Financial Jungle

It’s been a notoriously busy week for me so far, so I don’t have a financial article prepared. Instead of going two weekdays without a post, I’ll chat about the blog instead.

Financial Jungle is an editor’s pick

I was thrilled to learn that Money Smart Life selected my article, The Dirty Secret Behind Closet Index Funds, as an editor’s pick for the Carnival of Personal Finance #102. You might want to check out the other 68 articles. Some of which are quite interesting, and I may expand on a few in later posts.

Canadian Capitalist votes for Financial Jungle

Canadian Capitalist, one of my most admired Canadian financial blogs, generously mentioned Financial Jungle yesterday, and included my blog to his blogroll. Canadian Capitalist is a passive-investing advocate, whom I enjoyed a healthy debate with on passive versus dividend investing just a few days ago. If you’re looking for unbiased opinions on personal finance from a source with integrity, www.CanadianCapitalist.com, is it.

So, what does it mean when Canadian Capitalist mentions a blog? The blog scores a lot of high-quality hits. Yesterday, Financial Jungle received a whopping 44 hits (36%) from a single source, which easily shattered the previous and distant record.

A writing tip

Being a software developer, my typical day involves writing and commenting computer code. I don’t get too many opportunities to practice writing articles, and this is why I believe blogging will help to improve that aspect of my communication.

I’m a keen believer of the Pareto principle, where 20% of the effort is responsible for 80% of the result. Life is too short to be a perfectionist. Naturally I went on a quest to discover the one writing gem that can turn a fair writer into a good writer with as little effort as possible. I turned to bloggers who have always captivated me with their bottomless supply of charismas. Bloggers, like Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and Vince Chan from Investorial, have clear and attention-getting writing styles that any new blogger would love to emulate.

After deciphering their blogs, I believe their secret is to pick concise and interesting rather than general and boring words. General words like talk, get, give, go, make, look and take force reader to work harder to understand your story, thus should be used sparsely. Good bloggers rarely write sentences like “he talked to her”. Instead, they replace “talked” with something more descriptive that conveys how he talked to her. Did he whisper, shout, congratulate, praise, criticize or persuade her? Descriptive words like these offer readers a head start on your story, and make reading effortless and enjoyable.