Our users rely on WordRake for quick and reliable editing for clarity and brevity. Every feature and function was designed to work within that streamlined user experience, focused solely on delivering accurate editing suggestions to improve your work. But the simplicity of the track-changes style and sleek interface means some WordRake features go unnoticed. Here are five hidden features you should check out.

When asked to edit an author’s work, how quickly can you turn around a document? If you’re an editor getting paid a flat or per-word fee, every second you save adds to your bottom line. And if you’re simply doing a favor for a colleague, you want to help them and get back to your own work quickly.

The most vocal and dedicated software users are powerhouses. To work more efficiently, power users tweak their apps and seek out hidden features. You hear about Microsoft power users, but did you know you can be a WordRake power user, too? Here’s how to use Microsoft’s customization options to customize your WordRake experience. Check out these three power user tricks.

Prepositions can add valuable detail and complexity to sentences, but they also invite nominalizations, passive constructions, and bloat. When these single-word connectors pile up in writing, you can kill the flow of your sentence and confuse your reader. What could make this worse? Multi-word prepositions.

Email has become the primary method of business communication—72% of people prefer email as their main source of business communication. But are we truly communicating? Sixty-four percent of businesspeople report having either sent or received an email that resulted in unintended anger or confusion. Research shows it’s because we’re not communicating effectively: Email senders overestimate their clarity and persuasiveness and email receivers only determine tone correctly 56% of the time.

Nominalizations—verbs or adjectives that have been converted into nouns—are common sources of obscurity, wordiness, and needless complexity in professional writing. While nominalizations may seem more formal when they appear in phrases like “reach a decision” or “make an assumption,” that requires equating formality with stodginess.

Effective business communication relies on clear, concise, specific, and meaningful writing. Clichés fail all four requirements. In your first draft, a cliché may feel so easy and familiar to write that it seems irreplaceable. But, upon revision, you’ll see that clichés are unoriginal, broad generalizations—and often redundant. Delete them. Replace them. Your readers will reward you with their attention.

A major advantage of eliminating clichés from your business writing is the clarity and precision it brings. Without the clutter of overused phrases, your writing will be more persuasive and impactful, and you’ll be seen as more authentic, authoritative, and trustworthy.

Legal writing requires the ability to present clear and persuasive arguments, which is why legal briefs need effective organization and structure. Two tools for enhancing the persuasive power of a brief are the Table of Contents (ToC) and point headings. By leveraging technology and honing organizational skills, lawyers can improve the clarity, coherence, and impact of their writing. Technology can simplify creating, organizing, and editing legal briefs so you can focus on finding the most persuasive arguments. In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of large- and small-scale organization and how to achieve it, as well as technology tools to help you construct a better legal brief.

Effective legal writing involves connecting compelling arguments with cited support from relevant legal authorities. A clear understanding of these authorities’ hierarchy amplifies the persuasive strength of your assertions. Mastering tools like the Table of Authorities (TOA) in Microsoft Word can improve your productivity. Combining legal writing skills with technological assistance elevates the quality of your work, ensures adherence to court timelines, and helps you concentrate on your argumentation.

Legal and business writing require a blend of precision, clarity, persuasion, and organization. With so many necessary elements, most legal and business documents are long and require more structure—for writers and readers—than a typical document. For writers, structure helps you maintain focus while crafting document content; for readers, structure guides them through the document and helps them see logical connections. Structure supports understanding, so finding ways to easily implement and adhere to structure will help you improve substance.