Susan B. Weiner's Blog, page 44

Pronoun question: is the Fed “it” or “they”?

As I read market and economic commentary, I see a split between writers who use “it” vs. “they” to refer to the Fed. Opinions can run strong about pronoun questions like this. To help you decide on the right pronoun, I ran a poll asking my readers which they prefer. I also did some additional research, which I share below.

“It” vs. “they” poll

I asked

Do you refer to the Federal Reserve or the Federal Open Market Committee as “it” or “they”? For example, would you say “It raised rates” or “They raised rates”?

Here are the results

A majority (55%) of respondents use “it,” followed by 20% who avoid using a pronoun for the Fed, 15% who use “they,” and 5% who answered “other.”

The case for “it”

Organizations are not people. That’s why I go with “it.”My readers in the “it” camp agreed. Below are some of their comments on this pronoun question (with the names of the people who commented, when they provided them):

Corporations and government agencies and entities are referred to as it not they. It’s the law. Lol. I’m a Wall St editor. Pet peeve!
I use “it” because I am considering them an entity and not a group of people.
It has one voice by a single decision. Each member has their own opinion and speeches. Members are the “they” but the institution is “it.”
I handle it the same way as I would for any institution or corporation—as an entity, not a person. And while it is made up of people, the opinions of the institution do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the individuals who work there.
Without an ‘s’ on the end, ‘group’ is singular and is, therefore, an ‘it.’ The only exception to this that I can think of is ‘people,’ a collective and thus a plural.
It has one voice by a single decision. Each member has their own opinion and speeches. Members are the ‘they’ but the institution is it.
While not an expert, I’d consider the Fed to be a collective noun so singular. If it was ‘senior figures at the Fed’ or ‘Fed chiefs’ or something I’d use ‘they’, and this is what I’d be perhaps more inclined to do.—Michael Stark, AAATrade Ltd
The Fed, like a corporate entity, seems like a singular it.—Martin Goldberg, Ph.D.

I did some research. Here’s what the 2016 AP Stylebook says (note “The committee set its agenda):

The Chicago Manual of Style says, “A collective noun takes a singular pronoun if the members are treated as a unit {the audience showed its appreciation}.”

Collective nouns are treated differently in British English. From Garner’s American English, I know that collective nouns are typically treated as singular in American English, but as plural in British English.

The Wall Street Journal is another source that I rely on for style guidelines, as I’ve explained in “Financial jargon killer: The Wall Street Journal.” Here’s an example from “Kaplan Says Fed Should Begin Reducing Its Balance Sheet ‘Very Soon’”: “The Federal Reserve should begin shrinking its balance sheet ‘very soon,’ Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan said Friday.”

The case for “they”

The case for “they” rests on usage and the way that people think about the entity. Many investment professionals refer to the Fed as “they” because they are thinking about the individuals who make up the FOMC.  One survey respondent explained his or her preference for “they” by saying, “The Fed is a group of people.”

In “People Versus Entities,” Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty suggests that if you want to use “they” you should refer to the people who make up the entity. Here’s her example of how to bring the people into the sentence: “Today, the MegaCo directors, who just gave themselves a raise, laid off 1,000 factory workers.”

Fogarty also says:

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage gives a lot of credit for the growing use of plural pronouns to advertising and PR people at large corporations trying to “present a more human and less monolithic face to the public.” Nevertheless, most grammarians lean in the direction of companies being nameless, faceless entities that should be treated as singular nouns and not personified.

Style guidelines

If the organization that you’re writing for has style guidelines, check to see what it says about the Fed. Given that some investment professionals feel strongly about referring to the Fed as “they,” the company may endorse “they” over “it.”

Here’s what one respondent said:

The organization’s style guide always rules. If the organization does not have a preference for this situation, I urge them to add it to the style guide for consistency. My default is the plural pronoun.

Avoiding the pronoun question

What do you do if you’re a writer or editor who works for people who can’t agree on which pronoun to use for the Fed?

Alana Garrop of Savos Investments said, “I keep the pronouns out of the conversation. “The Federal Open Market Committee raised rates at the June meeting.” Notice how she avoided using “its” or “their” by referring to “the June meeting.”

This is a great workaround when choosing “it” or “they” means you’re going to offend someone. It reminds me of the workaround to avoid deciding on “Treasuries” vs. “Treasurys.”

 

 

 

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4 financial blog post ideas from a writing teacher

Writing teacher Roger Rosenblatt’s essay assignments inspired me with ideas for your blog posts. He has had students write essays in each of the formats listed below, as he wrote in Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing.

1. Menu

How could you adopt a menu to a blog post? For starters, you could riff on the idea of “pick one from column A and two from column B” to discuss essentials portfolios.

Or, you might discuss your financial planning process in terms of appetizer, main course, and dessert.

