Keep up to date with spelling styles
Test yourself by circling the one word in each of the following pairs that’s spelled correctly.
Category: Writing/Editing
Turn to e-mail for the truth
Think you can tell when someone is lying? When you must have honesty, it may surprise you to know that face-to-face communication isn’t the best approach. Here’s why …
Squeeze yourself into the boss’s day
Busy bosses expect you to read their minds. They rush from appointment to appointment and rarely find time to tell you what you need to know.
Grammar Repair Shop: Formality governs letter punctuation
Problem: “When addressing a business letter, is it correct to put a comma or a colon after the addressee’s name?” (From Lynne Nelson, Princeton, N.J.)
Zoom in on document trouble spots
Proofreading a document for grammar and spelling mistakes won’t snag every error, and while program features such as automatically updated fields help, they aren’t completely foolproof.
Cut the clutter from your reports
Answer the question “What do you want?” or “What should I know?” in the first sentence of your memo, report, e-mail or other piece of business writing, and your time-strapped, information-overloaded readers will see you as a hero.
Grammar Repair Shop: Comma or semicolon: which one to use?
Several readers recently asked us about the use of semicolons versus commas in a complex sentence.
Choose the best communication tool
Just because e-mail is handy doesn’t make it efficient. Indeed, three out of four people delete an e-mail before they finish reading it, a recent survey found.
Easy ways to personalize form letters
Standardized replies save you time but can cost you good will. Create templates and common paragraphs that you can pop into an e-mail or letter, then easily personalize. Use these shortcuts:
Write confidential information, don’t say it
What to do when passing confidental information.