You may remember from some point in your schooling a lecture about a little thing called plagiarism. Wikipedia states, “Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as ‘the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one’s own original work,’” attributing this definition to…
Category Archives: Research for Business Writing
Effective Interviewing for Convincing Copy
One of the things I love most about my work is asking people questions. Because, if I can understand it, then I can write about it, and the better I understand it, the more like my clients the documents I prepare for them will sound. Sometimes, my clients just let me loose to find information…
5 Keys to Writing Project Success – Part II: Research
This is Part II in a five-part series on keys to writing project success. In Part I, I introduced the topic, suggesting that a document may be good (i.e. well written, well organized), but not successful. I defined a successful writing project as one that “delivers not just the necessary content, but also the higher-level…
How to Ask the Right Questions
In a recent Final Draft Communications Blog post about working with subject matter experts, a reader who is a marketing professional commented that her clients are usually her subject matter experts, and that it takes considerable skill to extract from them the information needed to create marketing documents on their behalf. I couldn’t agree more…
Your Research Secret Weapon
Some topics are harder to research than others. For such topics, all the online research in the world does not lead to real-world understanding. In these situations, it is often helpful to work with a subject matter expert, or SME (pronounced “smee”) (aka your research secret weapon). Let me give you an example. A few…
Effective Research for Business Writing
The advice often given to writers is, “Write what you know.” In business writing, “what you know” may be in the form of personal experience, observation, or good, solid research. To perform the most effective research for business writing, your goal should be to learn enough to feel comfortable explaining the topic to someone else…which…
