Crafting your message is a skill, and a skill that can be learned. Like many skills it has rules and guidelines. Some of the best exponents seem to ignore those rules, but to get that good you have to first learn what the rules are before you can break them effectively.
View it as a slightly formal dance. You have to learn the steps before you can improvise. But don’t take that formal element too far. How often do you see an instruction on screen that says something like: ‘Whilst waiting, please don’t refresh your screen’. You’d never say that in real speech, you’d always say ‘While waiting, please don’t refresh your screen’.
When we write we often tend to think of ourselves too much. A good writer thinks of the person reading what they’ve written. Whoever you’re writing for, never forget that they’re busy, possibly distracted and stressed. Their time has value, so don’t ever waste their time. Be clear that you have a particular message you wish to convey, then convey it succinctly.
That message needs to carry the facts you wish them to know, but also needs to include other elements such as what you would like them to do next, and make that next step easy for them to navigate.
This course takes you literally from the headline onwards, on a concise journey which is exactly what you will be aiming to replicate in your own writing.
On average, this module should take around one hour to read and absorb the lessons, and then one hour per assignment.