When you’re in the middle of research for your senior thesis, you know your topic so well that figuring out where to start when discussing it feels impossible. You’ve spent months or years exploring a topic to the point you can write and talk about it for hours. But a thesis that reads like an over-eager, disjointed monologue does not interest a reader or help her understand (and love) your topic. Letting the ideas tumble out of your head and onto paper without culling and organizing information will create more work for you—something no one wants, especially with tight deadlines.

Applying for college, fellowships, and graduate school is stressful; it can be daunting to select potential schools, take standardized tests, and secure letters of recommendation. The choices you make now will determine your future.

Your thesis is the cornerstone of your degree. A thesis demonstrates a commitment to your field of study; you want to contribute to your areas of interest, not just learn about them. It encapsulates the years of work you’ve put into your degree. But it’s also one of the main sources of stress for your final year of your program.

A successful letter of recommendation can open doors and make a lasting impression. A quick Internet search will tell you what to put in a letter of recommendation; but it is just as important to know what to leave out.

Small changes make a big difference in your writing’s clarity and brevity. One of the best professional writing tips is to simplify. Simpler is better for sentence structure, word choice, and document length.

No matter how many times you’ve done it, writing a proposal is always a little nerve-wracking. Whether you're applying for grant funding or pursuing professional services contracts, pressure to distinguish your organization from the competition and show your expertise is high.

“The biggest misconception is that paralegals are clerical staff. And, although a paralegal may perform clerical duties—and make no mistake, clerical staff are important to a law firm—a paralegal’s function can go far beyond clerical duties.

A properly trained paralegal will have a handle on several substantive areas of the law and can assist in functions such as drafting documents, investigating claims, engaging with clients, preparing witnesses, and planning trial strategy.”

— Keith Shannon, paralegal educator

Let's Talk About Business Jargon

Business jargon, also known as business-speak or corporate jargon, is rampant in the workplace. While you may think you’re reinforcing your insider status or using a fun turn-of-phrase to efficiently make your point, you may be perpetuating harmful stereotypes and otherwise diminishing your message. So here’s the rule about how and when to use tacky jargon to improve your communication: Don’t use it.

Traditional, honorable, and deferential are common descriptors for communication in the legal profession. Each word conjures thoughts of the formal and respectful tone which is used throughout legal writing—especially pleadings like briefs, motions, declarations, and responses. Embracing formality in legal writing does not require dense legalese or overly complex language, but it does require excluding casual expressions or colloquialisms.

Remote work makes effective communication more important than ever. One of the most common communication methods is email—yet email can be tricky to get right. We often stumble with tone, focus, clarity, and brevity. Since email is vital to business, we must get better at writing emails for our reader’s benefit. Only our readers determine whether we have succeeded.

Being busy does not mean you’re being productive. If you work long hours struggling to complete your to-do list each day, but you aren’t reaping the rewards of your work, then you may be busy—not productive.

Communication has always been important, perhaps no more important than today given people’s short attention spans. Business communication is no exception. While press releases and newspaper advertisements were commonly employed for announcements, launches, new hires, and marketing advertisements, now businesses and individuals have numerous alternative platforms to disseminate ideas in writing and help attract clients. Platforms like blogs, websites, online journals, and social media have become indispensable for attracting clients and increasing revenue.

Coaching helps improve performance. It hones talent, turns expectations into reality, and helps promising professionals realize their true potential. If you’re curious about how a business writing coach can help improve your writing, here’s what you need to know.

Whether you just returned from a two-week vacation or a two-day weekend, you probably logged on to your laptop to find a full inbox. Responding to email – and generating email for our own projects – consumes much of our workdays; we spend more than a quarter of our workweeks on email. If you’re overwhelmed by your inbox or just frustrated it’s preventing you from getting to other tasks, try these five strategies to clarify your emails and spend less time in your inbox.

Most people want to improve their writing—but they don’t want to expend any effort to do it. Luckily, there is a way improve writing without taking a class or doing practice exercises: reading. Lazy, yet hopeful writers can get better simply by reading more. The more you read, the better you’ll write. This is your permission to read and relax and call it work. It may be the motivation you need to read more.

Transition words are often a sign of disjointed and clunky writing. They’re attempts to create flow where none exists. Our impulse to insert overused and artificial transitions is no surprise: We learned to use them in grade school before we could recognize and reproduce higher elements of good writing. My English teachers loved transitions. I remember doing worksheets on them and writing papers where I was specifically instructed to use transitional words and phrases at the beginning of every sentence. If I did that now, my editors would ask if I was feeling okay.

