Quick & Painless Business Writing

Chapter 11

Seducing, Spinning, and Sedating: All About Structure

Before we jump into the essentials of structure, let’s confront the bad guys of word use: seducing and spinning. You’ve probably heard that wretched advertisers, unscrupulous lawyers, and con artists everywhere use them to deceive and otherwise rip you off. It’s a corporate myth. If you want to write well, you must use these strategies. They’re unavoidable, even when you’re applying the near-angelic tenets of plain language.

Let’s start with “seducing.”

Seducing. I love the word, don’t you? Seducing. It’s so… seductive, so slippery, so sweet. Doubtless, one part seduction and one part word use and you think: subliminal seduction! That’s how sneaky marketers embed suggestions into ...