Last week I spent a delightful few days helping someone write a keynote speech.
I absolutely loved doing it, and I really want to make speech-writing a bigger part of my career.
So if you know anyone who is about to give a speech but:
- is stuck for ideas,
- has the ideas, but not the time, or
- just needs some support
then I'm here to help.
In the meantime I'm working on updating my website, and revisiting some writing tools. I did a writing and editing course with Ian Shircore a couple of years ago. Ian runs the e-editor website. He has a link on the site to the Bullfighter tool.
I love this resource! It works like a spelling or grammar checker, but instead produces a "Bull Diagnosis", based on the the quantity of jargon. It also checks the speech for ease of reading, using the Flesch index.
It even has a "Mystery Matador" option. If you come across a particularly bad piece of writing, you can submit it to the Matador, and an anonymous e-mail with the Bull Diagnosis will be sent to the author.
The Bull Index for this blog post is 91 out of 100, analysed as follows:
Bull Diagnosis: Diagnosis: Congratulations - you rely upon standard words to explain concepts. Most concepts will be clear and understood. Keep clean.
Flesch Diagnosis: Diagnosis: Clear. You get to the point. Short sentences describe key thoughts concisely. Readers of all levels can focus on the message rather than finding their way through difficult text. The good Dr. Flesch would be proud of you.
