The Weltchek Weekly

When Roseanne Cash had polyps on her vocal chords, her doctors ordered steroids and four months of vocal rest. “I was like a hurricane in a phone booth,” the singer told The New York Times. Even if you’ve never experienced the jazzed-up side effects of steroids, bam, you get the picture: Ms. Cash was busting out of herself.

When Ruth Bader Ginsberg observed the Defense of Marriage Act created two kinds of marriage, “the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage,” you knew what she meant. Immediately.

Good writing gives readers clear visual images that trigger emotion and spark action.

Too often, business writing resorts to mind-numbing jargon that blunts the intended impact of the message. When you read “it was a game changer” or “we took it to the next level and beyond,” what images pop to mind? My visual slate shuts down and so, too, does my inclination to react.