Insight and journalism are two sides of the same coin. Insight says data, journalism says facts. Insights present, journalism regales. Insights show information, journalism tells stories. Insights puts everything in to make things more compelling, journalism takes loads out to make it even more compelling.
The last point is one of the most important elements of incorporating a journalistic methodology into your work. Editing is one of the most difficult tasks for researchers because the weight of material can be overwhelming. In journalism, editing is integral to how stories are told, throughout the entire creative process.
Hopefully, these six simple tips will show you that editing is easier than you think – especially when it starts at the beginning, rather than the end…
Make me care
Everyone talks about meaningful stories without considering why it’s meaningful and who for. More data doesn’t mean more meaningful – if anything, it means less interesting. Every moment of a journalist’s day is spent trying to make a story meaningful to the archetypal reader of that website, publication, platform or blog. You’re not storytelling for yourself or your boss but for the person who’s consuming your work. It’s the same with clients. Every data-fuelled document you construct has to be with the intention that the most important person in that company will read your work. What do you want him or her to do, feel, think, react to and decide upon? What do you have that they want? What data is so obvious that it will bore them? Imagine they were to say to you:
‘Why should I bother looking at this report? No really, I don’t have the time, what is it that I need to know?’
What’s the best answer you can give? When you’ve figured that out, you have the beginnings of a story that people will care about, that will have impact, that will feel different, memorable and deceptively simple. All the clutter that normally goes with such work will fall away because you’ve figured out how to make me care. You’ve found real meaning in the data by thinking like an editor.
Learn to breathe
Reading your words out aloud helps you to make sense of what you’re writing. It also helps to make data more powerful. The process of hearing is entirely different to that of reading. If, for instance, you need to take a breath when reading out a sentence then it’s too long. The length of one sentence should be the length of one breath. That way you remember what’s come before just as you’re trying to understand and remember what’s coming next. Don’t fear short sentences. Edit them down. It works. Honestly.
Start with a single headline
Whether it’s a single slide, the title of a report, a thought leadership piece or even an email, don’t end with a headline. Ever. I know it sometimes feels like that’s the most natural thing to do – write, edit and then figure out the headline – but in journalism it’s the other way around. The effect is that the writing gets faster because you know precisely what you’re trying to say, there’s less waffle, you don’t veer off-piste and you get to the point fast. Most importantly, the best facts (or data) rise to the top – they should never languish at the end. The trouble is, headline writing is hard. It takes practice and training but the more you do it, the easier it gets and the stronger the story you’ll write. If the headline is interesting, eye-opening, enticing, meaningful and memorable, then the words will be too.
The 30-40 rule
Only spend 40% of your time on the actual writing bit of writing. Maybe 50% if you’re pushing it. The remainder should be evenly divided between planning and checking. Much of the planning will be spent on writing a headline and figuring out the main points you want to make. And checking doesn’t mean looking for spelling errors and stray commas. It means rewriting, chopping whole sections, moving things around, being brutal with what you have and what you don’t need. Again, behaving like an editor who’s trying to present the best data in a more powerful – shorter – way.
List needless words
It’s amazing how much more potent your stories, presentations and emails can be if you just reduce a few redundant words from every sentence you write. It helps the data to shine. One way to do that is to keep a list of words and phrases that – in nearly all cases – are pretty much useless. Just like ‘pretty much’ in the last sentence. The more you can remove, the great clarity you’ll achieve. And the clearer something is, the more likely it’ll be remembered. Personally, I think the following are frequently wasted words: very, rather, really, quite, in fact, just, so, pretty, of course, surely, that said, actually, currently, top, major, a, that, which, in terms of.
Break the curse
Everyone I’ve met in the insights industry is cursed by knowledge. It’s often why bringing in an outsider, who sees things in a completely different way, can help the data become more powerful. Outsiders may not have the knowledge, but their curiosity and gut instinct enable them to see which bits of data are persuasive and which are confusing. The most important thing you have is the data. However, the second most important thing is the way that data is joined together. If you don’t want to write for the CEO, as outlined above, imagine you’re working for your best friend, parent, sibling, anyone who doesn’t understand what you do. The more you can simplify, the more you allow the data to shine and the more powerful your story will be. You know it all, so write for someone who doesn’t. Editing and explaining are often the same thing.