2. School song

I never learned the school songs for my high school, college, or grad school. I don’t know if Oberlin College even had a school song. That makes this assignment hard for me.

But I think of school songs as very “rah rah.” Is there a topic that makes you excited in a rah-rah way? If so, then perhaps you can write a song about it. Look at the structure of your own school’s song to give your writing the feeling of a song.

 

Or, perhaps you can broaden your scope beyond school songs. Is there another type of song that better suits your personality? Start there.

Another idea is to start with the opening line of a famous song, and then go wild from there.

3. Stand-up comic routine

I can’t crack a joke so I admire the gifts of you comedians.

You can tackle what’s truly funny about your financial field. That could help break down your readers’ fears about tackling their finances. It could also help them to relate to you as a person.

Many comedy routines have an edge to them. You can use comedy to address topics that disturb you, such as inadequate retirement savings or fraudulent investments.

4. Kiss off letter

Have you ever told anyone to “kiss off”? The emotion associated with such letters can be powerful. I can see the advantage of sharing your passions with your readers.

On the other hand, you don’t want to scare readers into viewing you as volatile. Tread carefully.

I can imagine an effective letter that rails against bad financial products or services. Or, maybe you’d take on bad decisions.

If you try one…

If you try one of these approaches, please share your work in the comments. I’d love to see it.

If you liked this post, you may also like “20 topics for your financial blog.”

 

 

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I only link to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

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My 2017 reading, with book recommendations for you

Here are some of the books I read (or referred to) in 2017, divided by categories. The starred books are books that I refer to in 2017 blog posts, some of which haven’t been published yet.

Biography/autobiography

* Bossypants by Tina Fey

* Turner: the extraordinary life and momentous times of J.M.W. Turner by Franny Moyle

Elder care

I learned about the first two books in this section from New York Times columnist Ron Lieber’s article, “Hard-Won Advice in Books on Aging and Elder Care.” I imagine the other books he reviewed are equally good.

36-hour day: a family guide to caring for people who have Alzheimer disease, other dementias, and memory loss by Nancy L. Mace and Peter V. Rabins — This book has many practical tips.

A bittersweet season: caring for our aging parents—and ourselves by Jane Gross

Seven Steps to Managing Your Memory: What’s Normal, What’s Not, and What to Do About It by Andrew E. Budson and Maureen K. O’Connor — One of the authors spoke at my local library. I missed his talk, but the book seems solid.

Marketing

* Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

* One Perfect Pitch: How to Sell Your Idea, Your Product, Your Business–or Yourself (Business Books) by Marie Perruchet

Personal finance

* Breaking Money Silence: How to Shatter Money Taboos, Talk Openly about Finances, and Live a Richer Life by Kathleen Burns Kingsbury

Reference books for writers

* Associated Press Stylebook by Associated Press

* Garner’s Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner — This has become a “go to” reference for me.

Words

Hemingway didn’t say that: the truth behind familiar quotations by Garson O’Toole

The Story of Be: A Verb’s-Eye View of the English Language by David Crystal — Before I read this book I hadn’t thought about the many meanings of the word “be.”

Writing

Do I Make Myself Clear: Why Writing Well Matters by Harold Evans

* Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword — This book was my favorite discovery in 2017.

* Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing by Roger Rosenblatt

 

 

Disclosure:  If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

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Narrower is better for social sharing

If you’re a regular reader of this blog—or if you’ve read Financial Blogging—you know that I’m a big fan of tightly defining your target audience when you sell your services. That’s also important when you want people to share your content, according to Jonah Berger in Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

Berger says:

You might think that content that has a broader audience is more likely to be shared… In fact, narrower content may actually be more likely to be shared because it reminds people of a specific friend or family member and makes them feel compelled to pass it along.

So, you get a double benefit when you write great narrowly targeted content.

You engage your readers more deeply, increasing the likelihood that they’ll become clients.
You boost the likelihood that readers will share what you write.

Try it.

Should you read Contagious?

Contagious is an interesting read. It won’t give you many practical tips to make your content go viral. But it’ll deepen your understanding of the broader forces that make content catch on.

The book will reinforce your awareness of phenomena such as the power of emotions and stories to influence your readers.

Disclosure:  If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I only link to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

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Bond market commentary rewrite

The best bond market commentary is written so its writing style doesn’t interfere with readers’ understanding of the content.

Here’s a screen shot of some bond market commentary that I received via email in November. It could use some help. (By the way, I’m not out to embarrass anybody. Before I started critiquing this piece, I googled the text to make sure the author couldn’t be identified easily.) Let’s analyze and rewrite this piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s good and bad?

