10 corporate writing crimes

Corporate communicators with years in the trenches are all too familiar with seeing writing transgressions every day. Some we commit; some we correct. Here’s a sampling of the worst crimes:   1. Writing for your boss rather than your audience. In corporate communications, “writing for your audience” often takes a back seat to politics and the whims of executives. Be honest: Is that ad copy for prospects or for your CEO? Is that press release for reporters or for your board of directors? In a corporate environment, it can be tough to remember that the...

8 more tips for better proofreading

A few weeks ago, I wrote about ways to improve your proofreading skills. Tips included checking your work on the screen and on paper, reading your text aloud, and chewing gum or tapping your foot to stay focused. PR Daily readers also offered their proofreading advice, and had some excellent tips to share. Here are eight of the best: 1. Read your copy backwards. 2. Use an app with a speech option and have it the copy to you. “Sometimes this will uncover things that you might miss even when reading it out loud to yourself.” 3. Have a “read aloud” session. Get two...

Is the singular “they” okay?

How many times have you corrected a sentence like this: Everyone should return to their seats. To correct it, you can either do this: “Everyone should return to his or her seat,” or this: “Passengers should return to their seats.” You could also write, “Audience members should return to their seats,” or “Everyone return to your seat.” What if we didn’t have to fix it, though? What if we could just leave the “their” in the sentence? That option may soon be a reality. Over the last several weeks, several prominent language blogs have...

10 distractions corporate communicators ...

For many corporate communicators, the job largely entails writing and editing. At least, that’s what we signed up for. Sometimes, however, it seems like the last thing we get to do during our long, busy days is write. This week, it seemed like every time I opened a document to start writing, I was distracted by a non-writing task. Here’s what I found to be the most common distractions in my job: 1. Unwanted writing advice. I once had an extensive email exchange with a co-worker who wanted us to use “includes, but is not limited to” instead of “includes” in an...

9 tips for better proofreading

Proofreading can be tough. It can seem like no matter how much you read and re-read your content, errors still get through. On the Web, these errors can be corrected easily enough, but in print, that’s another story. Next time you are tasked with proofreading a project, consider the following tips: 1. Avoid getting bored. Though proofing requires extreme focus and concentration, it can be boring. Try something that relieves your mind of the pressure, but enables you to stay focused. This could be chewing gum, tapping your foot, or listening to classical music. 2. Get...

7 word-a-day resources to expand your vo...

I’ve often written of my love of words. I’ve explored words that are fun to pronounce, words that make writers swoon, made-up words andwords to describe people. There are also words to describe words and Janus words. For this week’s post, I went searching for new sources of words and found several “word-a-day” resources, apps, and websites. Here are some you might find worthwhile:   A Word A Day For 20 years, the wordsmith.org online service has been emailing a word a day to subscribers all over the world. The New York Times has called the service “the...

Hyphens, dashes, and mass hysteria

My favorite exchange from the 1984 movie “Ghostbusters” comes when the team is trying to convince the mayor of New York to let them out of jail so they can re-capture the ghosts running amok in the city. Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster or biblical proportions… Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes.. Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave! Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! I sometimes like to apply those lines of dialogue to punctuation:...

101 transitions to help connect your wri...

Transitions can make or break your writing. Good transition words connect sentences and paragraphs and turn disconnected writing into a unified whole. They help the reader (and writer) move from idea to idea. Transitions can also be tricky. Sometimes you need to use words other than “but,” “however” and “in addition,” yet it can be difficult to find that perfect connecting word. Consider the following phrases when you need some new transition ideas. above all accordingly admittedly after all afterward all things considered alternatively altogether an example...