Writing competitions don’t reflect sustainable writing habits, but they can teach great life lessons. So far, I’ve written a 55,000-word novel, participated in 10 writing competitions and challenges, and placed in several writing and editing competitions. I’m sure no talent scout or publisher will offer me an advance to write my memoir, but those experiences have taught me about community, time management, and perfectionism.

Writing relaxes me and provides an outlet to explore concepts and ideas. Without writing, those same ideas would distract me during meetings or conversations with friends. Writing makes me feel happy and keeps me sane, so I know I should do it regularly. But I’ve struggled for years to find adequate time to write. I finally succeeded when I developed an intentional writing practice.

The best way to build a strong resume is to update it regularly, not just when you’re looking for a new job. Whether you're applying for your first job or your fourteenth, we have nine tips to ensure your resume is updated, concise, and well-formatted.

When I describe the distance between my apartment and WordRake’s office as “walkable,” people usually envision a fifteen- or twenty-minute walk. My next line is that my commute is an hour and just under four miles.

With the near ubiquity of spell-checkers across all platforms, many people no longer worry about correct spelling. Let the spell-checkers handle it! And they do—mostly. But spell-checkers don’t care about context; if we spell the word correctly, they’re happy. So, “I here you” has spell-checkers turning cartwheels.

According to Forbes, business professionals average 6.3 hours a day reading and responding to 123 emails. That’s a staggering amount of time and energy we could use on other projects. Most of us can’t get rid of email completely, but we can all lessen its monopoly on our work lives.

WordRake helps us write clearly and concisely, but removing useless words and phrases is only part of writing. These are our favorite pieces of software for brainstorming, researching, and drafting.

I love editing. I used to edit instructors on an education website. I spent years proofreading and revising my peers’ work for student publications. In college, I volunteered to edit friends’ papers, resumes, and graduate school applications. Over the years, I noticed that many friends made the same punctuation mistakes. Microsoft’s recently released list of the errors people make most frequently while writing in Word includes several of the same errors. Here are three you can avoid.

Facing a blank page is like stage fright without seeing the audience—maybe the most intimidating experience we can have. It’s intimidating because someone will read whatever we put on that blank page, and they will pass judgment. We’re putting ourselves out there.

A few years ago, one of the WordRake founders was on a plane to Los Angeles, sitting next to a senior engineer at McDonnell Douglas. Their conversation turned to writing, and the engineer said that his primary mission was impressing upon new engineers its importance. “I tell them, but I don’t think they hear it. Then three years later they complain to me they’re not being promoted. I remind them that their writing skills are not good enough to move them into a managerial position. So they get stuck in their career because they can’t communicate with the written word.”

WordRake and McDonnell Douglas aren’t the only companies that need their engineers to know how to write. A National Association of Colleges and Employers survey found the ability to create and edit written reports is one of employers’ top ten criteria when hiring recent college graduates. Here are four reasons writing is critical for engineers.

Writing is the most important thing we do every day (at least in the office). But to write well, you must use your writing time efficiently. Managing your time helps you write faster and improve focus. Good time management can also help you reduce stress and make time for other to-do’s outside of writing.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is an annual sprint to write a 50,000-word novel in November. According to NaNoWriMo’s website, over 394,000 people tried to write 50,000 words in November 2017, and more than 58,000 succeeded. Victors claimed two valuable prizes: bragging rights and a great sense of accomplishment: writing 50,000 words in a month is no mean feat. That’s almost 1,700 words a day, or about six pages, every day, for a month. I managed it while I was in an honors program, volunteering, and involved in several extracurricular activities. Here’s how you can, too.

Because we can’t use body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice to help us convey meaning, many of us struggle with written communication. Even without these in-person ways of communicating, we can convey an effective message in writing. Below, we discuss the most important aspects of written communication.

The demand for technical writers is strong. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that technical writer employment will grow by 7% over the next ten years. The demand is primarily driven by the need for companies to have properly documented policies and procedures. This is even more important for companies deeply involved with software, electronics, and other technology, which require easy-to-understand information for internal and external use.

To achieve better outcomes and a higher return on investment, organizing purchases is key. A request for proposal (RFP) serves as the starting point for high-priced purchases, whether you’re an organization or part of the government sector.

Writer’s block is a familiar obstacle that seems to grow the more we focus on it. We know we must write, so we sit down at our desk, stare at our screens, and will ourselves to write something. Anything. Still, no words appear. The longer we sit there, frustrated that we’re not writing, the more likely it becomes that we will not write at all.