There are many ways to lose a person’s attention while they’re going through your copy. Ineffective writing isn’t that hard to do. Want to lose your readers and have them abandon your copy before getting halfway through? Follow these things every good writer should avoid and refuse to run your copy through an English writing software which can catch them.
1. Don’t do any transitions.
Jumping from one thought to another without an appropriate transition can leave your readers feeling like something’s been pulled from right under them. How would you feel if you were watching Heroes and the next scene they cut into shows a storyline that happened on Entourage? With the right transitions, even the most implausible juxtapositions can be acceptable, with the reader happy to go along. If you’re going to change subjects, always close the first one and lead into the next.
2. Ramble incoherently
I hate a lot of emails and forum posts for this reason. Too many people just ramble on endlessly, with no thought or structure to what they’re putting down on paper. If your ideas aren’t clear to you, they aren’t going to be any clearer for readers when you put them down on paper. Get some structure and work through your ideas step by step.
3. Pepper it with jargon and slang
Jargon has its place. Unless you’re writing for a very tight audience, though, it usually just causes you to lose readers. Unless you’re certain that your audience has the same background that you do, jargon just makes your copy difficult to comprehend.
Tags: bad writing, losing readers
