1 00:00:00,640 --> 00:00:04,960 Speaker 1: Hello there, it's Amantha. I'm currently on a Christmas break, 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:08,440 Speaker 1: so I've handpicked a bunch of my favorite episodes from 3 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:11,920 Speaker 1: the last year to share with you. Okay, on with 4 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:17,480 Speaker 1: today's best of episode. Do you want to improve your writing? 5 00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:21,599 Speaker 1: Maybe you want to create a snappier headline or email 6 00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:25,960 Speaker 1: subject to make sure your message gets noticed. Or maybe 7 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,240 Speaker 1: you want a better way to find those pesky grammatical 8 00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:32,680 Speaker 1: errors before you send your email or a report that 9 00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:35,840 Speaker 1: you've been drafting. Or perhaps you've just sent a nice 10 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:38,199 Speaker 1: font that you like but you don't know how to 11 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:41,800 Speaker 1: find out which one it is. Well, stay tuned because 12 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:49,880 Speaker 1: this episode will help you do all that. My name 13 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:53,519 Speaker 1: is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the 14 00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how 15 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:00,880 Speaker 1: I work a show about how to help you do 16 00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:05,720 Speaker 1: your best work. Writing is one of the fundamental ways 17 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,399 Speaker 1: that we persuade people to take up our ideas, meet 18 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:12,040 Speaker 1: with us, or buy the thing that we are selling. 19 00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:15,360 Speaker 1: So today I want to share some cool tools for 20 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:19,200 Speaker 1: improving your writing. So here are four things that have 21 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:25,479 Speaker 1: really helped meet. First is the Hemingway app. So Hemingway 22 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:28,360 Speaker 1: is a website where you can paste in what you've 23 00:01:28,520 --> 00:01:31,920 Speaker 1: just written. So let's just say you've written an email 24 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:35,760 Speaker 1: or maybe a report, and you paste all that text 25 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:38,919 Speaker 1: into Hemingway. What it does is it analyzes a whole 26 00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:41,600 Speaker 1: bunch of things to help you improve your writing. But 27 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,000 Speaker 1: the feature that I like most is that it tells 28 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:50,120 Speaker 1: you what level of education someone needs to understand your writing. 29 00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:54,760 Speaker 1: So do they need an undergraduate degree? Do they need 30 00:01:55,760 --> 00:02:01,560 Speaker 1: a year three level of education? So Whatingway recommends is 31 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:05,639 Speaker 1: that you target your writing to a year nine reading level, 32 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:08,960 Speaker 1: so as in students that are in year nine in 33 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,160 Speaker 1: the Australian system, so I guess about a fifteen year old. 34 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:16,040 Speaker 1: So apparently this optimizes your writing. So it's super easy 35 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:20,480 Speaker 1: to digest and understand. And why I really like this 36 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:23,640 Speaker 1: is I find I have a tendency to write using 37 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:27,400 Speaker 1: language that maybe overcomplicates things, and when I paste my 38 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:30,560 Speaker 1: writing into Hemingway, it just reminds me to keep it simple, 39 00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:34,680 Speaker 1: use short sentences, and don't use big words where a 40 00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:39,840 Speaker 1: small word will do. So that's Hemingway. I highly recommend it. 41 00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:48,519 Speaker 1: Another tool that I love is Grammarly, which is germmrly. 42 00:02:48,919 --> 00:02:51,760 Speaker 1: Link to all this in the show notes. Now, grammarly 43 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,680 Speaker 1: is a plug in which means you can incorporate it 44 00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:58,359 Speaker 1: into your email browser such as Chrome. And this means 45 00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:01,679 Speaker 1: you can use grammarly when you're on web based applications 46 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:04,639 Speaker 1: such as Gmail, for example, where a lot of writing 47 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:09,040 Speaker 1: is done. So grammarly will point out with beautiful green 48 00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:12,840 Speaker 1: underlying where you have made grammatical errors, just like word 49 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:17,120 Speaker 1: processing software typically does nowadays. So I find grammarly useful 50 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:20,560 Speaker 1: for websites such as Gmail or LinkedIn where I'm doing 51 00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:23,600 Speaker 1: some of my writing, because it improves what I'm saying 52 00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:27,360 Speaker 1: and I also get some grammatical lessons along the way. 53 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:30,720 Speaker 1: The third tool I want to cover is from a 54 00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:35,680 Speaker 1: website called coschedule. That's cooschedule dot com, which has what 55 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:40,040 Speaker 1: they call a headline analyzer. Now, what this tool lets 56 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:42,880 Speaker 1: you do is if you're thinking about a heading for something. 