Here's the truth – these slides were never meant for public consumption.

I'd hastily thrown them together to explain my copy-editing thought processes to the rest of the ReferralCandy team. The others insisted that it ought to be made public, so here we go. (Christine and Desmond made it a lot prettier than I thought possible.)

Our marketing philosophy and practice is reflected in how ReferralCandy's referral tool is built — every feature is designed around the same principle that great copy is: making the action feel natural, clear, and worth taking.

Before I wrote this, I'd make my editorial decisions quite arbitrarily.

I'd just tinker with words until they stopped annoying me, or I got tired. Only when I was forced to explain myself to others did I realize that I could sort-of codify my process in a somewhat-replicable way.

Interestingly, I wasn't able to write this by thinking "What is my editorial process?" I was only able to do it by making notes as I edited something in real time.

How did I choose what to edit? I stumbled upon Fast Company's post 8 Tips From Apple's Official Guide To App Design and I was frustrated by how clunky it was. I mean, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't exactly "insanely great", either.

Here's my take on how it should've been:

How To Write Good (Nice + Tidy For The Interwebs!) from ReferralCandy

Please let me know if you find it useful- it'll be the best Christmas present ever!

And I'd love to hear any thoughts or criticisms. I know that my style and technique isn't perfect, and that there are many different ways to interpret what is appropriate for a given context.

But I think we should all be able to agree that life is too short for tiresome copy, and that we'd all be better off if we collectively got better at writing well.

To good writing! And once the copy is polished, see our pricing plans to find the right tier and get your referral program live with messaging that's ready to convert.

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