11/22/2020 Correctness in Business Communication

Correctness in Business Communication

Small Business | Business Communications & Etiquette | Business Communication
By M.T. Wroblewski Updated October 26, 2020

You might chuckle in understanding when you see that someone has confused “your” and
“you're.” Your eyes may bulge when you spot a subject and verb sitting in disharmony, as in,
“The proposals from the company is not what I expected.” But who would have thought that
something as tiny as a missing comma would almost cause you to tumble off your chair:
“When it comes to eating people differ in their tastes.”

You may assume the author is either careless or intellectually dim, and neither option is a good
one. It’s a lesson worth internalizing if the tables are turning and your marketing team has
convinced you to begin flexing your “thought leadership” muscles by writing articles for your
blog and website. With your good business name and reputation on the line, begin by making a
commitment to correct communication, first with a “dirty dozen” list of errors you never want
to commit, followed by 12 ways to enliven your writing.

Commit to Correctness in Communication

Some time may have passed since you practiced the rules and conventions of the world's
most difficult language on a daily basis. And since you may be writing regularly and want to
ensure you know the difference between correct and incorrect language use, it makes sense to
track down or invest in:

A reputable English grammar handbook

An online dictionary (unless you prefer a hard copy)
A writing app, which could point out writing errors until you can spot them on your own

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With these tools at your right (or left) hand, you should be equipped to eradicate what the
University of Wisconsin-Madison's Writing Center and Copify consider the most common
writing errors:

Misspellings of all types, even if some people call them “typos,” thinking that typos are a lesser
writing sin.

Confusing possessive pronouns with contractions, as in its and it’s, their and they’re, whose
and who’s, and your and you’re.

Subject-verb disagreement, like the one from the introduction, but also tricky ones in which
plural nouns (economics, news, politics) take singular verbs, as in, “Politics is an issue…”

Verb tense inconsistency, such as, “I would hire him if he will finish his degree.”
Confusing the proper use of homophones, or words that sound alike but have different spellings
or meanings, such as effect and affect, compliment and complement, discreet and discrete, and
diffuse and defuse.
Sentence fragments, most often caused by missing subjects (“Slammed the door and left”) but
also objects (“My cup of tea.”)
Run-ons, sometimes referred to as sentence sprawl because at least two sentences crowd into
one; also comma splices, in which two sentences are joined by a comma instead of separated
by a period or semicolon.

Missing punctuation (like that shown in the introduction), which is particularly bothersome to
readers. Fundamentally, punctuation exists to make reading easier.

Too much/flawed punctuation, which can slow down, confuse or irritate the reader.
Faulty parallelism, as in “She loves to brainstorm, design and bouncing ideas off her boss.”

Misplaced modifiers, which put too much distance between one word and another used to
explain (modify) it. An example ought to drive home the importance of correctness in
communication: “Many tourists visit Arlington National Cemetery, where veterans and military
personnel are buried every day from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.”

Faulty pronoun reference, which makes it impossible to assess the correctness of information in
a sentence like, “Jennifer told her boss that she should take speech lessons.”

Shift from Correctness in Communication to Vibrancy

Now that your hands are “dirty,” keep them dug in by staying alert to writing tendencies that
can impugn sharp, vibrant writing. The Write Life says your writing will be better if you:

Cast sentences in a positive, declarative manner, saying what something is rather than isn’t.
Say, “That meeting was a disaster” rather than “That meeting didn’t go well at all.”
Write in the active voice more than the passive voice.
Search for the strongest verb you can find, always.
Use short, easy-to-understand words rather than long, obscure words whenever possible.
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Eliminate empty and/or overused adjectives, such as "nice," "beautiful" and "amazing."
Use weak qualifiers such as "sort of," "rather" and "somewhat" sparingly, if at all.
Hyphenate most two-word modifiers ("full-time work"), but not modifiers that end in “ly.”
Avoid the repetition of words in the same sentence.
Keep sentences on the shorter side (unless you’re a punctuating whiz).
Break up long paragraphs.
Avoid mental fatigue by rewriting sentences that begin with “There is…” or “There are…”
Eliminate gerunds (words that end in “ing”) wherever possible.
Albert Einstein was no writer, but he once observed that “creativity is intelligence having fun.”
This suggests what you may soon discover: Knowing the difference between correct and
incorrect language use is crucial, but flexing your brain muscles can be downright fun, too.

Christian Combs Rocks Sean John Like Nobody Else

References
Resources

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