Language conventions exist for a reason. Without a common standard for grammar, style and punctuation, we wouldn't be able to communicate so clearly with each other.
So, we're forever grateful to those trusty digital assistants which help us express our ideas in writing.
But are these aids helpful in every aspect? Are they as useful to brands and companies as they are for individuals?
Can they even affect our writing in a negative way? And if so, how can we change that?
In this blog, we’re going to talk about how editing aids affect your individual style and how Writitude works to take your writing to a new level.
What other writing aids don’t do
As we’ve already written, writing aids are becoming smarter every year.
Today they’re not only able to detect bad grammar and spelling — they also detect such errors as unclear syntax and redundancy.
What’s more, some modern writing aids can even adjust your tone to make you sound more scholarly or business-like.
Thanks to such features, these apps will make your writing neater, more coherent and more consistent with your purposes — whether you’re working on a business presentation, a letter, an article or an academic paper.
What they won’t do for you is help your personal writing style to stand out from the crowd. In fact, these apps will do just the opposite!
Because they’re focused on evening out stylistic and grammatical inconsistencies, they treat all texts the same and bring them to one single standard that is built into these apps and which guides everything they do.
What Writitude does
Writitude has a completely new editing principle at its core. It’s focused on fine-tuning your writing in accordance with your chosen tone of voice (ToV).
So that you sound like no-one else (in the best way possible).
This powerful language engine was developed specifically for brand writers and managers, as it’s essential for a brand to speak in a unique voice that will be heard and recognized by customers.
Consistency matters
Besides helping you write clearly and maintain your unique voice while doing so, Writitude has one more objective: to make sure that your tone is consistent throughout all your brand content.
The importance of consistency in brand communication can’t be overstated.
For example, when you’re writing for a construction company which needs to sound no-nonsense and business-like (but not too uptight), it’s easy to fall into a formal detached tone from time to time.
And vice-versa, when you're writing an annual report for a local community development project, you want to avoid a hint of commercialism in your text.
Because in this case, you definitely don’t want to sound like you’re trying to sell something.
Usually, inconsistencies are monitored by managers manually — which means tons of painstakingly repetitive work.
Writitude is built to save that time and energy — a tone of voice, once defined, is then tracked automatically.
More than 100 parameters for ultra-fine tuning
So how does Writitude help writers with their style, tone and consistency?
It’s an AI-based software trained to analyse texts based on three main characteristics: syntax, emotionality and vocabulary.
Yes, Writitude has been taught to detect emotions in your text as you write, and can prompt a range of words and phrases to use to maintain the same emotional tone throughout your text.
Adding style and tone rules to a writing guide in Writitude
But since Writitude is only a helpful assistant, and you are the creator, it is wholly up to you to set the tone for your campaign or brand as a whole.
There are more than 100 parameters (probably many more now, when you're reading it) for doing so, each clearly labelled and explained.
Some of them are matched in pairs of antonyms to help you make clear decisions about your tone of voice.
For example, you can choose between sounding formal or informal, assertive or humble, approachable or sophisticated.
These parameters cover every possible aspect of writing, from text flow (sentence length and phrasing) to substance (choice of words, presence, absence and dosage of particular emotions).
You can set up the structure for your texts (headlines and subheadings, lists, etc.), define the appropriate number of complex words per text, make sure you always (or never) address your clients directly in the second person and much, much more!
A brand’s unique tone results from a particular combination of these parameters — just like a person's characteristic way of speaking is not just defined by their choice of words, but also by how they approach the phrasing of a sentence and how they retain or express their emotions.
When you finish setting up your tone of voice, you'll have a complete guide that you can easily pass on to any copywriter you choose— just as all your designers follow your brand book of visual communication.
And you don’t have to be the one who makes sure that every completed text complies with the tone of voice — from now on, Writitude will do that gatekeeping job for you.
Pre-tuned brand voice guides? Done!
Puh … don't have the time or energy to go through dozens of parameters?
We get it — we've been there! For those who just want to quickly select a few settings and let Writitude do the rest, there are two options:
The first is to pick from several pre-defined tone of voice guides, ranging from a strictly formal style to a cocky, self-assured and straightforward narrative spiced with mild profanity.
Predefined tone of voice guides in Writitude
And if you want to sound soft and empathic — there’s a pre-defined tone of voice guide for that as well.
Prefer to paint in broad strokes? We’ve got you!
The second option is to paint in broad strokes instead of manually tuning tens of parameters.
Just select some general directions for your project for example, “writing in simple sentences using simple words”, and then pass the ball on to Writitude, which will make all further necessary decisions regarding your project's texts.
Writitude's tone of voice wizard
All “broad strokes” come with an explanatory description so that you know what rules will be applied to your copy.
Whether you prefer to go with the fine-tuning or the broad-stroke strategy, you can be sure about the result.
Like a knowledgeable editor and proofreader, Writitude will take care of every detail to make your text 100% consistent with the tone of voice that you’ve selected.
Register a free Writitude account and see for yourself!
