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Hi, I'm Kari Wethington with Expert Village.com. Today we are doing Writer's Guide: Self Editing
Basics. When we are talking about word choice and usage. It is important to keep in mind
who your audience is. It's really good to use interesting words, big words that maybe
you have just learned. But even more important than that is to make sure what you are saying
is understood by your reader. So for instance using specialized jargon, using informal slang,
that's not necessarily going to make sense to your reader. So reread your sentences and
make sure it is going to be understood by your audience. Let's take a look at a couple
of examples. The first example we have could be a letter that perhaps a college student
is sending to someone when they are looking for an internship and as you can see it is
very informal. We have: Dear Mr. White, When I was trolling some career Web sites this
week, I noticed that your company has an opening for an intern this summer. The position sounds
rad. Can you shoot me back and e-mail and tell me what's up with the application process?
Even if this is a person that you know and you've met it's probably still not appropriate
to send this type of email. It's someone who is clearly in a position of power compared
to where you are and you want to show some respect and use a little more formal language.
You can still be fun but make it a little more formal. The second example we have uses
a little jargon that not everyone would understand. We have: We got the dailies in today and the
time code didn't match on cameras A and B, so we had to go through and find the sync
points manually. If you are sending this to someone who edits video, it will make complete
sense but say you are sending to an actor or someone else who is helping with production
there not necessarily going to know what you are talking about. So we are going to have
to go through and make this a little easier to understand. Here are a couple of ways to
make these word choices better and to better communicate your message. The first example
we have: Dear Mr. White, I am interested in learning more about your company's internship
opportunities. Can I call you later this week to set up an informational interview? This
gets you message across. It's a little shorter and it's more to the point. Second we've got:
We will need extra time to edit today's video because we had technical issues because of
the way we shot the footage. This makes sense to everyone no matter what business they are
in and it's just a better sentence.