Tip Tuesday – In Order to Achieve Greater Impact…
To be more concise and effective, always edit out “in order” and simply leave “to” in your advertising, marketing and public relations writing.
You’ll improve the impact, the POP!, of your writing without changing meaning almost every time.
Example:
- In order to achieve invigorating writing, use active voice.
- To achieve invigorating writing, use active voice.
Example:
- We provide technical training in order to increase your efficiency and reduce overall costs.
- We provide technical training to increase your efficiency and reduce overall costs.
But what about that pesky “almost” above?
Purists will spew some grammar mumbo-jumbo about how “in order to” is a subordinating conjunction. Huh? They’ll also say that when you drop “in order” you lose the underlying meaning of the phrase, which more clearly conveys intent than “to” alone. Your intent is to achieve invigorating writing, they’d say, and “in order to” conveys that more clearly. Same goes for the desire to increase efficiency.
They’re right. After all, they’re purists; being right is their job.
But who the heck even knows what a subordinating conjunction is. Right? Plus, here’s the thing –
Randomly ask 100 people which is more correct in those situations – “to” or “in order to” – and I’ll bet 99.99 percent of them won’t know the difference. Or give a rat’s patootie.
Which brings us back to Rule #2 for marketing writing: brevity.
(Rule #1 is to answer the Golden Question of Marketing – What’s in it for me?)
Dropping “in order” keeps your copy shorter, punchier.
It might not seem like much, but over the course of a longer brochure or training video, dropping the two extra words makes a difference.
If you’re writing a novel or an in-depth assessment of foreign affairs, by all means, write “in order to.” I don’t want you starting any wars because the intent of your sentences wasn’t absolutely clear.
Otherwise, go with “to,” especially in advertising, marketing and public relations.
