bad writing examples

Refer to older posts…

You are making an impression…

Published 16 June, 2011 | By TashWord

Sigh. That’s my immediate response to a blog post I just read – sigh.

Doesn’t give a good impression of that blog or writer does it? Every time you write something that goes public, it affects how people view you – yet some people just don’t seem to get that. What’s worse is that this was a guest post on another blog so I assume they didn’t review it before accepting it. Silly as I closed the site after this post, and the rest may be great for all I’ll ever know…

I started reading the post in good faith but the poor expression made me skim the second half rather than read it which is never a good sign. I honestly only kept reading because I hoped the content would improve and justify it’s existence on a site I was reviewing. It didn’t.

Although appearing to be an article giving information, it was a poorly disguised ad for why company X is a good choice for design work – namely because they are young designers. I commented back as I don’t believe all young designers are good, nor all experienced designers lack passion.

Had I been given that article to edit or at least comment on, my suggestions for this article would have been:

make sure it all flows and that each sentence make sense
give balanced information (eg “while an older designer has experience, remember that new designers are keen to impress and may be passionate about their work” or “new designers have a lot to offer and you may find they charge less to get experience”)
introduce any specifics in the article, not just the heading (in this case the heading mentions web design but the article starts with ‘designing is a creative field’ – designing is more than websites)
use good grammar and punctuation (“give you the brand image as promised because; they want to earn a good name” does not need any punctuation in the middle and certainly not a semi-colon)

Just as I was leaving the page, I noticed the writer’s bio and sighed again. Nearly every word started with a capital letter (which is so annoying and completely unnecessary) and he claimed to be a ‘professional content writer’. With that example of his writing skills, he is not making a good impression for himself or the web design company paying him to write this article.

How do you respond to such poor examples of work?

Posted in bad writing examples, blogging, writing | Tagged flow, impression., information, post | 1 Comment

Match questions and answers…

Published 27 May, 2011 | By TashWord

Recently I wanted to make a complaint to a company and was directed to their online form (hmm, is it telling that their products come with a prominant page about how to complain??) and saw this as the opening sentence:

“already been attended to by phone or other means would you please advise YES/NO”

How does it help them to know I will (or won’t) advise them on whether my issue has already been dealt with? Wouldn’t the better question be ” Have you already told us about this issue? YES/NO”

Whenever you give people a choice of answers in a survey or form, you have to give answers that actually give the information you are after. Remember that the words ‘would you’ are what people will try to answer, so put them at the start of your question or don’t use them at all.

Generally, use active verbs and phrase questions as simply as possible to avoid confusion and misunderstandings.

PS I could go on to say how important it is to get your promotional materials right – and not use old materials after you make changes. My original complaint was about their promotional brochure offering 4 things in a set but their website offering two things for the same price. Putting these two issues together has totally destroyed that company’s credibility and I don’t trust a thing they say now – and won’t be returning there.

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged answer, form, question, survey | Leave a comment

Once could be an error…

Published 4 February, 2011 | By TashWord

As much as I advocate being careful with spelling and grammar, everybody is human and mistakes will be made. So I can excuse an error.

It is much harder to excuse a document or website that makes the same mistake more than once. I came across this sentence a little while ago:

“Informing you super fund of a change of address is just as important as informing you bank.”

Using you instead of your is one of those things done easily enough (spell check won’t pick you as wrong) but really annoys me. Seeing it twice in that sentence just tells me the writer doesn’t understand the difference between you and your or just doesn’t care about being professional or making a good impression.

Two errors in that sentence would also make me less forgiving of other mistakes in the same document so it goes further than two missing letters.

How about you – do you also cringe when you read (or hear!) about ‘you object’?

Posted in bad writing examples, grammar & details, writing | Tagged error, spelling, you, your | 2 Comments

Another poor marketing email

Published 29 October, 2010 | By TashWord

I receive many poor emails, but sometimes I am amazed at them and have to share them in the hope of reducing the number of bad emails being sent.

In this case, the email was from someone who can apparently improve my email marketing – how can I trust that claim when their email is so poor itself? Continue reading →

Posted in bad writing examples | Tagged email, lesson, marketing | 2 Comments

Surprise mention in survey

Published 31 July, 2010 | By TashWord

I did a survey today which was ok on the whole but question 5 had a surprise element in it. Note I did not know who was behind the survey (deliberately to get unbiased answers).

