The You Approach – Displaying a Positive Tone
April 28, 2011 By 530 Comments
Video transcript
In another tutorial, I showed that you display the You Approach when you talk to your audience about your audience. Another mark of the You Approach is that it sets a positive tone.
Let me show you how signs at three businesses successfully display a positive tone.
When you state an audience benefit prior to asking a favor from your audience, you communicate a positive tone.
“To receive your order quickly, please have your payment ready at the first window.” Perhaps a restaurant manager has seen that he is losing impatient customers who give up on the backed-up line of traffic in the drive-through lane. But he can’t say, “Please have your payment ready so that we don’t lose impatient customers.” Instead, the You Approach communicates an audience benefit: “To receive your order quickly, please have your payment ready at the first window.” By placing the benefit at the beginning of the sentence, you set a positive tone for your request.
You also display a positive tone when you emphasize what your readers can do instead of what they can’t do.
Imagine that a pet store that also offers pet health services has a sign that says, “No unleashed or unvaccinated pets.” The pet store can instead focus on what customers can do: “Leashed and vaccinated pets welcome.” Of course, get whatever legal advice you need to find out what language gives you appropriate liability protection. But emphasizing freedom rather than limits certainly contributes to a positive tone.
A simple way to communicate a positive tone is to use positive words.
Have you ever been in a craft store or gift shop that displayed this sign? “You break it, you buy it.” When I see that sign, I get the impression that customers are not even welcome there. This notorious sign might as well say, “Get your clumsy self away from our stuff!”
An arts and crafts store that I recently visited replaces the traditional threat, “You break it, you buy it” with positive wording: “All of our pieces are new and are treasured. If you break one, we will gladly wrap it for you.” This refreshing expression keeps readers alert but also respects their presence and prompts them to smile at the lighthearted satire of the threat, “You break it, you buy it.”
When you communicate benefits, freedom, and positive wording, you prepare yourself to reap the benefits of the You Approach.
A Compelling Writing Style
April 27, 2011 By 549 Comments
Video transcript
Do you write content that your audience is truly eager to read? One quality that makes a communication style compelling is strategic use of emphasis.
Experienced communicators know that they can create emphasis in their documents through mechanical methods: using headers, placing items in bulleted or numbered lists, inserting graphics, and manipulating the typeface for italics, bold, underlining, all caps, and even changes to the font. This tutorial, however, focuses on strategies for creating emphasis in your documents through word choice and syntax.
1. Change the normal word order.
We almost always place subjects before verbs. Since placing the subject after the verb is unusual and since the end of the sentence is especially emphatic, you create emphasis with this inversion.
The original sentence says, “Clarity is foundational to all other writing virtues.” To place even more emphasis on clarity, place that subject after the verb. “Foundational to all other writing virtues is clarity.”
2. Tell the reader what’s important.
Again, the result may be a longer sentence, but the additional words increase your chances to create the right emphasis.
You might have a sentence that says, “Develop a sound marketing plan, and create gripping content.” Notice how new words in this revision place an emphasis on content. “Develop a sound marketing plan, but be especially sure to create gripping content.
Another sentence says, “Have your draft checked for grammar by a computer or a colleague.”
The revision for emphasis says, “Have your draft checked for grammar by a computer, or, even better, a colleague.”
3. Employ rule-breaking brevity.
You might break the rule against sentence fragments.
Because it is generally best for sentences to have subjects and verbs, we have rules that tell us to avoid sentence fragments. But because fragments are rare, a well-placed fragment can create compelling emphasis.
“You might think that you need a long sentence to emphasize an important point. Not so.”
You might break the rule against one-sentence paragraphs. Standard paragraphs contain multiple sentences, so a one-sentence paragraph can really stand out. Use it strategically to communicate a point of emphasis.
4. Channel the power of punctuation.
Some writers use punctuation as though it were meant to be ignored. But consider the emphasis, for example, of a dash.
“This year’s income will–at best–equal last year’s.” Without the dashes, you don’t have the same emphasis on the fact that this estimate is optimistic.
Even more powerful is the colon, which some writers call the drum roll of punctuation. A colon at the end of a clause says, “Here it is!”
“All of your stylistic improvements follow the overarching style virtue: [Here it is!] clarity.” The end of a sentence is already a position of emphasis, but the colon emphasizes what follows it all the more.
These four tips give you just a few ways to create emphasis for a compelling style.
What should I do if I miss a day?
March 31, 2011 By 470 Comments
If you miss a day of activities, here is Alfredo’s recommendation: skip the activities for that day and continue with the activities for the next day.
You can do the activities that you skipped during the first week after the end of the month.
Here is the transcript for the video if you want to read what Alfredo says in the video.
Video transcript
Life will be busy for all of us during the next month. I know that your life includes a lot more than just learning and using English during this month. That’s why we designed English Success so that you can complete the activities in about 15 to 30 minutes.
What if you miss a day? The day passes by, and you haven’t done anything with English Success. Here is what I recommend. Skip that day’s activities, and do the activities for the new day.
Now, I think that this is better than trying to do activities for two days on the next day. The reason is that it will be even harder to do the activities. And if you miss another day, you will feel like you have to do activities for three days in just one day. Eventually, you will feel like you have to do too much, and you might quit.
