0044 (0)1273 732 888
Grammar
Posted by: Simon Busch
31 / 03 / 16
What’s the right tone to strike in business writing? Formal? Yes, you want to come across as a serious contributor to the subject at hand and not to sound too … chatty? Hmmm. But if you’re too serious, don’t you risk boring people and losing them? Tone is a minefield. And it’s made all the […]
Posted by: Catie Holdridge
26 / 01 / 16
Putting people at the centre of everything you write is critical to the success of your documents and emails. (At least, it is if you want people to actually read what you write.) But what does that mean in practice, when it comes to the words and sentences you write? Well, it’s simpler than you […]
Posted by: Rob Ashton
21 / 11 / 14
There’s a subtle but useful difference between ‘compared to’ and ‘compared with’. ‘Compared to’ highlights a similarity between two things. ‘Compared with’ does the opposite: it contrasts them. Confusing the two is way down the list of word crimes and misdemeanours. It hardly merits a mention when compared with (as you might say) misspelling someone’s specialism in an email […]
Posted by: Cathy Dann
29 / 07 / 14
Recently, we were asked to settle a dispute between colleagues over the word that. The example given was: ‘The consensus was the chief executive was right’ vs ‘The consensus was that the chief executive was right’. Our correspondent had written the former, but his colleague had insisted on the latter. Which do you think is […]
15 / 07 / 14
Here’s the good news: if you’re worried your documents are not as good as they could be, your grammar is probably not the problem. Don’t get me wrong. Grammar matters. Of course it does. Getting it wrong can undermine your reputation (though probably not as much as you think – see below). Poor grammar can […]
28 / 03 / 13
This is a nice, easy one to answer. No sitting on the fence, no ‘it’s down to personal preference’. Here goes: Should have, would have, could have – correct Should of, would of, could of – incorrect The error is widespread and dates back nearly 200 years. The cause? Simply that should’ve sounds identical to […]
Our newsletter contains proven advice and tips for transforming everything you write at work. Join over 4,000 professionals who receive our best advice for writing documents that help you achieve your goals.