http://www.ewriteonline.com E-WRITE Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:24:43 CST en-us http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2900 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2900 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:02:47 CDT nbsp;nbsp; Download the Web Editorial Style Guide Is website one word? When should you spell out United States? What punctuation goes at the end of each item in a bulleted list? E-WRITE answered these questions, and many others, in the 66-page Web Editorial Style Guide we developed for the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Though the... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2895 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2895 Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:02:37 CDT nbsp;nbsp; Download E-WRITE's Whitepaper Web Content By Genre: Users' Questions and Writing Standards We produced this whitepaper after teaching an Advanced Writing for the Web course April 2009. During the course, we developed a list of standards for writing web content of these genres or types:•nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Newsroom... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2878 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2878 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:36:23 CDT As the summer holiday season approaches, I've been collecting some of out-of-office e-mail gems:The Aggressive Vacationer: "Thank you for your e-mail. I will be on vacation from July 21 to August 10. All e-mails sent to me during that time will be DELETED without being read. If you need me to read your e-mail, please resend it to me after August 10."The My-Itinerary-Is-Better-Than-Yours: "I will be out of the country until Friday, March 28. You probably wish you were me, trotting round the... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2879 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2879 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:39:22 CDT When my recent search for USAID information on preparing your family for an avian flu pandemic dead-ended in a 404 "File Not Found" page, I expected to head back to the drawing board: Google. Then I took a closer look at USAID's error message page. Rather than stranding the user, it tries to help by:Linking to the USAID home page where the user may be able to get her bearings and start the search againLinking to the site map, which may seem like a "vintage" method of way-finding but which... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2883 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2883 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:44:41 CDT I'd just drafted a rather terse "when am I gonna get paid?" e-mail to a client who owed me money. I was all ready to hit Send when I reminded myself, "Always run a spelling and grammar check," even if you're writing in a state of righteous (unpaid) indignation.So I ran Word's spelling and grammar checker, and here's the confused mess of feedback I got in return:Both of Word's helpful suggestions were wrong:Please let me know if you'd like me to submit these invoice...Please let me know if... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2725 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2725 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:11:09 CST nbsp;nbsp; Download E-WRITE's E-Mail Quality Review Tool:Assess How Well Your Customer Service Agents Communicate With Customers Use this E-Mail Quality Review Tool to benchmark the quality of e-mails your customer service agents send to customers.nbsp; The Tool provides a strategy for evaluating e-mail quality on seven standards and enables... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2600 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2600 Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:31:52 CDT It's the height of travel season, so we decided to conduct a (non-scientific) experiment to find out which hotel chain does customer service e-mail best. Here's what we did. Using the clever pseudonym "Jane Doe," we sent this e-mail query to hotel chains with properties near Chicago's Midway Airport: Subject: Request for info - room for disabled traveler - Labor Day 2008 Hello - I'm interested in making a hotel reservation for my brother near Midway Airport in Chicago... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2399 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2399 Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:27:52 CST By Monte Enbysk, Microsoft Office Live Small BusinessThis article is written about us, not by us!nbsp; Many thanks to Microsoft's Monte Enbysk for permission to reprint.nbsp;One of the hardest-working but most underrated pages of any Web site is the "Contact Us" page. It hangs in the background, behind more glamorous pages, ready to impart the most basic but essential of information about a business."Done right, it's a pretty modest page, without a lot of marketing or content," notes... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2248 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2248 Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:57:36 CDT nbsp;nbsp; Download FAQs Style Guide:Learn To Write FAQs That Help Customers Help Themselves Last year, we helped the Energy Information Administration (EIA) revise their FAQs.nbsp; That project went so well that EIA wanted us to tell all their subject matter experts how to write FAQs that help customers help themselves!nbsp; So we... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2077 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/2077 Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:40:42 CDT Everyone has a personal cause or crusade: end world hunger, get red-light runners off the road, or outlaw flip-flops. Our crusade: Stamp out poor e-mail subject lines.Why have we made subject lines our personal crusade? Because bad subject lines are productivity sinks. How much time do you waste opening e-mails that could have been deleted, filed, or archived if the subject line had done a good job of previewing the content? How much time do you fritter away searching your e-mail... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1769 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1769 Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:30:32 CST Are you discouraged by your newsletter's flat—or maybe declining—open rate? Perhaps you're wondering whether your newsletter is worth the effort. Do your subscribers find it relevant? Have blogs and news feeds made newsletters obsolete? Newsletters do face unprecedented competition for their subscribers' time, but there is good news from the Nielsen Norman Group's (NN/g) usability research. The best of them—those newsletters that are relevant and timely—have bright futures and are... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1439 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1439 Thu, 03 Aug 2006 09:55:29 CDT We begin this issue with a bold statement: technical people need adequate writing skills.nbsp; Though we realize many techies despise writing—"I hated English; that's why I became an engineer in the first place"—techies in today's workplace need to be able to write.nbsp; Besides, the whole concept of being either non-literary (a techie) or non-technical (a wordie?) is dead.nbsp; Fifteen years ago, we all had one stubborn non-techie colleague who "wasn't into" computers or "didn't do"... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1430 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1430 Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:27:01 CDT This article will be especially useful to you if you manage a contact center and employ offshore customer service agents (in India, the Phillipines, etc.) who write e-mail to American customers.nbsp; But if you're more concerned with online writing for global (non-American customers), please read our article Web Writing For The World: Five Tips On Writing For Global Readers.So, you've set up an offshore contact center to handle customer inquiries. You realize that some of your American... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1122 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1122 Tue, 17 Jan 2006 06:52:20 CST Hey you. Yes, you. You know who you are. We thought you had taken care of these web writing "demons." But it turns out some of you need a little reminder. So, here are nine things we thought you knew about web writing. 1. (Almost) No One Cares About Your Mission StatementVisitors care deeply about what your company can do and what you believe in. But they rarely care about the 33-word mission statement your staff spent an entire weekend retreat arguing about: "Our mission as a company... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1121 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1121 Tue, 17 Jan 2006 06:50:25 CST In BriefLearn about five newsletter roles: industry insider, efficient assistant, experienced consultant, storyteller, and subscriber stand-in. Read a description of each role, a discussion of the kinds of content that enable your newsletter to play that role, and an example of a newsletter that illustrates each role. http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1120 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/1120 Tue, 17 Jan 2006 06:41:08 CST In BriefReview our list of 26 ways to freshen your e-newsletter. http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/204 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/204 Sun, 04 Apr 2004 17:56:09 CDT In BriefOur analysis of customer service e-mail turned up five common traits that can cost you customers. Learn what they are and how to avoid them. http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/705 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/705 Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:52:55 CST In BriefYour customer service agents are working harder than ever, but you are still inundated with e-mail. The solution: well-written FAQs that allow customers to self-serve can dramatically reduce e-mail volume. Here are six tips for writing FAQs that help web visitors help themselves. http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/690 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/690 Thu, 10 Feb 2005 12:30:56 CST In Brief Answering e-mail from angry customers is a challenge. Here are ten tips for solving your customer's problem and salving his anger. http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/676 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/676 Fri, 07 Jan 2005 07:16:27 CST We recently presented the keynote at a conference for public school web content managers.nbsp; Our topic: an overview of web usability research and how to improve school web sites by applying the findings. In preparation, we reviewed the vast amount of usability information on the web and found invaluable, practical information.nbsp; We thought we'd pass along the fruits of our efforts. So, in this issue of the E-Writing Bulletin, we're pointing you to five of the top usability... http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/624 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/624 Thu, 21 Oct 2004 07:46:41 CDT In BriefWe thought we were pretty savvy about web projects. So why was our own re-launch as slow and painful as giving birth to a baby elephant? It turns out there was still plenty to learn. Here's a list of the lessons we learned the hard way plus our suggestions for ways to make your re-launch easier. http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/521 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/521 Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:26:40 CDT In BriefE-mail is a prized tool for small business. It allows you to communicate quickly and frequently with your customer and puts you on an even footing with your larger or more established competitor. But e-mail errors brand you as unprofessional. Here are seven tips for writing professional, quot;competitivequot; e-mail. http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/546 http://www.ewriteonline.com/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/546 Wed, 29 Sep 2004 06:03:31 CDT In BriefWriting sales reports, memos, proposals and marketing e-mails and letters is easier if you take your reader's point of view. Here are tips for writing like the pros.