The purpose of this event is to learn and use English a little bit every day. If the activities are very intense for you and if they take a lot of time, you might even plan to skip one day every week. That’s fine.
Again, here’s my recommendation. Skip the activities for that day, and continue with the activities for the new day.
During the first week after the end of the month, you can do the activities that you skipped. But don’t allow one day or a few days of missed activities to stop your 30-day challenge.
I wish you great success as you work to have better English in a month.
How a 30-day Challenge Can Improve Your English
March 31, 2011 By 613 Comments
Here is a transcript of the video for those who want to read what Alfredo says in the video.
Video transcript
OnTargetEnglish.com is hosting English Success, an online video, email, and social media course that challenges you to get better English in 30 days.
In this video, I want to talk about how a 30-day challenge can help you get better English. But first, I want you to know that you can still sign up for this challenge. Enter your email address on our website, and click “Subscribe.”
So how can a 30-day challenge help you to get better English?
1. A 30-day challenge encourages teamwork.
When you are trying to improve something in your life, it’s helpful to know that you’re not the only one. At OnTargetEnglish.com, hundreds of English learners have signed up for the English Success challenge. Many of them signed up not only to learn English but also to grow in their commitment. I want you to know that every person who signs up is a valuable member of the community at OnTargetEnglish.com. I’m looking forward to seeing you interacting with one another, helping each other learn English, and encouraging one another to stay committed to your goals.
You can interact with one another through comments on our website and on our page on Facebook. We have also set up a Twitter hash tag. Use the #OnTargetEnglish hash tag to talk about this 30-day challenge. And search for this hash tag on Twitter to see what other people are saying.
2. A 30-day challenge encourages accountability.
What is accountability? Sometimes, when I want to improve something in my life, I tell other people about it. For example, when I was in graduate school, I was writing my dissertation, which is a very large project. I told other people about it, and when they would see me, they would ask, “How is your dissertation going?” That encouragement helped me to keep working on my project.
You might tell other people about your goal to get better English in one month. Other people might ask you about it. Maybe, they will see your comments on Twitter, on Facebook, or at OnTargetEnglish.com. In fact, you can even blog about learning English. Sometimes, when people want to lose weight, they write a blog for the whole world to see, and they write about losing weight every day or every week. One person named Julie wanted to improve her cooking, so she wrote a blog about cooking. Her story actually became a movie called Julie and Julia.
3. A 30-day challenge gives you a plan for learning English.
Many people want to learn English, but they don’t know how to start. After you sign up, you will get an email of English activities every day during the next month. Now, in order for this event to be successful, you really need to do the activities. These activities will require from 15 to 30 minutes every day. If you want to spend more time using English, continue to participate in conversations about the challenge on Twitter, on Facebook, or at OnTargetEnglish.com.
4. A 30-day challenge can help you to develop good English-learning habits.
Now, I don’t believe that you can become fluent in one month. And I certainly can’t teach you everything about the English language in one month, even though I can teach you a lot. But if you participate every day, you might be able to develop good English-learning habits that can help you to reach fluency later.
I am very excited about the hundreds of English learners who have signed up for English Success emails. Many of them want teamwork, accountability, a plan for learning English, and good English-learning habits.
Look at just a couple of the comments that were posted recently:
One visitor wrote, “I am going to study English every day to improve it.”
Another visitor wrote, “I want to improve my English speaking skills. I have subscribed today on your website. I am eagerly waiting to join your English course . . . ‘English success’.”
There is an excited and motivated community of English learners at OnTargetEnglish.com. Will you join them? Will you commit to the 30-day challenge? Enter your email address on our website.
We look forward to helping you get better English in a month.
Welcome Back to OnTargetEnglish.com
March 17, 2011 By 534 Comments
We are excited to announce 6 new English-learning videos. Scroll down for links to these videos.
While we were teaching our series on “Improving Your English Skills,” we received many requests for more videos.
The new videos on our website are the first several videos for a new series called “English Success.” The first unit of “English Success” will occur during the month of April. You will be able to sign up for free daily emails that will give you new video and writing activities every day for a month. The first week of videos will be free for this English-learning event, and the rest of the videos will be available for a very low price.
Later this month, we’ll send an email with more details about this event and how you can sign up for it. (If you are not already subscribed, join our Video Newsletter by entering your address in the sidebar of this page).
Enjoy some of our new videos!
Watch a conversation modeling grammar and vocabulary from this unit. What commitments are Jennifer and Michael making?
What are simple present-tense verbs? What do they look like, and what do they do? Simple present-tense verbs show a general truth, a regular activity, or a permanent activity.
How to pronounce words that end with s or es
Identify whether nouns are count nouns or noncount nouns. Count nouns are nouns that you can make plural. Noncount nouns are nouns that you cannot make plural.
The two most common ways to talk about future time: using “will” and “be going to”
Learn about common clothing vocabulary and how to describe people by describing their clothing.
English Success – Coming Soon
March 12, 2011 By 498 Comments
English Success, Unit 1: Commitment, is coming soon.
Sign up for our video newsletter by entering your email address in the sidebar.
We will email you when we are ready to offer the course.