The question was in effect “Are you primarily a business or personal customer of these services?”

The answer options were “personal/business/equal/I am no longer a customer of Company X”

So the anonymous-to-get-unbiased-answers aspect was thrown out the window with that answer which is not so good. It also didn’t mean a lot as I never said I had been a Company X customer, nor even acknowledged I’d heard of company X before. The fourth answer didn’t even answer the question so was completely irrelevant.

The lesson is to read every answer with the question before you finalise a survey or any other multiple choice list – this also applies for a bulleted list in that each point must complete a sentence from the introduction.

From the above example…

“Are you primarily a business or personal customer of these services?” “personal” works
“Are you primarily a business or personal customer of these services?” “no longer a customer of Company X” doesn’t work.

If you are writing or editing a survey, ensure you read each answer with the question in this way to get a polished, sensible result.

Posted in bad writing examples, grammar & details, writing | Tagged answer, question, relevant, survey | Leave a comment

Polite comments please!

Published 1 July, 2010 | By TashWord

“I visited your blog. Recipricate the visit {URL}”

“CD wants you to read the blog post {URL}”

Believe it or not, these rude requests have recently entered my blog comment and email box. Do they really think it will result in me clicking on their link? I certainly didn’t, and I deleted their comment/email as well.

It really annoys me when people are rude, but more so when people expect me to react because they have chosen to do something.

So what if you have read my blog post? That doesn’t mean I automatically have an interest in what you blog about, yet a number of people have this expectation; even worse are those associates/friends who expect me to read their blog regularly just because I know them, even if there is no sign they have EVER read any of my blog posts!

It’s like those people (not clients) who get annoyed because I don’t return their phone call straight away – it may suit them to call during the day but I have a business to run!

Not a very constructive blog post I admit, but there is some relief to vent about rudeness and expectations! Of course, we can all take the message that a polite request is much more likely to get someone to do what you want (in this case, read your blog post!)

Posted in bad writing examples, bit off track | Tagged expectations, polite, rude | Leave a comment

Keep ideas flowing

Published 4 June, 2010 | By TashWord

Have you ever read something and found a jump in ideas that distracts you?

I find it really annoying when the ideas don’t flow in a piece of writing – the change of topics or tense or perception may not seem major but if it makes me have to reread something to understand what happened, I tend to lose interest in the whole thing.

I came across the following example of this on a website where it is promoting cheap ‘reports’ to help small business people; the errors give me the impression of low quality pdfs rather than informative reports – what do you think from their description?

Too often I visit the site of a business mum to find there is only a contact form! The main reason I visit the site is to see where they are located as, where possible, I prefer supporting local business mums. There are a lot of different reasons for the lack of contact details.

This weeks *** report will look at five different contact methods you may want to put on you site as well as options for phone numbers, fax numbers, postal address and email address.

A range of contact options are available

Yes, there are various reasons for not including contact details but how is that relevant when you are telling me how annoyed you were at not seeing any contact details! It also has no relevance to the next paragraph so makes the whole thing very disjointed.

I suspect they are attempting to not offend people without contact details rather than standing strong with their own argument. However, it has backfired with poor writing and an indication of weakness that detracts from their ‘expert’ stand in the report.

Here’s an alternative version that won’t offend, sound weak or be hard to read*:

Too often I visit the site of a business mum to find there is only a contact form! I understand they may have their own reason for not including contact details, but the main reason I visit the site is to see where they are located as, where possible, I prefer supporting local business mums.

This weeks *** report will look at five different contact methods you may want to put on your site, as well as some low-risk options for showing phone numbers, fax numbers, postal address and email address.

Having said poor flow of ideas is distracting, my next blog post will include some tips on how to maintain the flow…

*My changes are in blue to improve the flow plus some necessary improvements to the second paragraph so it makes sense. I didn’t totally rewrite it as I would for myself or a client!

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged connect, disjointed, distract, flow | 1 Comment

Work like ours…

Published 25 May, 2010 | By TashWord

How would you react to a website like this?

“we treat the floor and work like ours. We are trying to keep it in cheapest price. If you online quotation we give you 5% discount.”

