by Leslie O'Flahavan | Feb 9, 2015 | Writing Matters Blog
I’d like you to meet Courtney Reyers, Director of Publishing at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Courtney has just led NAMI through the two-year process of re-thinking, re-architecting, re-writing, and re-launching the NAMI.org website. (During that...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jul 2, 2012 | Social Media Writing Courses, Writing Matters Blog
Check out our latest handy free download for wordslingers and communication campaigners: Guide to Writing for Social Media. We developed this 57-page guide for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The examples in the guide are health-related, but the advice about...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Mar 2, 2011 | Plain Language Writing Courses, Writing Matters Blog
Many thanks to the folks at PlainLanguage.gov who have just updated their Federal Plain Language Guidelines and published them at their site. I'm so excited about this wonderful resource that I'm presenting the entire Table of Contents here so you can easily...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Oct 28, 2010 | Plain Language Writing Courses, Writing Matters Blog
Government communicators have produced something wonderful, again. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just published an 11-chapter downloadable Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective: “The Toolkit includes detailed...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jun 3, 2010 | Social Media Writing Courses, Writing Matters Blog
The Associated Press announced yesterday that it has added a separate Social Media Guidelines section to its 2010 AP Stylebook. The new section includes information on correct use of such terms as “… app, blogs, click-throughs, friend and unfriend,...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | May 18, 2010 | Plain Language Writing Courses, Writing Matters Blog
Today, I was an invited speaker at the National Association of Government Communicators’ annual Communications School conference in Bethesda, Maryland. Before my session, I attended a wonderful presentation: “A Market You Can’t Miss: People with...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jan 4, 2010 | Writing Matters Blog
Earlier this month, I delivered our half-day e-mail writing course—How to Write E-Mail That Gets Results—for a large corporation (2,000 employees) that provides research services. At the end of the course, after participants had discussed many e-mail samples and...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jul 30, 2009 | Writing Matters Blog
Early this summer we wrapped up a great project and we’d like to share the fruits of our labor with you. After about 18 months of discussion, development, and drafts, the Web Editorial Style Guide we wrote for the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has...