One good thing about this commentary is that it was published promptly after the end of the quarter. Most commentary takes days if not weeks to get published. The speedy production cycle probably meant the author didn’t have lots of time to process his or her ideas. Nor was there much time for editing or proofreading. It’s not easy to pump out clean commentary under these circumstances.

Let’s look at the commentary’s weaknesses.

It lumps together a bunch of sentences that don’t stick to a single theme. It jumps around chronologically, going from September to August to October to second quarter to June to September to October. The subject-matter progression is a little better organized, going from credit to risk assets to the Fed to the VIX. However, these subjects shouldn’t all be in one paragraph because the author doesn’t write about them in relation to each other.
The paragraph lacks a topic sentence that says why all of these items are grouped together.
The paragraph is dense and intimidating.
It’s confusing that the paragraph writes about October as if it’s in the future, saying “The Fed will also start gradually unwinding its balance sheet in October.” Did the person mean to write “November”?
It’s strange to start the Fed section with old news from June. it’s better to start the section in the present, as you’ll see in the rewrite below.
The paragraph has grammatical errors. Credit doesn’t trade to “their tightest levels.” It should be “its tightest levels.” “The proposed Trump’s tax reform” should be “Trump’s proposed tax reform.” It’s a little light on commas for my taste.
The paragraph has a spelling error. “Geopolitical” is one word.

Note: I give a pass to this commentary for using technical language, such as “credit,” “risk assets,” and “FOMC” because this commentary is aimed at practitioners. It’s fine to write in the language of your audience. In fact, it’s appropriate, as long as you don’t expect regular folks to understand you.

My thoughts about how to rewrite this piece

The main change I’d make to this piece is to reformat it. I think this piece was intended to provide some quick information without building a bigger argument, so I’m not writing an introduction or strong topic sentences. I am, however, adding bullet points and headings.

I don’t follow the bond market closely so I may make some factual errors in my rewrite.

I raise some questions about the content in red text.

My bond market commentary rewrite

Third quarter 2018 review

Corporate credit spreads: Corporate credit spreads tightened into September, after widening a little in August due to geopolitical tensions. Since the September sell-off, largely triggered by North Korea/US tensions, credit traded back to its tightest levels [tightest since when?] into the end of the third quarter.
Bond market fundamentals: Fundamentals have remained solid from a free-cash-flow perspective, as second-quarter earnings mostly exceeded analyst expectations with technology sector showing the strongest earnings growth. Rising oil prices improved profitability and credit metrics in the energy sector. However, non-financial leverage continued to rise, which is a negative.
Risk assets: The market’s expectations for Trump’s tax reform proposal contributed to positive returns for the S&P 500 index and other risk assets.
Fed policy: The fed funds rate is currently between 1% to 1.25%, following the Fed’s raising rates in June for the second time this year. The market-implied probability of a December rate hike increased from 25% in the first week of September to 70% as of the quarter’s end. The Fed is expected to start gradually unwinding its balance sheet in [what month or time period?].
VIX: The VIX has mostly remained subdued, with market volatility remaining low for most of the quarter.

 

If you’d like to read some well-written fixed-income commentary, check out the links in my post on “Who are the fixed-income commentary winners–and why?”

 

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Blog post headings vs. no headings for your financial blog

Should you use blog post headings when you write? One of my readers asked me this recently as he worked on his financial firm’s blog.

Reasons to use blog post headings

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably guessed that I like headings.

For starters, headings make blog posts easier to scan by dividing your content into distinct blocks. When the headings capture the focus of each of your blog post’s sections, they make it easy for your reader to decide if your blog post is worth reading. They also add visual appeal.

Here’s what one of readers told me about why he likes headings:

Blog post headings help me to:

Quickly scan the content of an article – beyond just reading the title
Zero in on the action steps that the writer is recommending.

Headings may also improve the SEO (search engine optimization) of your blog post. According to “Headings and why you should use them” on the Yoast blog:

…headings still help Google to grasp the main topics of a long post. …Google might scan your post…and why not make that as easy as possible?

When to skip blog post headings

Skip headings when your blog posts are too short or unfocused.

How short is too short? This post has fewer than 300 words, but I still think the headings are helpful. If I didn’t use headings, could you grasp at a quick glance that I discuss when to skip headings?

On the other hand, I don’t think headings would have added anything to my post, “Writers, do you know when something’s wrong?” There wasn’t enough content there.

YOUR thoughts

I’m curious to know how you use headings in your blog posts. Please comment.

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Don’t wait for perfection

The show must go on. That applies to your blog, too.

In Bossypants, comedian Tina Fey quotes Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michels as saying, “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.”

As Fey says about writing comedy, “…it’s a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve any joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go”.

Do the best that you can with your blog posts. But don’t hold them back because they’re one smidgen short of perfection. Release them so your readers can benefit from your insights.

Image courtesy of Graphics Mouse at freedigitalphotos.net.

