Week 16: Ethical Writing Continued

Revisiting the topic of ethics when trying to balance writing for a personal brand and writing engaging content, I stumbled across this cool article that goes a little more in-depth about this struggle that many writers face. https://mytasker.com/blog/how-to-write-engaging-content. In this blog post, Victor writes “20 Effective Ways to Keep Your Readers Engaged to Your Article” and a lot of the methods he suggests have been covered in this class but also provide a way for authors to maintain their integrity. He starts off by saying the simplest way to make engaging content is to entertain your reader by writing high-quality content, to begin with. You want to engage with your readers through your writing style and story-telling abilities to make the readers feel like they’re part of your experience. If you’re able to do that with high-quality writing, then your writing stays credible, may get the clicks and views you want, and no integrity or ethical rules are broken in the process. 

The 20 tips that he mentioned:

  1. Rule of ONE

  2. Master the Opening Line

  3. Less is More

  4. Use Comforting Words

  5. Stop Being Cold-Hearted

  6. Stop Being Predictable, Be Vulnerable

  7. No Need to be Long-Winded

  8. Don’t be a Despicable Salesman

  9. Appeal to All Senses

  10. You Need to be Energetic

  11. Be Playful

  12. Do Not Commit Crimes Against Readability

  13. “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”

  14. Tell Interesting Stories

  15. Let your Readers Fill in the Gaps for Themselves

  16. Don’t be Too Professional

  17. Bring unexpected Gifts

  18. Don’t Doubt Yourself

  19. Self-Edit to Boost Charisma

  20. Create Something Enjoyable


I liked rules 6 and 12 best just because when you don’t undermine the intelligence of your readers and choose the unconventional path by opening up, your readers can get fired up over what you’re talking about. Social Media and Online Writing are overloaded mediums and there are millions of posts that sound exactly like yours may, but by staying true to yourself as a writer and by opening up to your audience, that will help differentiate you from the rest of the crowd. Also if you don’t commit crimes against readability that just helps establish you as a credible writer if there are zero silly typographical errors. Document Design aspects can also be incorporated here to make your writing more visually appealing.

Comments

  1. Taylor LindellDecember 8, 2022 at 9:36 AM

    Hey Sydney! I love the list of tips you included in this blog post. I think they are all super beneficial and simple tips that will improve our writing. My favorite tip is #7, no need to be long-winded. I think conciseness is one of the most important aspects of professional and technical writing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Adam StallingsDecember 8, 2022 at 12:36 PM

    Hi Sydney,
    I really liked your post! It serves the course really well and I think you hit on pretty much everything we discussed to some extent. I will say, of the list of rules I think #15 speaks to me the most. It is important to assume your audiences competence. Over explaining can send the wrong message to readers and can lead to overwhelming and unnecessary content. Everything should have a reason for being there!

    ReplyDelete
  3. TaelaDecember 11, 2022 at 7:33 PM

    Sydney,

    As all the others, I really loved the list of tips that you incorporated into your post! I love #20 "create something enjoyable" because I think that it encapsulates all of the other tips. What makes readers enjoy the content they read is when it is a journey, simple, and has personality! I really liked these tips because they aren't as technical as you would think they would be. These are good principles to abide by as a technical writer. Great thoughts!

    ReplyDelete

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