I am always instructing people to be fastidious about written communications at work – including casual e-mails. This means choosing your words carefully and proofreading any and all documents before you send them out into the world. In this era of virtual teams and constant e-communication, how you come across in writing is a critical component of whether you’re perceived as competent, professional, and effective.
Trouble is, some people aren’t naturally strong writers, and they don’t know what to do with this advice. That’s why I thought this post from Bill at Employment Digest was brilliant. Here, Bill outlines several specific grammar mistakes people make at work, mistakes that Spell Check doesn’t catch, mistakes that make the individual look terribly stupid. There’s no shame in admitting that writing isn’t your thing, but if that’s the case, maybe you should print out this post and post it near your computer. Here are five samples:
Loose for loseNo: I always loose the product key.
Yes: I always lose the product key.
It’s for its No: Download the HTA, along with it’s readme file.
Yes: Download the HTA, along with its readme file.
No: The laptop is overheating and its making that funny noise again.
Yes: The laptop is overheating and it’s making that funny noise again.
They’re for their
No: The managers are in they’re weekly planning meeting.
Yes: The managers are in their weekly planning meeting.
No: The techs have to check there cell phones at the door, and their not happy about it.
Yes: The techs have to check their cell phones at the door, and they’re not happy about it.
Effect for affectNo: The outage shouldn’t effect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn’t affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn’t have any effect on users.
Yes: We will effect several changes during the downtime.
Then for thanNo: The accounting department had more problems then we did.
Yes: The accounting department had more problems than we did.
If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here
Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS
This is especially true when writing resumes; I am always amazed when I see resumes and cover letters that are full of grammatical errors.
Hi Steve, thanks for your comment. Writing resumes should be the #1 place you are obsessively careful with your grammar!
Great post! In regards to e-mails I cringe when I read e-mails that contain grammatical errors as your post mentions. In general it appears that some employees are not knowledgeable of e-mail etiquette as a whole. I have read e-mails that included caps i.e. "PLEASE TAKE CARE OF THIS" and clearly this is considered yelling at the recipient. In addition, people must remember that communications via e-mail at work (casual or not) are a matter of record. I routinely proofread my e-mails prior to sending them out. Once you hit the "send" button that's all she wrote--unless you can recall your message prior to the recipient reading it.
Thanks, grad! I agree with the caps comment. Also, the recall function rarely works, because usually the person has already read the message before you can get rid of it.