full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jim VandeHei: How to write less but say more

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Which relates as well to point four, which is: be human. Write like a human. I see this in journalism all the time. I don't understand what hpepaned to our species that when you put a pen in our hand or a kyaerobd in front of us, we suddenly stiffen up, think we're a hrvarad prfessoor or we're Walt wihtamn, and we try to show off in our writing. Like, if I was talking to you in the bar, I'm not going to use SAT words, I'm not going to talk in acronyms. I'm not going to use wordy csauels. I'm going to talk like I'm talking to you now. I'm going to talk like a human. So stop, stop using those big terms. You think that people think you're smart when you use them? They don't. They just want to throw a shoe at you.

Open Cloze


Which relates as well to point four, which is: be human. Write like a human. I see this in journalism all the time. I don't understand what ________ to our species that when you put a pen in our hand or a ________ in front of us, we suddenly stiffen up, think we're a _______ _________ or we're Walt _______, and we try to show off in our writing. Like, if I was talking to you in the bar, I'm not going to use SAT words, I'm not going to talk in acronyms. I'm not going to use wordy _______. I'm going to talk like I'm talking to you now. I'm going to talk like a human. So stop, stop using those big terms. You think that people think you're smart when you use them? They don't. They just want to throw a shoe at you.

Solution


  1. professor
  2. clauses
  3. keyboard
  4. harvard
  5. happened
  6. whitman

Original Text


Which relates as well to point four, which is: be human. Write like a human. I see this in journalism all the time. I don't understand what happened to our species that when you put a pen in our hand or a keyboard in front of us, we suddenly stiffen up, think we're a Harvard professor or we're Walt Whitman, and we try to show off in our writing. Like, if I was talking to you in the bar, I'm not going to use SAT words, I'm not going to talk in acronyms. I'm not going to use wordy clauses. I'm going to talk like I'm talking to you now. I'm going to talk like a human. So stop, stop using those big terms. You think that people think you're smart when you use them? They don't. They just want to throw a shoe at you.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
pay attention 3
entire life 2
mass producing 2
producing words 2
teach journalists 2
consume information 2
paying attention 2
smart brevity 2
works effectively 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
mass producing words 2

Important Words


  1. acronyms
  2. bar
  3. big
  4. clauses
  5. front
  6. hand
  7. happened
  8. harvard
  9. human
  10. journalism
  11. keyboard
  12. pen
  13. people
  14. point
  15. professor
  16. put
  17. relates
  18. sat
  19. shoe
  20. show
  21. smart
  22. species
  23. stiffen
  24. stop
  25. suddenly
  26. talk
  27. talking
  28. terms
  29. throw
  30. time
  31. understand
  32. walt
  33. whitman
  34. words
  35. wordy
  36. write
  37. writing