Efficiency is necessary in today’s busy lives. Like you, I have a lot to do and very little time to do it in, which means I have to be efficient and exact wherever I can. I apply this approach to language and communication too. I don’t have time for drawn-out email exchanges and confusing analogies, and I bet you and […]
Read moreIt is almost the end of February, pretty late into the year to be setting New Year’s resolutions. Goals, however, can be set at any time, and I have set 3 goals to improve my communication efforts in 2014. Don’t take word choice for granted. Keep it simple is my motto! The best word to articulate a situation, emotion or […]
Read moreWriting is hard work. Whether you write a blog, a cover letter or an email, staring down a blank sheet of paper is like willing yourself to run an 8-miler the day after Thanksgiving. You know you really should do it – it would be good for you, too – but there are so many other things you would rather […]
Read moreHalloween is tomorrow! Sugar fiends rejoice! In the spirit of the holiday, I present you with this communication treat: Eliminate trick words in your writing that undermine your message. A few examples of trick words are: It. “It” is a pronoun, and a lesser caliber stand-in than he, she or they because it is too often used as a nondescript, vague filler word […]
Read moreOne day soon, my kids are going to stop letting me out of the house. They are going to refuse to be seen in public with me. I embarrass them, you see, because I am turning in to my grandmother, one grammar correction at a time. Grammie was an amazing and loving woman, who took language very seriously. Grammar, enunciation, […]
Read moreAs a lover of the English language, I have assembled a small library over the years of books about writing (yes, pretty geeky of me, I know). One of my favorite books is Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language, by Richard Lederer. Lederer is a former English teacher and writer about writing who collects language gaffes […]
Read moreOne of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits is Weekend Update where Seth Meyers interviews (or tries to, anyway) the Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party. In these skits, Seth interviews an opinionated young woman who has trouble explaining herself. Her grammar is not bad – she has been known to correct Seth, for that matter […]
Read moreI obsess over words and spend ridiculous amounts of time selecting the right words or phrase for what I am trying to say or write. As someone who often writes communications for others, I agonize over what the words I choose say to a reader or a listener and how they make a reader or listener feel about the speaker […]
Read moreA cover letter and resume should draw attention to your skills and qualifications, not detract from them with randomly capitalized words. Imagine if You received a Cover Letter written like This. Reading this is like riding a Roller Coaster. By the time you get to the End of the Letter, you would be thinking Twice about bringing that person in […]
Read moreWriting is hard. Writing good is harder. For many of us, the idea of stringing words together into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs, is daunting. Case in point: I procrastinated writing this blog today because I could not figure out how to eloquently say what I want to say! Thankfully, there are some excellent resources available to help improve and refine your (and my!) […]
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