57 00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:46,160 Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's a heading for an important email 58 00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:48,960 Speaker 1: that you want someone to read or to open, or 59 00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:51,840 Speaker 1: maybe you write reports or articles as part of your job, 60 00:03:51,880 --> 00:03:54,440 Speaker 1: and you need a compelling headline so that people actually 61 00:03:54,480 --> 00:03:57,400 Speaker 1: want to read the report or whatever it is that 62 00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:01,280 Speaker 1: you're writing. There's an art and so clients to writing 63 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:04,840 Speaker 1: great headlines. That entice people to read whatever you've written, 64 00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:09,280 Speaker 1: so on co schedule. The Headline Analyzer tool helps you 65 00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:13,640 Speaker 1: write better headlines by analyzing your headline or your title 66 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:16,120 Speaker 1: for whatever you're writing, and it gives you tips on 67 00:04:16,160 --> 00:04:19,080 Speaker 1: how to make it better, how to make it more engaging, 68 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:21,800 Speaker 1: and essentially how to make it more clickable if you 69 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:23,919 Speaker 1: think like that. And again, even if you're not a 70 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:28,400 Speaker 1: journalist writing clickbait stories, you are writing emails every day 71 00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:32,840 Speaker 1: most probably, and you're possibly not thinking about how important 72 00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:35,560 Speaker 1: the subject line of your email is in terms of 73 00:04:35,839 --> 00:04:41,080 Speaker 1: getting people excited to open it. So check out Headline Analyzer. Now. 74 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:43,720 Speaker 1: The final thing I'll say about writing is that I'm 75 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:47,120 Speaker 1: a bit obsessed with fonts or typefaces. So often I'll 76 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:49,039 Speaker 1: see a really beautiful font and I'll be like, I 77 00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:51,839 Speaker 1: wonder what fund that is, but I have no way 78 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:56,479 Speaker 1: of knowing, which is where myfonts dot com forward slash 79 00:04:56,680 --> 00:05:00,240 Speaker 1: what the font comes in, where you can literally import 80 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:02,720 Speaker 1: the image of a font and it will tell you 81 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,760 Speaker 1: what font or typeface it is, which I think is 82 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:10,800 Speaker 1: pretty awesome. If you are, say designing a presentation and 83 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:13,520 Speaker 1: maybe you're doing a bit of a refresh on your fonts, 84 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:16,520 Speaker 1: or trying to improve the look and feel of something 85 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:19,279 Speaker 1: that you're working on. Maybe it's a report, and maybe 86 00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:21,359 Speaker 1: you're a little bit sick of using Times New Roman 87 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:24,880 Speaker 1: or Aeriel or Helvetica. So this is a really awesome 88 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:27,839 Speaker 1: tool for discovering new fonts that are catching your eye. 89 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:31,520 Speaker 1: So those are four tools to help you do better writing, 90 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:33,719 Speaker 1: and a link to all of those in the show notes. 91 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:37,000 Speaker 1: Hello there, that is it for today's show. If you 92 00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:41,200 Speaker 1: enjoyed today's episode, why not share it with someone else 93 00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:44,240 Speaker 1: that you think would benefit and maybe get some useful 94 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:46,960 Speaker 1: tips to improve the way that they work. How I 95 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:49,880 Speaker 1: Work is produced by Inventing and with production support from 96 00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:52,800 Speaker 1: Dead Set Studios. And thank you to Martin Nimba who 97 00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:56,279 Speaker 1: does the audio mixport every show and makes everything sound 98 00:05:56,360 --> 00:05:58,560 Speaker 1: so much better than it would have otherwise. See you 99 00:05:58,680 --> 00:05:59,080 Speaker 1: next time.