Principles

A good point well made

Everything you read here will:

  • Be for you the reader, not the author
  • Pass the train carriage test
  • Be fun, informative or entertaining, and always engaging
  • Be clear, concise and original
  • Not be the first idea
  • Show, not tell

The Considered Promise:

  1. If a post is rude, incorrect or just not fitting to Considered Words, it will be reviewed, edited or removed
  2. We show, not tell, wherever possible. As time goes on each statement here will have a post to go alongside it where relevant
  3. This site will be reviewed regularly to keep it relevant to you the reader

The Considerations:

  • Content is king regardless of the medium. It seems that every man and his dog has a site or blog, but just because you can write an email doesn’t mean you can engage with an audience. Considered Words is here to discover and propose ways to make any message be put out in an engaging way and change the way we think about content.
  • Scientific research over personal experience and commentary. Storytelling is about people yet all other writing sites ignore the wealth of research into how humans act and interact, merely focusing on their own lives.
  • Relevant personal experience. Yet while we shall focus on original research and studies, that’s not to say that we won’t publish personal experience and opinion. However, it’ll always be relevant and always have a point.

The principles explained

The train carriage test

Everything published here has to pass the ‘train carriage test’.

Sharing your thoughts on the internet is like talking in a crowded train carriage: many find just the thought of it abhorrent; most listeners are strangers; those strangers only get a fragment of what you’re talking about and know very little about the ‘real you’; and there are kids, adults and nutters.

Only if the author is prepared to say what’s written here in a crowded train carriage then can it be published.

For you

It’s both shocking and turgid, but a large proportion of content on the web is written not for the audience but the author. My initial research show that in some cases, 95% of the content is of any real interest to the author.

You won’t find that here.

Be fun, informative or entertaining

…or all three. As with being for you, a lot of web writing leaves you wondering why you started in the first place. Nothing will be published here unless there’s a good reason and that it is written in an engaging manner.

Clear, concise and original

It’s all well and good to have a point, but if it’s written in an alien English of buzzwords, management-speke and redundant adjectives padded with waffle then no-one will have a clue as to the meaning.

Concise, vigorous writing is a challenge – editing rises in difficulty exponentially for each word that’s sought for removal. However, the reader ultimately benefits.

Originality is the greatest trick to pull. Anything that appears here will be original writing, an original spin on something, or original to you the audience.

Related to this is the subject matter we choose. Wherever possible we shall avoid reporting and requoting other commentators and commentary. The focus is on original writing and research papers, for even if the papers are old, the principles are there and others may not have yet applied these to writing.

Never the first idea

The guiding principle for deciding upon the stories we run with. The first ideas are never the success. Those ideas, or the thinking behind them, are reiterated until they are a success. Then they’ll be published.

Show wherever possible, not tell

Wherever possible, we shall show and not tell you. Because it’s what works best.

Enjoy – because that’s what it’s all about,

Jonathan
The Editor

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