Daily Archives: February 16, 2007

Editing Cancer

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Microsoft Word’s editing function is a cancer in marketing. If everybody’s a writer, then nobody is the writer.
 
Raise you hand if you are using Microsoft Word’s editing function. Now, lower your hand if you are in a creative business, and here I include marketing. If your hand is still up, you are using a tool that creates more problems than it solves.
 
Writing is not a collaborative sport, not unless you are James Patterson. That is especially so for writing that is supposed to romance, motivate and sell. This type of writing needs to come from one person. The editing function on Word makes sense for lawyers and engineers but piecing kernels of information together, often compromised kernels, is bad for business. Writing that sells has an organic organization, requiring a beginning, middle and end.
 
Copy and paste writing — agreed upon by committee — is not writing. It’s typing.