While working on his masterpiece Ulysses, the novelist James Joyce ran into a friend who asked him how the writing was going. Joyce responded that he’d been working all day and had produced only 2 sentences. The friend asked, “You have been seeking the right words?” “No,” said Joyce. “I have the words already. What [...]
What people do intuitively with their voice inflection often bewilders them in writing. The challenge is translating voice inflection to the page, post, or tweet. To be more dramatic about it: cut a comma and you may destroy someone’s career or see them in court. To repeat: A comma tells a reader to pause. The [...]
Whether you’re dashing off an informal email to coordinate a meeting, developing a proposal, or compiling a monthly status report to the executive team, your writing represents an investment of time. If you’re like most employees responding to our surveys in client organizations, you spend 20-90 percent of your workday writing. Your organization expects a [...]
Don’t get me wrong: I like to get greeting cards as much as the next person. But what’s better than a commercial card? A personal note that communicates your feelings. Or, maybe spend the $4.99 with Hallmark to buy the sentimental card—but at least write your own note inside. Guaranteed, you’ll get a better reaction. [...]
A new year means new budgets for your clients and prospects and new opportunities to propose your services and products. You may find yourself offering a proposal in one of two situations: 1) You send an unsolicited proposal to persuade the reader he or she needs your product or service; or 2) The reader is [...]
Grammar and clarity are inseparable. Grammatical mistakes can either muddy your message or mar your image. —TEN— Pronouns after than: “He’s taller than me.” Finish the sentence to hear the correct choice after than or as. Correct: “He’s taller than I [am tall].” —NINE— Irregular verb go: “They had went to the store.” Gone is [...]
With the advent of smart phones, social media, and texting, we’re writing more—not less—than five years ago. And more people write more. We used to pick up the phone for day-to-day tasks. But so many people screen their calls with voicemail that we’ve found it faster and easier to get through by writing than calling. [...]
Rarely do I finish a speaking or training engagement that someone doesn’t ask me some version of this question: “What’s involved in writing a book? How hard is it to get published?” My answer: It depends. Anybody can write a book these days. Almost 3 million titles were published last year alone (includes self-published books). [...]
Having taught business and technical writing for 3 decades in almost half the Fortune 500 corporations, I’ve literally been reading your mail. Well, okay, maybe not YOUR mail. But I’ve read and discussed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of emails, letters, proposals, and reports with both writers and recipients to discover their intentions and [...]
Many things in life come in pairs: Shoes. Earrings. Salt and pepper shakers. Knife and fork. Chop sticks. Bookends. Ping-pong paddles. Pillowcases. Parentheses. Commas. Not all commas. But some commas. You’ll never see an open parenthesis alone—like this ( –unless someone has made a proofreading error and forgotten to add the closing parenthesis. But you’ll [...]
