Improving the effectiveness of information

As mentioned in my previous article, writing is a structured, goal-driven activity. In order to get to an effective article, we need to make explicit choices: What is the goal of the article, what do we want to achieve? What is the target audience of the article? What is the context of our article? These choices help us in making the first sketch of our article. They will also influence our writing style, the level of detail and use of technical terminology. Setting the goal Those of you that have followed my articles on Personal Branding  know that I consider any form of professional communication as a goal-driven activity. An effective article supports in my opinion the author's branding and aims for one or more specific goals. These goals can be divided into three categories: Convincing the reader to perform an action. This can for instance be contacting you, ordering a product, signing up for a newsletter or visiting an event. Changing the opinion of the re...

“I wrote the first thing that came out of my head. It just happened to be, the best article in the world.” (Inspired by “The best song in the world” by Tenacious D.) The best articles in the world are shaped in our mind; we dream them, we think them through but we actually never write them. In the past I wrote several articles on Intelligent Automation and Robotics. The first of these series came easy, later on creating a new contribution started to become more and more of a struggle. It’s been more than 6 months since my last article and about time to write a new one. But where to start? And how to finish? In this blog series, I will guide you through my writing process, including my first drafts and potential revisions. How to write an article Writing is a structured, goal-driven activity. I have studied Linguistic Competence (The science of communication – in my case Writing) at University and I have learned the following activity plan: Define your goal Define your a...