It’s a simple grammar rule that we all know well: if the noun begins with a vowel sound, the article should be “an.” For example: An apple If the noun begins with a consonant sound, the article should be “a.” A pear It doesn’t matter whether the noun begins with a vowel or consonant. It
Category: Writing
Words that sell
Quick! Free! Easy! Now! Madison Ave. knows all the keywords to get consumers to buy their products and services. There are hundreds, even thousands of them, and they’re good words to know. If your writing doesn’t compel your readers to act—to fill out that web form, to place that call for more information or to
That’s odd
The Wes Anderson movie, “Moonrise Kingdom,” is in theaters now, experiencing generally great reviews. But is the fact that a movie is good enough to get consumers out to the megaplex, make them cough up double digits for a ticket and sit behind a really tall guy, when nearly everyone’s home is a Netflix-powered home
How much is enough?
Today’s journalists have access to several tools to perform their craft. These include a digital recorder, maybe a camera, and of course a computer and word processing software. Replace the computer and word processing software with a typewriter and the recorder with a pencil and reporter’s notebook, and little has changed for more than 100
Tell a Good Story
One of Trade Press Services’ writers once worked for the editor of a small east coast business publication that enjoyed considerable success despite a tough marketplace for magazines. Why did the magazine, which was started at the peak of the recent economic downturn, fare so well? Because of stories. The editor made sure that he
Capitalize this!
In her business writing blog, Lynn Gaertner-Johnston wrote a recent entry about capitalization errors: A friend sent me an excerpt from a brief professional bio she had read online. The bio said the individual is a consultant for a china inspection service… It turns out that the consultant inspects sites and operations in China for
Power verbs
In our last blog post, we wrote about being honest on a resume and matching your skills with what an employer is looking for, using their own job description’s language verbatim. When this isn’t possible, it’s best to use action words that convey power, leadership and mastery of skills. Sometimes the proper choice of words
The two secrets to a better resume and cover letter
Job seeking can be frustrating and challenging activity. When submitting a resume and cover letter to a prospective employer, applicants engage in a grueling game of mind-reading that they can’t win, asking themselves what the employer is looking for when only the employer can reveal that. In an ideal world, employers would produce a detailed
Five Tips for Writing a Letter of Resignation
Writing a letter of resignation isn’t always easy. Here are five tips to help you notify your employer the next time you plan to leave your job.
Journalism conventions
I’m not talking about a week in Las Vegas palling around with the news editor from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I’m talking about conventions as in ways of doing things. Some journalists are funny about how they write. Mark Twain never followed AP style, or wouldn’t have had such thing been around in the 19th
How to edit
Every business writer is also an editor, whether it is to edit their own work or someone else’s. And editing is not easy. First, there is given a set of constraints to consider, including word count, prescribed style, format and expected content, which are editorial lines that can’t be crossed. First edits are often straightforward.
What is your writing’s personality?
Much has been written about Steve Jobs in the days since his death, and nearly all of the praise heaped upon him has been true. Jobs was indeed a visionary, and he helped transform the ways in which the world consumes media. What hasn’t been written about as much is Jobs’ human side—his driven personality
Did the Onion go too far?
On Thursday, the humor-parody site the Onion posted this status update on Facebook: BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building And then it didn’t post anything for 10 minutes—an eternity in cyberspace after posting a headline like that. If you headed to the Onion’s website, you saw a story about a dozen
How to write a response
Often in the business world, a magazine, trade journal or newspaper will print an editorial with which your company will disagree for any number of reasons. Or, it could be a news story that management feels doesn’t accurately represent your company or its products. Your company may decide that it needs to respond with a
Google’s circle is complete
Google, the search engine content aggregator online office application company cell-phone OS manufacturer Supreme Ruler of the Interwebs, has done the unthinkable—it’s relying on human beings to help edit its news. This is remarkable, considering that when Google began offering news as one of its many services about ten years ago, it made great hoopla
Five reasons why articles fail
Eric Gelb published a memorable piece in 2008 in Writer’s Digest titled “8 Reasons Books Fail.” Many of his reasons are applicable to writing articles for business publications. Consider the following mistakes and how to avoid them. Muddled title: This is especially important when considering an article in a trade journal. Authors may not have
Getting It Right: The Use of Subjects and Objects
For years, people said “you and me” in the subject of sentences. “Why don’t you and me go to the movies?” “You, Bob and me all made the team.” It wasn’t grammatically correct, but it was what everyone (except for high school English teachers) said. Remember that late 1970s hit song by Dave Mason, “There’s
To emote, or not to emote?
The word “emoticon” didn’t exist before e-mail, and we were probably better off for it. You know what an emoticon is: a portmanteau of “emotion” and “icon,” an emoticon is a two or three-character grouping that expresses emotion. For example, 🙂 is a happy face, and 🙁 is a frown. Used in a sentence, an
Case Studies: Just the Facts, Ma’am
Most of us don’t remember when Detective Joe Friday from television’s Dragnet series in the 1950s said, “All we want are the facts, ma’am.” This phrase, and its truncated version, “Just the facts, ma’am”, are pop culture buzz-phrases, surviving for more than a half-century. Ironically, the early days of television (and radio) were a time
Foot in mouth disease
We’ve all seen it before—TV news anchors who curse on air. Just a few days ago, a news anchor at a Virginia CBS affiliate, reporting on the summer vacation employment prospects for local high schoolers, meant to say “More teens are having luck finding summer jobs.” However, in an unfortunate slip of the tongue, she
Tease them a little
Catching a flounder is one of the hardest things to do in the world of saltwater fishing. That’s because flounders, like many consumers, are noncommittal. Oh, they’ll take the bait. That’s easy. But they won’t take the bait enthusiastically. They’ll swallow it casually. They’ll hold it in their mouths, gum it a little, allow it
How to “succeed” as a writer
So you want to be a writer? OK. Then first things first… Avoid these common mistakes in order to produce quality content that delivers the right message to the right audience. 1. Don’t do your homework. Believe it or not, most of the people you’ll interview as a journalist aren’t sitting around waiting for your
Know Your Audience
Direct marketing company Harte-Hanks recently published the results of a survey on how corporate buyers make decisions (“Mapping the Technology Buyer’s Journey: Survey Questions & Responses”). The company surveyed 500 buyers and “decision-influencers” mainly from the U.S. but also from Canada. Of interest to corporate writers was a question on how those surveyed became aware
Create a Meaningful Mission Statement
The website dilbert.com (the Internet home of Scott Adams’ business-parodying Dilbert cartoon) once featured an automatic mission statement generator. In the true spirit of Dilbert, the generator would return such gems as “leverage our internal synergies to create a win-win” and other such nonsense that all too often sounded like the actual mission statements businesses
