Check your grammar knowledge. Here are three sentences for you to fix: 1. Woolworths are one of the biggest employer's in Tasmania. 2. Its Rosie here, ready to help with your enquiries at our new store. 3. The Chair will give the CEO and I a lift to the meeting. [...]
As fairly few business people have used editors and proofreaders, I am often asked to define just what we do. Here are the basic distinctions between proofreading and editing: Proofreading This is a final check for errors, typos and formatting that's gone awry. We cross-check content lists with body copy, check headings are in [...]
One of the wonderful laws of language that we know intuitively is the one that governs word order. It's called the rule of ablaut reduplication. Native English speakers have such an ear for it that it's highly unlikely they would ever get it wrong. This rule explains why we don't say zag-zig, cross-criss or hop-hip. For those of us [...]
This post was originally published on the Tourism Tribe digital hub. Blogging as a part of your business marketing strategy is a little different from traditional journal or travel blogging. Finding the time and the inspiration can be tricky, so here are some tips from my experience and through talking to others. But [...]
I was training government staff in plain English writing the other day, and one course participant asked me about the Oxford comma: when should one use it? And then Rajan Venkataraman, who supports Hit Send's fast-turnaround editing service, wrote a blog explaining exactly that. Thanks Rajan. Mel Roome Principal Editor ******* In sentences that [...]
For plain-English advocates who prefer short sentences, semicolons as a joining device are a no-no; but in the right document, for the right audience, they can greatly improve long sentences and bring variety to your writing style. At Hit Send we see some pretty odd sentences with semicolons, so here are some tips for [...]
When editing, we encounter this fairly frequently. The question is: do nouns beginning with 'h' take the indefinite article a or an? Fortunately, the answer is easy – it depends how the word beginning with ‘h’ sounds – that is, whether the ‘h’ is pronounced or not. For example, in ‘a hot dog’ the h is pronounced, but [...]
Hit Send runs a series of grammar tips and thoughts on our Facebook page. Here's a selection of the best for you. Misspelled Monday On Misspelled Monday, I recall this useful spelling principle. A school principal is a prince and a pal (well, once you reach year 12), and the same applies to anything of foremost importance. A [...]
Do you struggle with the ‘he said’, ‘she said’ of handling quotes in your business writing? Maybe you’d like to incorporate a little more variety? Here are some unobtrusive mechanisms to help you. 1. Weave the quote in Weave spoken quotes into the middle of your text; don’t just place them at the beginning or end [...]
If you are writing in Word, change your language from US English to Australian English. (Select the whole document, and – in my version of Word – go to Tools then Language.) You will avoid spelling errors such as trialing, fetal, behavior, fulfillment, center, canceling and theater, not to mention all those zzzzzs. Don't [...]
