Creative Marketing Solutions: Fresh, Effective Strategies for Attracting Clients and Customers from Marcia Yudkin
  Binge-Learn Courses Seminars Products Coaching About Home
     
FREE BOOK!
Receive a PDF copy of The Marketing Attitude with your free subscription to The Marketing Minute.
   Name:
   Email:

Your email address is kept private!

Learn how to become a marketing consultant in 10 weeks

Contact us

 

 
 

Too Many Words?  Learn to Shorten Text
Shorter, it becomes clearer -- more powerful, too!

The fact is that wordiness is a curable condition.

Wordiness is curable.  

Audiences today want you to get to the point as quickly as possible.  But being pithy and concise comes naturally only to Yankee farmers.  The rest of us must learn to say a lot in fewer words.  My new report, "Shorter," holds the keys to the kingdom of brevity.

Discover procedures that help you identify and remove excess verbiage - unnecessary words, redundant phrases and irrelevant paragraphs.  Practice cutting four passages, then compare how well you eliminated the fat with my versions that slashed away up to 50 percent or more.  Detailed explanations take you step by step from the wordy original to a shorter, then even shorter original.

Once you know the crucial questions to ask as you edit, you become a master of the red pen, whether you or someone else wrote the text in front of you.  Order "Shorter" (a PDF report) for $39.95.  

"Shorter goes far beyond cutting extra words, with dozens of practical tips on creating shorter documents with punch and style. I have applied Marcia's strategies to my own writing, and I have also shared a few tips with my corporate clients. Through Marcia's expert commentary and examples, she shows that concise writing is method, not magic. Thanks for this valuable information!" - Lynn Gaertner-Johnston, Business Writing Specialist and Founder, Syntax Training, Seattle, WA

Like all the testimonials on this site, the customer comments on this page were provided without compensation, incentives or rewards.

Shorter = More Powerful

"Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in a few words." - Apocrypha.

Concise writing packs more punch, conveys more energy and inspires greater response.

Unless you overstep brevity into inscrutability - and "Shorter" helps you avoid that pitfall - shorter gets the job done better.  

This tool for tighter writing teaches you in just 38 pages to turn long- winded prose into terse, to-the-point content:

  • Techniques that work for business writers, journalists, copywriters, grant writers, marketing communications professionals, graphic designers, authors, editors and more

  • Three steps that ensure you make your text more and more concise, without wasted effort

  • Questions to ask so you identify repetitions, blather and fluff

  • Ten formatting adjustments that save space and that most writers overlook

  • Examples galore!  Nearly every tip includes at least one instance of it

"Marcia, your style of teaching is refreshing.  You use plenty of real life examples and provide a plethora of strategies for writing concisely. Examples are all clearly presented, and like a great teacher, you stretch without overwhelming the students. Thanks again for always producing top-of-the-line material.  I always receive much more value than the monetary outlay for your materials." - Norman Lieberman, Laguna Hills, CA

  • Macro-cutting, micro-cutting and nano-cutting techniques, showing how to chop out large sections and make little reductions where every sliver of space counts

  • Conventional punctuation and wording practices you can sometimes effectively ignore

  • Four you-try-it exercises where you can see how I cut 30%, 50% or in one case 75% - without losing any essential points

  • Which periodicals and information formats provide the best learning labs for further practicing your shortening skills

Test Yourself!  Make this Sentence More Concise

"The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat." - Robert Heinlein

How would you edit that?  View my answer.

Achieve a Smaller Word Count or Fit Your Message into a Set Space

If you're writing grant applications or working on articles for magazines, you're up against an unforgiving word count.  If you edit a newsletter or design ads or direct-mail pieces, space is your enemy.  Either way, with "Shorter" you become more able to reach your goal.

This report does not rehash wordiness advice for students and professors available free online.   Some of its techniques you'd be hard put to find explained anywhere, though you could find them in use if you knew where to look.  "Shorter" also doesn't assume you remember the difference between subordinate and relative clauses or any obscure points of grammar.  

"So the writer who breeds
More words than he needs
Is making a chore
For the reader who reads." 
- Dr. Seuss

In a lively, interactive style, "Shorter" conveys lessons I picked up from 25+ years of working with top magazine editors and public radio producers and of creating word magic for a wide range of business clients.  ORDER NOW.

Test Yourself Again...  Can You Shorten Shakespeare?

"Men of few words are the best men." - William Shakespeare 

How would you edit that?  View my answer.

As with all downloadable material from this web site, buy with the protection of a money-back guarantee.  You're just $39.95 away from terser, punchier writing.  ORDER "SHORTER" NOW.

"Shorter" was updated in 2021.

Learn to catch typos

Improve Your Proofreading
Quick online course teaches how to catch pesky typos. Whether you check writing on screen or on paper, learn the stakes for error-ridden copy, the five best proofreading methods and the tools you can or shouldn't use to identify errors. Includes practice tests and answers. Proofreading Hacks course. 


 

 
   
Inspired! by Marcia Yudkin
Publicity Ideas from Marcia Yudkin
Copywriting Techniques from Marcia Yudkin
Web Site Makeovers from Marcia Yudkin
 
© 1999 - 2016 Creative Ways  P.O. Box 305  Goshen MA 01032. 413-563-4134  Marcia Yudkin
Privacy policy: We never share your e-mail information. Period.
 
Follow Marcia on Twitter | YouTube
 
Free Newsletter | | Speaking | | Consulting | | Mentoring | | No Blog | | Affiliates