Tips & Tricks Archives

How to write good emails (remember the reader)

I recently did some research into the best way to sign off a business email, for an article for a client.

It appears that “Regards” is a strong contender – because it is bland and inoffensive. That works well in a formal context because you might often not know the person you are writing to.

On the other hand, a 2019 Business Insider article claims that the word “Best” is a good way to end an email (followed by your name). The article says it is “almost universally appropriate.” I am not so sure.

Research: How to keep track of sources and references

Whatever kind of writing you do, there are going to be online links you need to keep track of. Here’s a simple and quick way to get your research done…

I’m currently working on a big thought leadership piece for a client. Many research papers have been looked at, many websites visited. At this point, I don’t know what information I’m going to use, or which links I’m going to use. So I need to keep all of them, just in case.

How to pitch an article or idea to a publication

You have an idea for an article. You want to pitch it to the editor of a publication. But how do you do that?

The secret to getting a person at a publication to take note of your idea (or something you have already written) is to think like a journalist

And the first step to that is understanding that a journalist will always want to know what the “angle” is. If you can’t answer that question quickly and clearly, your story idea is dead in the water.

When the taps run dry: Things we learned in Day Zero

We don’t really think about the water coming out of our taps until it seems that there might not be enough of it to go round.

I’m thinking about water right now because Johannesburg and Pretoria in Gauteng are in the grip of a water crisis – restrictions have been implemented, people are cross and the municipality is telling everyone to cut back. In some places, there is no water at all.

Decluttering – a new trick learned

In August 2021, I used the Women’s Day weekend to declutter and tidy our house. Then, over the course of a year, piles of invisible objects gathered again.

(In our house, the phrase “invisible objects” means things that have been lying around for so long that they are no longer seen).

So I spent this year’s Women’s Day weekend covered in dust and filled with feelings of self-satisfaction.
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Writing tips: Grammar tools and resources

I’m on record as saying that I think the most important thing to do in writing is structuring your text – and that grammar is something that people can worry about once they have organised their thoughts.

I am aware, though, that that is an easy thing to say when you are writing in your mother tongue. In that environment, we all have an innate understanding of how our language works, and what feels wrong and what feels right.

But for people who need to write in a second or third language (as so many people are in our English-dominated world), fear of getting things wrong can be confidence-sapping and inhibiting.
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