As key phrases about their benefits on the homepage of a website, the above statements really need some work.

What’s worse is the page title for their homepage includes ‘ploors’ instead of floors.

We came across this site as potential customers, and to be honest we’re reluctant to even get a quote after seeing such errors (trust me, there are many , many more with the site!) They are local and we’d prefer to use a local small business so it just proved to me again how big an impact bad writing can have on your business.

In this case, I suspect English is not their first language and I understand it isn’t an easy second language. At the end of the day, though, do they want people to accept their limitations in English or do they want more customers via an attractive website?

If you struggle with written English (because it is not your first language or any other reason), it really is worthwhile getting someone else to check your writing and edit it for you. An English speaking friend may not get it perfect, but will probably do better than the website I mentioned above. Then get some professional help as soon as you can afford it – even if you have to do it in stages.

Oh, the above sentences would be much more effective as “We treat your floors like our own. We keep our prices as cheap as possible. Get an online quotation for a 5% discount!”

So would you try this business based on their website, or would you go elsewhere?

Posted in bad writing examples, web content, writing | Tagged bad writing, effective, English, impact, website | 2 Comments

How not to start an email

Published 21 May, 2010 | By TashWord

I just received some spam which started with:

You are receiving this email becasue we wish you to use our Website Design Services.

Did someone really think that approach was going to win them any business? They went on to explain about their company and what they offer (so say their subheadings anyway – I didn’t read it!) but frankly who cares?

What’s wrong with this opening?

there is no attempt to be polite or engage me as a human being, let alone being personal
there is no attempt to gain my interest
there is no attempt to show any understanding of my issues, let alone suggestions of how they can help solve them
they didn’t even take enough time to check the spelling in the first line of their email! How can I trust their attention to detail?
they attempt to further their importance by using capital letters when describing their services – unnecessary capitals of course
and the big one – how does what they wish have any relevance to me or me receiving unwanted emails?

So when starting emails, remember it is a person reading it so write to them!

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged email, person | Leave a comment

Ranking for childcare?

Published 18 November, 2009 | By TashWord

You have to laugh really – I mean, how can I take people seriously when they send spam that is so off target?

Let me share the laugh with you!

I received an email from someone who tried to be my friend and show how good he is at internet marketing – mind you, he isn’t good enough to find my name on my website and use it in an email! He does point out that he has my contact details, including phone number, from my site though.

This email was about word constructions – a professional writing service in Australia and his email includes the following (in blue – the black text is my response!):

I see that you’re not ranked on the first page of Google for a childcare centre search. And this is a problem for me why?

I’m not sure if you’re aware of why you’re ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is. I’m guessing it’s because I don’t have a childcare centre or use that keyword? If he found me through that keyword, it says a lot for my childcare articles though!

There’s no reason you can’t have a top three ranking for the keyword childcare centre based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site. Perhaps the fact I don’t have a childcare centre (or a website about childcare) is a good reason not to rank top three? And if you don’t know that, I have no reason whatsoever to believe you have looked at my site to know it’s good!

I didn’t send this email out to very many people (oh please!) but I am currently reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ (If their keyword is ‘childcare centre’, they aren’t my competitors at all) as well. But I do favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the targeted website traffic the keyword childcare centre can deliver. If you truly believe my site is best placed to maximise this keyword, you REALLY have no idea about relevant content and keywords – and I REALLY don’t want to make use of your ‘help’ and ‘skill’.

He followed this up with four requests to call me, and one to call him. Sure, Jason, call me so I can tell you how little you really know, at your long distant phone cost!

Hopefully that gave you a laugh, too.

If you want a serious message from this, here are some real marketing tips:

be relevant – don’t contact a business about something they don’t offer
be honest – adding blatant lies makes it likely you’ll be caught out and lose whatever credibility you may have had
if you claim to have viewed my site, then have the courtesy to find and use my name
don’t overstate your importance – if Jason is so successful and owns the 1,000s of sites he claims, why does he need to spam people around the world to get further business? Again, it just destroys your credibility if your claims and behaviours don’t match

Here’s to lots of laughs and very little spam in our lives!

Posted in bad writing examples, bit off track | Tagged childcare, funny, honest, keyword, relevant | 3 Comments

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