A word I frequently see misused is “where.” Writers often use it instead of the more appropriate “that” or “when.” “Where” refers to a place or location. Be careful not to use when it does not have this meaning. Incorrect: Last week, there were two occasions where the photocopier malfunctioned. Correct: Last week, there were […]
I am often asked which spelling to use? There are three styles: Canadian, British or American. My answer is to use the spelling of the reader. After all, the role of a writer is to ensure the reader gets the message quickly. If I spell a word in a different manner than the reader is […]
There is nothing that ruins a writer’s professional image faster than grammatically-poor sentences. A sentence must contain a subject and a verb and must express a complete thought. Examples The report was written. I wrote the report. Both of these examples contain a subject and a verb and state a complete thought. A sentence may […]
In regard to and with regard to are two very common phrases in business communication. Yet why do so many people get them wrong? Why do so many writers want to add an “s” to regard? Incorrect With regards to compiling the binders … The correct phrases are with regard to … and in regard to … Correct With regard to compiling the binders … […]
Some business people are confused about when to use i.e. as opposed to e.g. The abbreviation i.e. is from the Latin phrase id est. It means that is. On the other hand, ?e.g. is from the Latin phrase exempli gratia, meaning for example. When deciding which one to use, think in terms of inclusiveness. If you want to indicate everything […]
The North American trend for capitalizing words is now “modified down.” What this means is that if you can’t decide whether to capitalize a word or not, you should probably leave it in lower case. A good guideline is if you are using the official name of the organization, use capital letters. If you are […]
People often want to know about the punctuation they refer to as dot, dot, dot. It is actually called an ellipsis. It is formed by using three spaced periods and indicates there are missing words. As one of my workshop participants said, “It is really saying yada, yada, yada.” Correct – As usual, the weekly […]
When people take a writing course, they expect to hear a lot about the importance of clarity and conciseness. However, in my mind they are out of date on their emphasis. Fifteen years ago, everyone was concerned about plain language and getting a message completely on one page. And often times to do this, they […]
Many people are confused about when to use “which” and when to use “that.” Often times, it is a subjective call on the part of the writer. “Which” means the words following are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. In other words, the information adds a new element the reader may not need. […]
Terry’s question: “I tend to not use the word ‘the’ in front of acronyms, but I see this used in documents more and more. Which is correct: ‘REIP provides regional outreach services to Northeastern Ontario’ or ‘The REIP provides regional outreach services to Northeastern Ontario’? If the word ‘program’ is added after REIP, I would use ‘the.’ ” BizWritingTip response: Grammatically, […]