CHAPTER 9

The Long and Short of It

How much is too much or not enough?

So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.

—Dr. Seuss

With the advent of Twitter and its initial 140, and more recently extended 280, character allowance; the 60-second “how to” video; and elevator pitches demanding that we become concise in our communication, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you need to keep all your messages short and snappy whatever you’re doing. I disagree; there’s a need for both long and short copy; it all depends on the job they are required to do.

Millions of people use Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. every day because when they want to find something, they search for it first, and they are very, very ...

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