If you have ever tried acting or serious public speaking, you may well have thought about your elocution – but how about your locution?
locution: [noun] style of spoken language, a phrase or idiom
A linguist can easily tell people apart by their locution.
elocution: [noun] how speech is delivered, the art of delivery speech
The actress changed characters predominantly by changing her elocution.
To tell them apart remember that elocution is how you orally express your thoughts.
Writing an annual report for many people is a big chore done over a stressful month or two just before it is due to be released.
I have suggested before that the process is better spread across the year by keeping notes so that the actual preparation is easier.
Another way I work on an annual report throughout the year is to copy chunks of text into an annual report document as well. This is content worked on during the year for a specific topic or use – for example, descriptions of a new service or product launched during the reporting year.
When it comes to writing about those topics in the annual report, I can pull out the existing, correct content and adjust it to need. It is much quicker than reinventing the wheel with new text or wasting time searching for that text “I know I wrote back then”.
Although a style guide often includes sections of useful text to be reused, it doesn’t always include text about specific events or external factors.
Can you imagine how organised you will feel and look when you pull out a page of pre-prepared text when you start writing your annual report content?
A clear and simple message will always bring better results than a complicated or confusing message. However, even if your message is clearly written, one misused word can cloud the message and make it hard to understand or sometimes give the opposite meaning to your intention.
Make sure you know the meanings of eclipse, ellipse and ellipsis as you can eclipse your message by mixing them up!
ellipse: [noun] an oval shape
My daughter calls an ellipse a squashed circle!
ellipsis: [noun] a set of 3 dots to signify missing words
As a sole trader, Sally keeps all the profits… and accepts all the risks.
eclipse: [noun] loss of light or splendour, generally due to something coming between the light source and the eye. Common use is mostly about the sun or moon but it can be used for other situations
Huddled in a corner, they froze as the hunting man eclipse plunged them into darkness.
Note that ellipsis has more dots (as in “dot your i’s”) and means using 3 dots, and an eclipse includes a c for clouding over, and you’ll be using your words wisely!
Using a mock design can help communications projects run efficiently because everyone can literally see where the project is heading.
Of course, its value depends on the project details so here are some examples of when a mock design is useful:
Has a design mock helped in any specific projects you’ve done? Or maybe now you wish you’d had a design mock for a project? Share your stories and help make projects easier to manage.
Having a mock design can make it much easier to plan content and other elements of a project
Getting a designer to prepare a visual mock early in a communications project will cost money of course, but it can often be well worth the expense. I am lucky in working with a designer who quickly grasps my intentions so can produce lovely mocks relatively easily. The mocks then form a basis for developing the main project, which often does not even involve my designer. From recent projects, having a mock prepared early in the process has meant:
Before you start a new project and rely on written descriptions and your own rough sketches, think about the potential value of having a mock designed for your planning and briefing processes. Are you a visual person? If so, having a mock to work from is probably much easier for you. If you’re not quite so visual, don’t underestimate how powerful a visual can be for many people and how it can aid communication. Can you remember times when a mock made a project flow better than expected?
* Images courtesy of 123RF
In business, you may well have to deal with your local council for registrations, permits and various services.
Yet are you sure of the spelling of council? Some spelling mistakes will be corrected by a spell check but sometimes it will lead you to writing counsel instead which will totally change the meaning of your sentence – make it completely meaningless.
council: [noun] an administrative or planning body or committee
The local council is responsible for assigning industrial and business zones in our area.
counsel: [verb] to discuss and debate, advise, talk over; a person’s views or intention
A business coach or mentor can counsel you about your priorities and objectives.
To remember which is which, think of the self involved in counsel.
For the next 10 days or so, we will be in Canberra meeting with clients. I have scheduled some blog posts for you to read while I am away, but please be patient as it may take me a while to reply to any comments or emails – I will be online at times, just not as regularly as usual.
I would love to know what you want to learn about (comms wise) so let me know in the comments below and I’ll get writing when I’m back!
Use your words wisely,
Tash
Whether you run your own business or the communications for a business, if you are involved in the annual report process, have you started work on it yet?
I have learned not to just leave preparing an annual report until July. It is so much easier and quicker to write if you have been keeping notes all year. I have an annual report document where I jot notes all year (for example ’10 November new product launched, 12 December legislation changed, 10 February started our blog’).
When you come to writing the annual report you then have a list of things from the past year to potentially include in your report. It is so easy to forget something that happened early in the year so having the list reminds you.
It has also saved me time many times because the date is listed and I don’t have to search it up. Knowing the date is useful for looking up related emails or news, assessing statistics (e.g. why did website traffic spike in March?) and just for reporting the date in the annual report (e.g. ‘We launched our blog in February and are pleased with it’).
Make preparing an annual report an all year project and you can save yourself a lot of stress and worry, and produce a comprehensive report as well.
P.S. The notes are sometimes useful for other tasks, not just for writing the annual report. Have you wasted time looking for dates or trying to remember what happened in a certain timeframe?
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