1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Do you want to improve your writing. Maybe you want 2 00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: to create a snappier headline or email subject to make 3 00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:11,719 Speaker 1: sure your message gets noticed. Or maybe you want a 4 00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:15,520 Speaker 1: better way to find those pesky grammatical errors before you 5 00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:18,680 Speaker 1: send your email or a report that you've been drafting. 6 00:00:19,360 --> 00:00:22,000 Speaker 1: Or perhaps you've just sent a nice font that you like, 7 00:00:22,239 --> 00:00:24,479 Speaker 1: but you don't know how to find out which one 8 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:28,280 Speaker 1: it is. Well, stay tuned because this episode will help 9 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:36,240 Speaker 1: you do all that. My name is doctor Ramatha Imber. 10 00:00:36,479 --> 00:00:40,080 Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science 11 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:44,360 Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show 12 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:48,639 Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. Writing 13 00:00:48,840 --> 00:00:52,240 Speaker 1: is one of the fundamental ways that we persuade people 14 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:55,800 Speaker 1: to take up our ideas, meet with us, or buy 15 00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,680 Speaker 1: the thing that we are selling. So today I want 16 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:02,840 Speaker 1: to share some cool took for improving your writing. So 17 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 1: here are four things that have really helped me. First 18 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:11,680 Speaker 1: is the Hemingway app. So Hemingway is a website where 19 00:01:11,720 --> 00:01:14,959 Speaker 1: you can paste in what you've just written. So let's 20 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:19,000 Speaker 1: just say you've written an email or maybe a report, 21 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:22,280 Speaker 1: and you paste all that text into Hemingway. What it 22 00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:24,959 Speaker 1: does is it analyzes a whole bunch of things to 23 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,360 Speaker 1: help you improve your writing. But the feature that I 24 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,600 Speaker 1: like most is that it tells you what level of 25 00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:36,800 Speaker 1: education someone needs to understand your writing. So do they 26 00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:41,560 Speaker 1: need an undergraduate degree? Do they need a year three 27 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:46,959 Speaker 1: level of education? So what Hemingway recommends is that you 28 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:51,320 Speaker 1: target your writing to a year nine reading level, so 29 00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:54,240 Speaker 1: as in students that are in year nine in the 30 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:57,400 Speaker 1: Australian system, so I guess about a fifteen year old. 31 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:01,160 Speaker 1: So apparently this optimizes your writing so it's super easy 32 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:05,640 Speaker 1: to digest and understand. And why I really like this 33 00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:08,760 Speaker 1: is I find I have a tendency to write using 34 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:12,560 Speaker 1: language that maybe overcomplicates things, and when I paste my 35 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:15,680 Speaker 1: writing into Hemingway, it just reminds me to keep it simple, 36 00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:19,840 Speaker 1: use short sentences, and don't use big words where a 37 00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:25,000 Speaker 1: small word will do. So that's Hemingway. I highly recommend it. 38 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:33,639 Speaker 1: Another tool that I love is Grammarly, which is germmrly 39 00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:36,919 Speaker 1: link to all this in the show notes. Now. Grammarly 40 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:39,800 Speaker 1: is a plug in which means you can incorporate it 41 00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:43,520 Speaker 1: into your email browser such as Chrome, and this means 42 00:02:43,520 --> 00:02:46,799 Speaker 1: you can use grammarly when you're on web based applications 43 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:49,760 Speaker 1: such as Gmail, for example, where a lot of writing 44 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:54,200 Speaker 1: is done, so grammarly will point out with beautiful green 45 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:57,960 Speaker 1: underlying where you have made grammatical errors, just like word 46 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:02,239 Speaker 1: processing software typically does nowaday. So I find Grammarly useful 47 00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:05,720 Speaker 1: for websites such as Gmail or LinkedIn where I'm doing 48 00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:08,760 Speaker 1: some of my writing, because it improves what I'm saying 49 00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:12,480 Speaker 1: and I also get some grammatical lessons along the way. 50 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:15,880 Speaker 1: The third tool I want to cover is from a 51 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:20,600 Speaker 1: website called co Schedule. That's cooschedule dot com, which has 52 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:24,840 Speaker 1: what they call a headline analyzer. Now, what this tool 53 00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:27,400 Speaker 1: lets you do is if you're thinking about a heading 54 00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:30,280 Speaker 1: for something. You know, maybe it's a heading for an 55 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:33,680 Speaker 1: important email that you want someone to read or to open, 56 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:36,600 Speaker 1: or maybe you write reports or articles as part of 57 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:38,800 Speaker 1: your job, and you need a compelling headline so that 58 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,200 Speaker 1: people actually want to read the report or whatever it 59 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,920 Speaker 1: is that you're writing. There's an art and science to 60 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:49,960 Speaker 1: writing great headlines that entice people to read whatever you've written. 61 00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:54,760 Speaker 1: So on Coschedule, the Headline Analyzer tool helps you write 62 00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:58,920 Speaker 1: better headlines by analyzing your headline or your title for 63 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:01,520 Speaker 1: whatever you're writing, and it gives you tips on how 64 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:04,200 Speaker 1: to make it better, how to make it more engaging, 65 00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:06,920 Speaker 1: and essentially how to make it more clickable if you 66 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:09,040 Speaker 1: think like that. And again, even if you're not a 67 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:13,560 Speaker 1: journalist writing clickbait stories, you are writing emails every day 68 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,960 Speaker 1: most probably, and you're possibly not thinking about how important 69 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:20,680 Speaker 1: the subject line of your email is in terms of 70 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:26,200 Speaker 1: getting people excited to open it. So check out headline Analyzer. Now, 71 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:28,920 Speaker 1: the final thing I'll say about writing is that I'm 72 00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:32,280 Speaker 1: a bit obsessed with fonts or typefaces. So often I'll 73 00:04:32,279 --> 00:04:34,200 Speaker 1: see a really beautiful font and I'll be like, I 74 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:36,960 Speaker 1: wonder what fund that is, but I have no way 75 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:41,599 Speaker 1: of knowing, which is where myfonts dot Com forward slash 76 00:04:41,839 --> 00:04:45,279 Speaker 1: what the font comes in, where you can literally import 77 00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:47,840 Speaker 1: the image of a font and it will tell you 78 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:51,919 Speaker 1: what font or typeface it is, which I think is 79 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:55,960 Speaker 1: pretty awesome. If you are, say designing a presentation, and 80 00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:58,240 Speaker 1: maybe you're doing a bit of a refresh on your 81 00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:01,120 Speaker 1: fonts or trying to improve the look and feel of 82 00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:04,159 Speaker 1: something that you're working on. Maybe it's a report, and 83 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:06,160 Speaker 1: maybe you're a little bit sick of using times New 84 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:09,599 Speaker 1: Roman or Aeriel or Helvetica, so this is a really 85 00:05:09,640 --> 00:05:12,880 Speaker 1: awesome tool for discovering new fonts that are catching your eye. 86 00:05:13,279 --> 00:05:16,680 Speaker 1: So those are four tools to help you do better writing, 87 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:18,839 Speaker 1: and a link to all of those in the show notes. 88 00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:22,960 Speaker 1: So that is it for it today's show. If you've 89 00:05:23,080 --> 00:05:27,039 Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, why not share it with someone else 90 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:29,760 Speaker 1: who does a bit of writing and maybe could benefit 91 00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:32,960 Speaker 1: from knowing about these cool tools. So that is it 92 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:36,000 Speaker 1: for today and I will see you next time.