Momentum 2018 Hello from Chuck

Writing is a skill used in just about every industry. Whether you’re producing content for a program, writing for the company blog, or just sending an email, putting words together in a cohesive manner is an important ability to have.   And few of us got English degrees. For some of us, the last time we attended a writing class was in high school—and if we were being honest, we didn’t pay much attention.  

Fortunately for us, the internet is rife with tools to help us communicate at our best. 

Here are a few of the ones we like and recommend: 

Grammar and Style: 

1. For those who write published content frequently, a style guide is a must to have on hand. The AP Stylebook, used by the journalism industry, is a good choice for most blogs and websites, and is available online as a subscription or in spiral-bound printed form. 
2. If you don’t write very often and just need a quick reference guide, find a free style guide such as Tameri, which is based off the AP Stylebook and gives general tips and examples—including a word usage list—without a subscription fee. 
3. If you’re in a position where you can’t get a second pair of eyes on your work, Hemingway App can give you a general idea of its readability. It will highlight basic grammatical errors, overly long or complex sentences, and any place where passive voice is used. It also gives you word, sentence, character, letter and paragraph counts, and an estimated amount of time it would take to read what you’ve written. 
4. If you need to self-check your writing often enough and have the budget, Grammarly is a popular resource that checks your work for punctuation, grammar, context, and sentence structure, specific to the genre you’re writing for. For any suggestions it provides, it gives a detailed explanation of the grammar rule in question. It also gives vocabulary suggestions and checks for plagiarism. It’s available for $12 a month for an annual subscription. 

Word Tools: 

1. Every writer needs a go-to thesaurus, such as Power Thesaurus. This one lists synonyms that have been voted on by users to rate their relevance and usefulness. You can also narrow it down to parts of speech or search for antonyms, definitions, and examples. 
2. While looking up the definition to a word is usually as simple as a quick internet search, check out OneLook’s reverse dictionary feature for those times when that one word is eluding you. Enter the definition or description of the word, and it tries to find it for you by pulling up a list of related items. 
3. The Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule is a free tool that does just what it says. It provides an analysis and breakdown of your blog title or email subject, including structure, readability, and types of words used, and explains the various facets of what makes a successful headline based on market research.  

Productivity Tools: 

1. If you are easily distracted when you write, try a software like Q10. It’s a program that allows your writing to take up the entire screen, so you can focus more easily on your project. This one is free, and comes with other features like customizable fonts, colors, and formatting, a timer, an auto-save feature, and typing sound effects.  
2. Try boosting your productivity on any project with the Marinara Timer. Based on the concept that working in set increments of time with short breaks in between helps you get more done, it provides several types of timers. Just choose your timer, your alarm sound type, and you’re ready to go. It can also be used across multiple computers for team projects.  

 That’s quite a list—perhaps select one or two of these tools to use starting right now! 

A Microsoft Word license comes as standard issue on many company computers these days, so chances are good it’s your go-to software for writing copy.

Whether you’re new to the software or you’ve been using it for a while, here are a few tips and reminders to save you some time as you write.

1. Type anywhere. If you want to start your copy in the middle of the page, at the bottom, or just a few rows down, you don’t need to hit your keyboard’s “enter” key fifteen times to get there. All you have to do is point your mouse to where you want the text to start and then double-click. Word will move your cursor there and—voila—you’re ready to start typing.
2. Save your styles. If you create a monthly or recurring document—such as a newsletter or report—saving your formatting as a custom style can save you time so you don’t have to search for the correct font type and size every time. Simply format the text how you want it to look, then go to the dropdown menu in “Styles” on the Home tab and select “Create a Style.” From here you can name the style and modify it for more detailed settings. Click “Modify,” and at the bottom of the window select “New documents based on this template.” It will then appear in your Styles menu to apply to future documents. You can also save table styles in a similar manner. After you insert a table into your document, you can modify an existing table style or create a new one from scratch by going to the Table Styles dropdown menu on the Table Tools “Design” tab.
3. Know the difference between sharing and sending. Office 365 gives you several options for allowing external users to access your document. This can either be very helpful or very dangerous if you aren’t aware of the differences between them. We’ll focus on the three most easily confused options here.

When you click on “Share” on the File tab, the first option you’ll see is “Share with people.” This option allows you to give other individuals permission to either view or edit your document, depending on the permission you give them. This is not a stagnant copy—they are able to see the document that you have saved in your files, so they’ll be able to see any changes you make to it in the future. Only the individuals you give permission to will be able to access the document; any individuals they forward their document access links to won’t be able to access it.

The next option, “Email,” opens another world of options for sending the document. The first one, “Send as an attachment,” lets you send a stagnant copy of the document as an email attachment through Outlook. This is a separate copy from what you have saved in your files, so the individual you send it to will be able to see the document only as it looks at the point in time you send it. If you want them to see any changes you make to it in the future, you will need to either send them another copy as an attachment or share it in a different way.

The second choice under “Email” is “Send a Link.” This is very similar to “Share with people” with one notable difference. When you use this option, the individual receiving the access link can forward the link to someone else, who then also will have access to the document.

4. Track changes and lock tracking. When you’re editing a document for someone else, “Track Changes” on the Review tab can be a very useful tool for letting them know what changes you made to the document.

If you’re having someone else edit your document, you can make sure that every change is accounted for with the “Lock Tracking” option in the Track Changes dropdown menu. This lets you select a password to be required in order to turn off Track Changes.

5. Document comparison. If someone gets around “Locked Tracking,” or another scenario finds you needing to know the differences between two documents, the “Compare” option on the Review tab will be monumentally helpful.

The pop-up menu allows you to choose the level of detail that you want to compare. For example, if someone copied your text into a new document and changed it from there, you can uncheck the “Formatting” and “Headers and footers” boxes so you’re not bogged down reviewing changes you’re not interested in.

Half an hour this week.

Microsoft Word is rich in features to make your document and copy creation quicker and easier. If you use it often, take half an hour out of your week to explore the menu options—you may be surprised at what you find to speed up your tasks.