Legalese, jargon and hyperbole, oh my!

The editors at Ragan get an eyeful of bad newsletters every day and it’s become rather upsetting. For Sweetland’s sake, improve your pub!

Corporate writers and editors, I have but one request: Save Bill “Bad writing is the ocean that I swim in’ Sweetland. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Sweetland’s rants in the Ragan Report and the Journal of Employee Communications, I can tell you that he is unequivocally pissed. He takes daily offense to the drivel, corporate speak, jargon-laced jibber jabber and onomatopoeia-inducing brick-a-brack found in the Denali-sized pile of corporate newsletters we receive here at Ragan Communications. Sweetland’s rage is evidenced daily by the plethora of f-bombs and GDs that routinely spill over the walls of his (albeit more luxurious than mine) cubicle.

Admittedly, I’m a relative newcomer to the corporate communications beat, so when it comes to experience in evaluating corporate newsletters, I cower like a thumb-sucking sycophant before Sweetland (or, as I like to call him, The Czar of the Corporate Newsletter). But I have sifted through enough employee pubs to know what he’s talking about and to feel his pain.