Words Matter

Without words there are no proposals, reports, letters to donors, or emails that form the string of communication leading to the big gift.

Good words can help you make your case. They don’t have to be fancy, and they shouldn’t be complex or require a dictionary. (I’ve seen it.) A well-timed, well-placed word can:

• Better communicate your meaning
• Get attention
• Impress the reader
• Improve writing efficiency
• Inspire closer reading
• Help you stay within word limits.

Take an extra minute to make sure there’s no ambiguity in your message. In one proposal, I read that the applicant planned to “nurture its relationships with other organizations”. What does that mean? Provide funding or donuts? Have more meetings or hang out after work? Don’t risk losing points because the reviewer is confused, or worse, frustrated.

A few tips

• Stay away from jargon, like leverage, bandwidth, or (gulp) upstream that may leave the reader wondering if she missed the point.
• Be creative. I read about someone who was “trying mightily”, and had an immediate visual of focus, effort, and determination.
• Less is more. Try changing The area is overwhelmingly striking to The area is striking. In the first version, I’m distracted; what exactly does overwhelmingly mean in this sentence? The second version gets my attention—Wow, I want to see it!
• Link words together for a compact, novel description of, say, tradition-meets-modern.
• Have fun with it. I like to imagine my reader adjusting her glasses or putting down her coffee because an intriguing word caused her to sit up and take notice.

Find terrific words
Check a thesaurus. I often do. But you might not need to. Words are ubiquitous. Scribble down eye-catching words you like when you see them or record them on your phone. Then surprise your reader with an unexpected sparkler. This morning I read about the new leader of my alma mater, who was described as adept at managing the touchiest of situations. Right away I got it.

Why bother?
Does using a memorable word mean you’ll get the grant? Doubtful. Will your proposal get a closer look because the reader is impressed, and maybe even appreciates the time you took to make your document a little more interesting? Maybe not all of the time, but certainly some of the time.