you do. I was fortunate to meet someone that I trusted to edit my writing and found that she consistently improved every piece I wrote and was able to adjust the content to meet the needs of many applications.
I believe however well your written words have worked thus far, getting a good editor to take a look will result in much better communications. Although you will have to get comfortable with lots of red ink.
Yes, getting comfortable with that red ink (and learning from it) leads to a lot of growth as a writer. 🙂
Great tips! As our young people learn less and less about good writing in school, we all need to publish and share tips like this in as many forums as possible. (They are also helpful for people who come to English as a second language.)
Our company writes proposals often have severe page limits. I’ve taught my coworkers: “There’s ALWAYS more room.” But finding space requires ruthless editing — usually along the lines of your “exfoliating” tip above. To wit, your published version of the paragraph above would look like this in my proposal:
Edith likes Frank’s article idea, but she needs to educate him on Cosmopolitan’s editorial focus. She’ll give him their writer guidelines so his article will match the publication’s tone and style.
The goal is to cut and rewrite every phrase until you cannot lose any more meaning. If two words or phrases refer to the same object, cut one of them. Lose almost every preposition phrase and use a possessive instead.
Sometimes this approach offends some writers who feel the editor has intruded on their creative expression or style. But my first journalism writing professing told us to “Never fall in love with anything you write” — meaning that you’ll almost always have an editor whose job is to improve your writing. Most of the time, cutting words also improves legibility and clarity.
Thanks for sharing, Bruce!
What a master job you did editing that paragraph! 🙂
From my point of view, as the writer, that paragraph was part of a hypothetical situation — so the extra words *felt* like they helped explain the imaginary scenario in more detail. They worked for me within the context of that section of the article.
But as an editor, I definitely know better than to fall in love with anything I write. 😉
“But as an editor, I definitely know better than to fall in love with anything I write.”
^^THIS!
To survive the exfoliating process, writers must have thick skin!
I like to think of a piece of writing like a sculpture:
1. gather the clay – research;
2. lump them together – write words and sentences;
3. allow drying – ruminate; think consciously and unconsciously: let the mind work in the background;
4. chip away the excess; refine – edit, ruthlessly.
Princess Bride references are always good.
I typically know if my writing is strong or weak.
I might not always want to admit it to myself when my writing is weak but at the end of the day I always know. When I have to rewrite something, it always leave it for a while and come back to the article or document with new energy.
Thanks for sharing your advice!
Thanks for the tips. I just started out with my blogging journey so I have so much to learn and practice with my writing skill. This list will definitely help.
Overthinking is a huge obstacle for me. When I write I have to write the whole piece without editing in mind first! The next day or several hours later I come back for the editing.
I will start off with some tools such as Grammarly to shape the piece into form as I like to call it. Then I will go in sentence by sentence and look for the rough flaws as if I am carving a diamond for a ring. Often times I cannot see all the passive voice sentences that I may have came up with and I will use tools like Yoast Seo to help me locate them.
At the end of the day when I feel the piece is ready to be placed on the mantel that is my blog, I will have my supporting wife take a look at the content for a final glance.
I really enjoyed this article as I write about similar strategies in my blog. Keep up the great work it is truly inspiring.
Cheers!!
Upon reading your blog, I’ve learned relevant information and techniques to writing better sentences… Sentences that convey… Relate… Engage… You have explained it well by providing us with these tips to give us better insights on how to be a pro crafting our content especially online. Thank you for sharing your insights to us, Stefanie. Happy to hear more from your blogs.
Basically i ain’t a good writer at start and now have been writing for 2 years as of now. i have learn’t many things and you have thrown some solid points about strong and weak sentences.
Things we will change from weak writing to strong writing when we are skilled on what we write. That’s how i feel.
solid recommendations is to write regularly.
Peace \/
I think it is so crucial, where possible, to use an editor. They may pick up on something you just can’t see, thus, improving the standard of your editorial. It is important to find a good relationship with your editor, taking all comments constructively – not personally.
Stefanie, this was a great article! Thanks so much for sharing.
It’s true that best form of writing is constructing each sentence such that it takes the narration forward. And so is the efficacy of writing simple, crisp sentences to hold the reader’s attention.
Thanks to Chris Lema, I have a new-to-me tool this week. It’s an app that streamlines the process of converting blog posts into video format by use of animated slides.
How it works?
A simple cut-and-paste of your post is all it takes for the app to auto-magically format it into slides. Then during the preview the author can tweak the copy, the visuals, and even add a voice over to the final production.
It doesn’t take long to become a proficient at the technical aspect of this sort of video production. What has sent me down rabbit holes during my test drive this week is the unexpected bonus of the process. It offers a fresh perspective on the original post. Perfect for fine tune editing.
Before this week, my go-to for that would be reading the piece aloud. Which is now part of the video creation process.
Writing has always been my crutch. I’ve seen beautiful blogs and wondered how people learned to write like that! I’m glad I just stumbled upon this resource here because I’ll learn a lot that I can apply to our Adventure Blog 🙂 Thanks so much!!
A plugin I recently installed has shown me how prone I am to using passive voice. I use passive voice far too much. Any illusion that I am some sort of “god of writing” has been well and truly shattered (it was pretty beaten before then anyway). This is probably a good thing. Now, I am motivated to improve.
I’m still clueless about things like the passive voice but it looks as if, just by trying to use fewer words, I might crack it.
As an aside, I’ve never spent so long writing and fine tuning a comment before.
Thanks for taking the time to craft your comment, Matthew!
Hi Stephanie,
Yes, I do the same thing – I verify my words too. But I do mine with mobile phone dictionary. Inappropriate sentence can damage your overall reputation as a writer.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Emenike
Simple catchy sentences have always proved to be seductive and emotionally intuitive. Great read here, looking forward to implementing the suggested tips.
Excellent tips, my “secret weapon” when writing is to edit, edit and edit!
Great Tips! Writing can be hard some times, specially when English is your second language.
I don’t get the American dislike of the passive. It’s never been satisfactorily explained to me (OK, no one has satisfactorily explained it to me). Have you read Geoff Pullum on the subject?
I think there are times when the passive voice is the best option. But it often creates a more dull phrase/sentence, and when writers are looking to improve their craft, it can be helpful to pinpoint phrases/sentences that can be reshaped to more effectively engage readers.
Like most things with writing, it depends on the context. 🙂
I’ve never read Geoff Pullum’s take on the subject — thanks for the recommendation, Phil. I’ll check it out!
I don’t really agree. It’s not hard to think of sentences in which the passive sounds stilted, but then it’s not hard to think of sentences in which the active sounds stilted. If I write “On November 22 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated while being driven through Dealey Plaza in Dallas”, it’s not clear to me how that’s worse than “On November 22 1963, someone assassinated President Kennedy while someone else was driving him through Dealey Plaza in Dallas”.
Passive constructions are certainly overused (DYSWIDT?) in certain types of dreary official and academic writing, in which we also find excessive nominalisation and other bad habits. But I can’t see any merit in blanket hostility to them. Good writing can’t easily be boiled down (DYSWIDT?) to “Don’t do this; do that.”
No blanket hostility toward the passive voice here. 🙂
Good advice for any writer. The best tip I ever got from a published novelist was to remove as many words as possible. Your advice to use active verbs goes a long way. Even if one doesn’t have “a critical eye,” try to use fewer words. Especially today, short and sweet is the best approach.
I’ve started to write much shorter sentences. I usually know I should be splitting up sentences when I start typing words like “because” “and” or “however”.
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