Archive for the ‘grammar & details’ Category

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Surprise mention in survey

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

I did a survey today which was ok on the whole but question 5 had a surprise element in it. Note I did not know who was behind the survey (deliberately to get unbiased answers).

The question was in effect “Are you primarily a business or personal customer of these services?”

The answer options were “personal/business/equal/I am no longer a customer of Company X”

So the anonymous-to-get-unbiased-answers aspect was thrown out the window with that answer which is not so good. It also didn’t mean a lot as I never said I had been a Company X customer, nor even acknowledged I’d heard of company X before. The fourth answer didn’t even answer the question so was completely irrelevant.

The lesson is to read every answer with the question before you finalise a survey or any other multiple choice list – this also applies for a bulleted list in that each point must complete a sentence from the introduction.

From the above example…

“Are you primarily a business or personal customer of these services?” “personal” works
“Are you primarily a business or personal customer of these services?” “no longer a customer of Company X” doesn’t work.

If you are writing or editing a survey, ensure you read each answer with the question in this way to get a polished, sensible result.

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Proofreading tips

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Ok, proofreading is boring – not many people actually enjoy the thought of reading their work over and over again to find errors. It’s a bit better proofreading someone else’s work, but most people still don’t want to do it.

However, like many things in business and in life, it is necessary. Necessary that is if you want a professional finish to your written materials anyway.

So here are my tips to make it as easy and painless as possible:

  • hire a proofreader! Ok, I added this point for fun although it is a valid option
  • get someone else to read it for you – fresh eyes are more likely to spot errors and other issues
  • use a spell check to find the obvious typos (e.g. teh and yuo) BUT do not rely on it alone as it will not pick up the wrong word (e.g. know and now are both real words) and may not use your local or preferred spelling (e.g. color vs colour)
  • leave as much time as posisble between writing/editing and proofreading (or subsequent rounds of proofreading) – a few days is ideal but overnight is a minimum. If time really is short, do something else in between so your mind has ‘forgotten’ some of the details
  • read it out loud – your tongue often trips over things your eyes would accept
  • read it backwards – that way you will read the actual words instead of the sentences so spelling errors are more obvious
  • print it rather than read it on a screen – not only is this easier on your eyes, it gives a different visual perspective and you can even read it away from your desk
  • change magnification of the text – seeing it bigger sometimes makes words stand out more

Some tips will suit you more than others, some will be more appropriate for particular documents, too. However, using a range of techniques (especially for more important documents) will help you achieve a higher quality document.

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Maintaining the flow of ideas

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

Writing with disjointed ideas that don’t flow from one to another is not easy to read and not a good advertisement for you. So how can you make your writing flow?

  1. My first tip is to proof read everything you write – preferably after a decent break from it and by someone else for anything important. It is easy to write down things as they occur to you but reading it later will show the lack of flow
  2. Qualify any alternative perceptions, usually words such as although, however, despite and but will help things flow better. For example “I think chocolate is best. Caramel has more flavour” doesn’t flow as well as “I think chocolate is best although caramel has more flavour.”
  3. plan your messgae before you write it – if you know what each paragraph is about before you start,  you are less likely to include irrelevant material
  4. Remember that you don’t have to include everything you know about a topic in one piece of writing (even a thesis will have appendices and refer to external material!) Trying to include every fact and all points of view often leads to disjointed results so just include the details relevant to your purpose
  5. Check each paragraph covers only one idea and then review the order of the paragraphs so that information builds on itself and related ideas are in subsequent paragraphs. The beauty of word processing software is that you can move paragraphs and sentences around easily until they are in the right order for ideas to flow – not as easy to manage with pen and paper or a typewriter!

Is maintaining the flow of ideas in your writing something you consciously work on?

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Absolute words

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Earlier in the week I wrote a post about products being exclusively available in one department store being a misleading statement (things are either exclusive or they aren’t!) and it reminded me of an article I wrote in my newsletter some time ago (it was my November 2004 newsletter to be precise!)

Here is what I wrote back then:

Don’t over qualify

There are a group of words that have very precise meanings -= these words don’t need any qualifying to make them strong, and in fact it is grammatically wrong to attempt qualifying them.

