Maeve Catherine

No matter which way you consume my writing I hope you do hear my voice.

There are tons of writing methods for the different ways of consumption. I imagine that you are reading this in your head, not out loud to a group of people so I am writing as I would speak.

Speeches

The only time I would use a full written speech is if I had a teleprompter. Otherwise I would have notes from my research or my practice speeches about what I want to say. I am not a confident public speaker but I have found it to sound and look unprofessional and impersonal to read a full script.

A key writing suggestion I’ve gotten is to read everything out loud after writing the complete statement. Donnell King gave twelve suggestions to readers of “Writing for (not by) the Ear” and two stuck out to me.

1. Simple Words, Sentences and Ideas
   • Simple vocabulary allows more audience members to stay focused on the main idea.
   • Avoid compound sentences.
   • Do not have acronyms.
2. Numbers
   • Round them out to the nearest whole number.
   • Spell them out in your writing to prevent stumbling.

A medium that writing is becoming important for is podcasts. Podcasts are a popular outlet for creators to share their own voice and opinions. However blogs and social media posts are my personal space to share my own voice.

Blogs

Writing blogs are freeing. I do struggle to start writing blogs because of the wide range of topics I could discuss. I don’t want to confuse my reader by saying all my thoughts and opinions.

A writing technique I learned in my English 101 course was to write all my thoughts out on paper for fifteen minutes and narrow down my thoughts from there. This has allowed me to improve my personal yet professional writing.

Social Media Posts

I am focused on writing stronger social media captions. On my personal accounts I am focused on letting my personality shine through because my audience already knows me.

I run the 3+1 Communication Living Learning Community’s Instagram account and when I write captions I am focused on being inviting and informative. I follow the same writing tactic for the QUPRSSA instagram account.

I will improve my media captions as I continue to create and distribute content.