My first project this month is to transform a five page article that reads like the offspring of a scientific journal and the law code. The first version of this could knock a philosophy professor out cold. Thankfully, I edited this down in a coffeeshop, so I could basically throw in an IV of caffeine to break down this cinderblock of an article.
The customer wants to know the fast facts; what a mammography is and why you should care.
In journalism terms, this article buried the lede (six feet under, and then built a house on top of it). I wanted to cut to the point. Mammograms can save lives, but they also carry risks. Know the risks and alternatives before you decide.
This article could bore you to death far before the cancer caused by mammography killed you.
The average attention span of an adult is shorter than that of a goldfish. Sadly, that also applies to cancer and planning retirement. So you have to keep things interesting and push the reader to finish every sentence. Few people will read over 2,000 words.
I edited this article from 2,100 to 1,500 words, but it still didn’t get to the point. I read the article backward sentence-by-sentence and slashed and burned to 1,200.
I added a graph to break up the sentence structure.
This week I also earned my Google Analytics for Beginner certification so I can grow to be a better analyst and marketer, which I’ll harness in future projects.
Stay tuned to see my work for this month and feel free to comment below.