Writing & Editing

Writing and editing Maybe you have a web site, company brochure, flyer, or some other company publication. The language in it, while serviceable, doesn’t exactly jump off the page, and in due course has you reaching for the the NoDoz.

It’s never enough for copy to be instructive. Unless your message engages the reader, it will soon be forgotten — if it’s ever heard at all. Compare the following two passages:

**** is a full-line, Aggie owned and operated garden, home décor, and gift center. We are proud to offer a local gardening knowledge base. We employ more Texas Certified and Texas Master Certified Nursery Professionals than any other garden center in Brazos County. We offer plants, fertilizers, soils, gardening products, and pond supplies and fish suitable for local growing conditions. Our focus on local gardening is one of the many things that set us apart from impersonal, “box store” garden centers, whose product selections often reflect a “one size fits all” approach. Come see us FIRST for all your gardening, gift, and personalized home décor needs!

We try not to get too carried away with our editing. Still, we do what we must.

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

The Brazos Valley has problem soil and scorching summers. Knowing what to plant, when to plant, and where to plant can mean the difference between a healthy, vibrant landscape and a moonscape of dead and dying vegetation.

At ****, we’ll help you get from limp to lush. We know gardening; more important, we know local gardening. We employ more Texas Certified and Texas Master Certified Nursery Professionals than any other garden center in Brazos County. Our plants, fertilizers, soils, gardening products, and pond supplies are chosen for their excellence in local growing conditions. So think of us as the best tool in your shed – we make your gardening easy.

Now which of the above two examples, if either, made you want to read more? Sample 1 is an improved version of copy on a client’s flyer, produced by the owner himself. We cleaned up the syntax, enhanced the cadence, and rearranged a few words for better effect, but the paragraph still leaves one with a resounding “so what.” It’s informative but flat, like the bore whom everyone avoids at a dinner party. At the point where it implores the reader to “come see us FIRST,” one almost senses desperation. Mind you, this is meant to be an advertising piece.

The completely rewritten copy in Sample 2 says many of the same things, but in a way meant to engage the reader. It leads with a question, then introduces a familiar and perpetually frustrating gardening problem. It suggests that help is on the way: here comes the answer to your prayers, and you don’t even have to go to church! We knew we had a winner when an casual gardener picked up the rewritten flyer, which was left lying about the house, read every word, and voiced her approval.

Translation, Please?

**** is uniquely positioned to bring together policy architects and technical experts in public safety, with leaders from all levels of government and private sector partners to forge solutions to emergency management challenges.

Yes, friends, this gobbledygook appears on an actual business web site. Please write to us if you understand what it means. And be honest — did you have to read it more than once?

Convoluted, pretentious prose won’t impress your readers: it will lose them. And long, convoluted, and pretentious prose may as well be an invitation to your customers to shop elsewhere.

We can clarify your copy and pare it down, eliminate redundancy and give it punch, seed it with keywords, and enliven the cadence. Most business writing contains volumes of padding that would try the patience of Job. We say this from experience, having once taken six-page business proposal and trimmed it to a page and a half, changing nothing of its essential meaning. As a short business proposal, it was a relatively painless affair.

Graphic Gourd has written and edited copy for government agencies, educational institutions, Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations, and small businesses. Projects have included:

Web site copy
Brochures, newsletters, and flyers
Technical manuals
Books and articles
Advertising campaigns
Flash promotions and PowerPoint presentations
Grant and business proposals
And more (as they are wont to say)!

Writing Samples

Need to see more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to send you before and after samples that, for reasons of client confidentiality, we cannot display online.