For instance, the word ‘unique’ means one of a kind so something is either unique or it isn’t – ‘very unique’, ‘particularly unique’, ‘most unique’ and similar combinations are unnecessary.

Other words that are commonly misused in this way are:

Electrocuted – the word actually means to be killed by electricity, not receive an electric shock.

Perfect – means there can be no improvement; adding ‘very’ to it doesn’t serve any purpose.

Fatal – means deadly. An accident is fatal or it isn’t, it can’t be ‘very fatal’ or ‘really fatal’.

In most of these examples, they can be qualified by using a word such as ‘almost’ or ‘nearly’; the word unique, however, can’t be qualified at all.

What other words can you think of that are absolute in their own right?

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Posted in basic grammar & writing, grammar & details | 3 Comments »

Incorporating single points

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

There are times when it seems appropriate to use a list, or when it is common practice to do so in your context, but what do you do if there is only one item to be listed?

When I wrote about numbered lists the other day, I mentioned that one item doesn’t make a list so something like the following looks a little silly:

Our product comes in these colours:

  1. blue

In this case, you have two real options – incorporate the item into a sentence or use a non-numbered list.

For the above example, sentence form will work much better:

Our product comes in blue.

In other situations, it may be required to use a list format even if there is only one item. A bullet point or em-dash is better than using a numbering system. This may apply, for example, making a point within a list…

Our product has the following specifications:

  1. 1m wide
  2. made of stainless steel
  3. suitable for domestic use
    - 10 year guarantee void in business settings
  4. 50kg when constructed

 

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Numbered lists

Friday, November 13th, 2009

I was recently asked about numbered lists so here is some information about them for everyone else, too!

Using a list can be a better way to present information than just using straight text all the time – it can simplify things for the reader, it is generally much easier as a quick reference and it can make the document more visually interesting than a page of text alone.

Adding numbers to a list (and although I use the word number, a numbered list may use roman numerals or letters instead of Arabic numbers) is usually reserved for when the order of the list is important or when reference to specific points is likely.

Clarity and consistency are the two keys to making a useful list. If the items in a list have further divisions, make sure those divisions are clear – or make multiple lists. Lists with divisions are generally referred to as outline lists, such as the following:

  1. prepare a draft
  2. edit the draft
    1. check spelling
    2. check grammar
    3. ensure everything makes sense
  3. get someone else to review the draft
  4. edit the draft
  5. finalise the draft
    1. add formatting
    2. check page breaks and similar details
    3. send to print

The sub divisions in this list are clear to the eye but would be much clearer overall if they used a different numbering system (for example, ‘add formatting’ would be a or i and ‘send to print’ would be c or iii.)

If there is only one item, it technically isn’t a list so a number isn’t required. A single item can either be incorporated into sentence form or just be listed with a bullet or em-dash. Adding a number to a single item is likely to confuse people as they look for subsequent points that don’t exist.

Keeping numbering clear and consistent is also critical for speakers, not just writers. I have attended a number of presentations where they start with clear points (E.g. “here are five ways to get website traffic. Number one is…”) but get sidetracked or forget the numbering and my notes are confused and/or disjointed as a result.

Do you have any further questions about numbered lists I might be able to help with?

Use your words, and numbers, wisely!

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Give options that make sense

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

I have written before about the need to use clear questions in surveys to get meaningful results, and given some tips on how to write such questions. Every time I do a survey with poor questions I cringe – do they really not care about getting good results or just don’t understand that not everyone knows what they are really asking?

One of the most common questions I have seen in online surveys is the following:

Are you …

male
female?

Technically, the answer is yes  – I am male or female and so is every other human I know of! Fairly pointless question to ask unless you have a third group responding.

In this case, we can see what is really being asked (“which are you?”) and the available answers lead us to answering correctly, but it isn’t always so easy.

It was great recently to be asked to help a major research centre refine their questionnaire. They had determined the questions they wanted to ask but understood that how they asked was critical to the final result of their research.