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Canned newsletters can hurt your marketing

It takes time to write, format, and distribute newsletters. That’s why many of you turn to providers of canned newsletter content. It saves time when you must do nothing more than drop in your name, contact information, logo, and maybe your photo and some disclosures. Canned newsletters like this can save you time. But they undercut your reputation if readers realize that your content is prepared by someone else (and you haven’t acknowledged it).

Duplication of canned newsletters

For awhile, I’ve been receiving duplicate newsletters from two financial advisors. You can see the evidence in the screen shot from my email inbox. The email subject lines and the text previews are identical. Only the names of the senders, which I’ve blocked out, differ.

The text inside the newsletter is identical, too, except for the firm’s name, logo, and disclosures.

Both newsletters also share this clunky sentence: To help you enjoy the moment, consider delegating away as many worries to people you trust. What the heck does that mean? I suspect the writer meant to say “To help you enjoy the moment, consider delegating away as many worries as possible to people you trust.” If you’re going to use canned content, try to pick a provider who uses strong writers.

Initially, I only received newsletters from __ Advisory Group, not __ Management Group. Back then, I was impressed by the sender’s creativity in curating content from diverse sources.  But then duplicate newsletters started turning up. As you can see from the screen shot, the second newsletter arrived within two minutes of the first, making it easy to spot the duplication. The newsletter was no less clever, but its lack of originality became apparent.

If you must use a canned newsletter…

…customize it.

Some simple tweaks might have prevented me from noticing the duplication. For example:

Changing the email subject line
Sending your newsletter at a different time than your competitors—I imagine that the content provider suggests a default send time. If I’d received one of these newsletters on a Tuesday and another on a Friday, I might not have noticed the duplication. In fact, I might not have noticed it if one newsletter arrived at 8 a.m. and other at 4 p.m. on the same day.
Changing the message inside to show a bit of your personality—Of course, you should check that your licensing agreement with your provider allows you to edit their content. Need tips for showing some personality? Read “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing–Part one.”

Looking for a provider of ready-to-use content? You’ll find some in “Ready-to-use content for financial advisors.”

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Shall vs. will–which is best?

“When should I use ‘shall’ instead of ‘will’? ” I confess that this reader question stumped me. I can’t remember ever using the word “shall.” The question spurred me to do some research on the topic of shall vs. will.

First person vs. second or third person

A Grammar Girl post on “‘Shall’ Versus ‘Will‘” says that British and sticklers’ rules say that

“…you use shall to indicate the future if you are using first person (I or we) and if you are using second or third person (you, he, she, or they).”
“The British traditionally use shall to express determination or intention on the part of the speaker or someone other than the subject of the verb.”
Lawyers and orators may use shall differently.

Determination

My old Associated Press Stylebook picks up the theme of determination, seen in Grammar Girl’s second point.

It says “Use shall to express determination: We shall overcome. You and he shall stay.”

A different take on shall vs. will from Garner

Garner’s Modern American Usage includes a table showing when to use shall vs. will to show “simple futurity” vs. “determination, promise, or command.” The table distinguishes between first person vs. second and third person. However, author Bryan Garner says, “with only minor exceptions, will has become the universal word to express futurity.”

Here are the two exceptions, according to Garner:

(1) interrogative sentences requesting permission or agreement ; (2) legal documents, in which shall purportedly imposes a duty .

However, Garner notes that lawyers are using “shall” less.

I can’t imagine asking “Will we all go outside?” but I’m more likely to say, “Let’s go outside” or “Would you like to go outside?”

The bottom line

If you’re an American communicating with other Americans, you can probably get away with using only “will.”

If you want to abide by the American rules, you should probably check your trusted American grammar reference. If you’re communicating with British people, who use “shall” more frequently, find a resource that you trust for the British rules. Here’s a post from Oxford Dictionaries: “‘Shall’ or ‘will’?”

I will not think less of you if you never use “shall.”

If you’d like some great references for checking your grammar, check out “My five favorite reference books for writers.” Also, try the quizzes I mention in “How can I brush up my grammar?”

 

Thanks, Doug, for suggesting this topic!

 

Disclosure:  If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I only link to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

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Top posts from 2017’s third quarter

Check out my top posts from the third quarter!

They’re a mix of practical tips on email (#1), writing (#2, 3, 4, & 6), blogging (#5), marketing (#7, 8, & 9), and presentations (#10).

Here’s my list of posts that attracted the most views during the third quarter:

Out-of-office auto-reply: vacation necessity?
Editing tool: the Writer’s Diet
Don’t give up on being different
Writers, do you know when something’s wrong?
Blog your passions or your audience’s interests?
Powerful financial article abstracts
Have you ever…?
Dare to be different in your financial marketing

Webinar lessons from my annual webinars

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