Taming the wild, woolly e-mail inbox
Whether your e-mail inbox is cluttered with spam or work-related e-mail, take note: The following techniques can help you gain control of your wild inbox.
Category: Internal Communication
Power up your correspondence
Power up your correspondence by reading it aloud before sending it.
Grammar Repair Shop: ‘More important’ matters
The phrase that annoys me most lately — “more importantly” — is widely used on television shows and commercials alike. It seems to me that it should be “more important,” unless the speaker is referring to the way something is done. Do you agree?
Craft e-mail that shouts ‘Read me!’
Three-quarters of today’s execs use e-mail as their primary form of communication. So, make sure your messages stand out amid the e-mail avalanche by crafting them as if the boss has only 10 seconds to read them.
Turning those ‘meetings’ into ‘doings’
You won’t find many people who love meetings. That might be because attendees often feel like meetings are a waste of time. At Marilyn Halsall’s workplace, “action minutes” are part of the remedy.
Grammar Repair Shop: Strengthen sentences by axing ‘there is’
Steer clear of this sentence structure when writing: “There’s coffee and bagels in the conference room.”
Grammar Repair Shop: Contraction infractions
Common mistakes when using contractions.
Sidestep these 5 temptations of e-mail
You’ve probably noticed how email can bring out the worst in people. Don’t let it tempt you to misuse it. Steer clear of these five common temptations:
Grammar Repair Shop: If only this phrase would ‘go missing’
Problem: I’ve been hearing and reading the phrase “went missing” lately. It’s frequently in the media and sounds terrible! Is this phrase grammatically correct? — Joyce Prosser, Administrative Assistant, Saint Anselm College, Manchester, N.H. The phrase is grammatically correct, at least according to British diction-aries, and most people do un- derstand what it means. But […]
Grammar Repair Shop: ‘Which’ or ‘that’?
A reader asks: “Is there a hard-and-fast rule regarding ‘that’ and ‘which?’” One way to figure out when to use “that” versus “which”: Take a look at the whole sentence, and then decide whether the word will introduce an essential or nonessential clause. “That” introduces clauses that are essential to understanding the sentence’s meaning, while […]