Business Copywriter - Newsletter July 2009

WriteWords newsletter

There’s been a few changes since the last issue of Write Words. We’ve moved offices (still in Manchester, just a nicer part), and we’ve had a personnel change (goodbye Sally hello Chris . We’ve also decided to change the frequency of Write Words to once every two months, to lighten the load on your Inbox.

On the client side, plenty of exciting new projects to get stuck into. We’ve been commissioned to plan and write the content for a new departmental website at the University of London, we won a tender to plan, write and edit a quarterly magazine for the Northwest Regional Development Agency, we’re working with Celerant Consulting on writing some sector brochures, and a we’re doing a monthly newsletter for Career Management Consultants.

That’s on top of the regular stuff from the likes of KPMG, Britannia and Savills, plus a whole host of smaller (but no less important projects), so plenty to keep us busy!

Archived in the category: General musings, Write words
Posted by: Gareth Chadwick

Spoken like a President

Spoken like a President

Archived in the category: General musings, Write words

Nice to see that Barack Obama - lauded as the most powerful public speaker in American politics for a generation - has been using some of our favourite writing tips in his speeches.

Remember three’s company, where we talked about grouping your points into three to create more impact? Well they don’t get much more power full than these three:
“If there is anyone out there who still doubts America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy - tonight is your answer.”

They are the opening lines of his victory speech in the November presidential election - widely regarded as one of the finest speeches in modern US politics.

Here’s another bit:
“It’s been a long time coming, but today, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” And just to show he’s not a one-trick pony, he uses another technique to great effect, the power of pairs. This is a favourite politicians’ trick of not saying one thing if you can equally say two, adding emphasis to the message.

So he says, “people who waited three hours and four hours…”, instead of saying the less powerful, ’people who waited hours…’

There’s also a lesson there about being specific. By specifying three hours and four hours, rather than a vague ‘hours’, it resonates more strongly with the audience and the impact is that much greater.

Let’s hope his policies are as effective as his speeches…

Posted by: Gareth Chadwick on Tuesday, January 13, 2009