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As
a proofreader of business writing, I see many of the same errors made again
and again. Errors in your writing (be they in advertising copy,
correspondence, or a web site) are more serious, I believe, than most people
realize.
Why?
Well, the standard of your writing has always been important. Today, though,
more than ever before, FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT. We are bombarded by the
written word in its many forms -- books, pamphlets, magazines, signs,
e-mail, web sites and many other media.
We
are all suffering from information overload and are forced to find ways of
screening out as much as we can. We thus tend to make quick decisions on
what to read and what not to. First impressions increasingly determine what
we read and what we don't, and poor writing leads to a poor first
impression.
The
following list of tips should help you to avoid some of the most common
slip-ups.
1.
Capitals: Avoid the temptation to capitalize words in the middle of a
sentence Just To Provide Emphasis Like This. If you want to be more
emphatic, consider using bold face, italics, color or larger text.
2.
Commas: The most common use of the comma is to join together short sentences
to make a single longer sentence. We do this with one of the following small
joining words: and, or, but, yet, for, nor, or so. For example:
We
have finished the work, and we are looking forward to the weekend.
Notice
that the two halves of this sentence could each be sentences in their own
right. They thus need to be separated with a comma and joining word. In the
next example, though, we don't need a comma:
We
have finished the work and are looking forward to the weekend.
The
halves of that sentence could not stand alone, so no comma was used.
3.
Ellipsis: The ellipsis is a series of three -- and ONLY THREE -- full stops
used to mark missing words, an uncertain pause, or an abrupt interruption.
Avoid the temptation to use six or seven dots -- it looks amateurish. For
example, we write:
Niles:
But Miss Fine's age is only ...
Fran:
Young! Miss Fine's age is only young!
4.
Excessive punctuation: Only one exclamation mark or question mark should be
used at a time. Consider the following over-punctuated examples:
Buy
now!!!
Great
bargains!!!!!!!!!!
Excessive
punctuation looks too much like hysteria and detracts from your credibility.
Avoid it.
5.
Headings: For long works, establish a clear hierarchy of headings. Microsoft
Word's heading styles are great for this. (They also allow you to
automatically create a table of contents.)
6.
Hyphenating prefixes: Most prefixes don't need a hyphen; i.e. we write
"coexist", not "co-exist". There are exceptions, though.
The prefixes "self-" and "ex-" are almost always
hyphenated.
7.
Numbers: Numbers of ten or less are normally written as words.
8.
Quotation marks: Users of American English should use double quotes ("
"). Users of British English should choose either single quotes (' ')
or double quotes and stick with them for the whole document. Incidentally,
British English usage is increasingly moving towards single quotes.
9.
Spaces: Modern style is to use a single space at the end of a sentence, not
two. Also, most punctuation marks (e.g. commas, full stops, question marks)
are not preceded by a space.
10.Tables:
Set table text one or two points smaller than the main body text and in a
sans-serif font such as Arial or Verdana. Avoid vertical lines as they tend
to add unnecessary clutter.
Armed
with these simple guidelines, your writing should be well received every
time.
Good
luck!
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You'll
find many more helpful tips like these in the FREE SAMPLE CHAPTERS from Tim
North's much applauded range of e-books:
http://www.BetterWritingSkills.com
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(c)
2003 Tim North
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