Writing at Amazon
Emailed on May 8th 2020 in The Friday Forward
Thanks to Danny Sheridan of Amazon, we all get to write like an Amazonian. I've included an image from his internal newsletter, Fact of the Day 1, including writing tips for those at Amazon.
A few highlights:
User fewer than 30 words per sentence
Replace adjectives with data (love this one). ie. We made the performance faster -> We reduced server side latency from 10ms to 1ms
Eliminate weasel words: nearly all customers -> 87% of Prime members
Avoid jargon and acronyms as they exclude non-experts and newcomers
See Des Traynor featuring all 4 here.
Related: the most impactful piece of advice I've received re: writing is to eliminate adverbs (words that end in -ly). Not always easy, but you'll be surprised how much more clear your message becomes.
Also, fragments are good. They add emphasis.