So if you are preparing surveys or questionnaires, my two key tips are:

  • read the questions to make sure the options answer the question and suit your needs
  • get at least one other person to read the questions to ensure they make sense to a less involved pair of eyes

Use your words wisely!

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One little letter…

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

One little letter can make a huge difference.

I have just come across an example of why it is critical to proof read everything before you publish it, and why attention to details such as spelling and grammar are important.

Actually, I first saw this site about 8 months ago and they still haven’t noticed or corrected it. I had forgotten it but for my amusement I’m glad it was still there!

In the header of every page of the site, they have used an a instead of u in their tagline. One little letter could be a simple typo, of course, but your tagline and header are the first things people notice! And in this case, it doesn’t look like a typo as it makes a real word which gives a VERY different meaning.

The tagline in the header is “Pass a drag test no sweat” which instantly brings to mind men dressing as women (testing to see if they are real drag queens is perhaps unusual but I guess we don’t want people pretending to be in drag?)

Elsewhere, they use the tagline “Pass a drug test no sweat” which related to the fact they sell “products is removing unwanted substances from your body and provides for quick detoxification of your organism.”

I’m not going to touch the rights and wrongs of passing drug tests this way, but it is clear that there is a huge difference between drag and drug.

So check your work carefully and don’t just rely on spell checks to get your work correct.

Use your words wisely!

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Capitalising job titles

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

A few months ago someone asked me (as a comment in a blog post) about capitalising the words in a job title.

My response, in summary, was that job titles don’t need to be capitalised although it is not technically wrong to do so. The exceptions being a title as part of a name (e.g. Doctor Jones) and someone in a key national role (e.g. Prime Minister, Treasurer).

I also noted that some companies list capital letters for extra words as part of their corporate style guide. Thus, we get companies writing about their Managing Director, Marketing Manager and Company when managing director, marketing manager and company would be perfectly acceptable and easier to read.

While I respect that each company can set their own brand, what annoys me is the inconsistency of such capitalisation. That is, most (maybe all!) of those companies would quite happily write about Jack the receptionist, Simone the cleaner and Justine the forklift driver while referring to Craig the Chairman and Mary the Operations Manager.

It annoys me because it is inconsistent (and therefore distracting and harder to read) but also because I find it disrespectful. Using capital letters is usually done as a sign of respect to the person in the job – does a receptionist, cleaner or forklift driver not deserve respect as well? And for anyone who says a Marketing Manager is more important than a receptionist, I ask if you could manager a busy switchboard or how you view companies you call where the receptionist doesn’t do a good job.

So, while I prefer to not use capitals for titles, if you do capitalise titles please be sure to capitalise them all.

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Posted in bit off track, business info, grammar & details | 3 Comments »

Details count…

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

I wonder how any writer can downplay the importance of the details – if we all ignored grammar and spelling, our writing would become impossible to understand.

I’m the first to agree that spelling correctly and noticing the small aspects of grammar and flow are boring  – there’s no way to make them sexy or as appealing as catchy headlines or flashy imagery. But that doesn’t mean they can be ignored for good communication and good marketing.

Here are some reasons:

  • details show care – many customers will think “if he can’t be bothered proofreading or checking details, how do I know he can be bothered doing the details when working for me?”
  • details affect meaning -  using the wrong word (consider boy and buoy or assistants and assistance) or moving a comma can make a huge difference to the meaning. In business terms, some of my corporate clients are bound by regulations so little details are important to avoid legal and/or financial consequences – for them (and many businesses) details have to come above marketing
  • errors distract from the document – you want people to read the message of your business writing, not get distracted by lots of errors. As soon as someone notices an error or has to reread it for understanding, they are distracted and your message is diluted.

Personally, I wouldn’t consider using the services of a writer who states (or demonstrates!) spelling and grammar aren’t important in what they do – it’s like a doctor not worrying about the boring details of dosage in prescriptions or an accountant disregarding careful arithmetic!

We’re all human and the odd mistake can slip through, but they should be infrequent rather than acceptable.

To me, grammar is the foundation for good writing – if something is done well, you won’t notice the grammar but the message is clear. Do you notice bad grammar and poor spelling?

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