Early in my career as a copywriter and grant writer, I realized that so much of writing is not about writing. In fact, I would say that about 20% of the writing process actually involves writing, while the rest (about 80%) is planning, researching, understanding, and editing. I often feel relieved when, on a writing…
Tag Archive: subject matter experts
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…