The Writing Dojo Podcast

Have a difficult time focusing on your reading? This episode will describe five tools you can use while you read to mark your place, take notes, and highlight key passages -- as well as a few mental techniques you can employ to gain the most from your reading. When we're done here, you'll have a number of active reading strategies that can help you not only better focus on your texts, but also learn more when your mind does wander and better review and study material later on.

The context in which you need to write or speak—the reason you have to communicate in the first place—impacts factors such as the style, formality, organization, formatting, and tone of your communication. In this episode, I'll introduce you to the RAFT model—an acronym for four key factors shaped by the context of a communication—and I'll talk about how you can use the "person-in-the-hallway" test to make sure you've properly introduced your subject. When we're done here, you'll have a couple of techniques that can help you better evaluate what kind of document to write, determine what style and level of formality to use, and proofread through the eyes of a reader.