From the category archives:
The Readability Measures feature in Microsoft Word and Outlook are helpful tools to measure words per sentence, passive voice percentage, the Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level in your documents. Together, they offer a measure of the clarity in your business writing.
Thanks to Corporate Geek for this clear explanation of how to configure [...]
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Today, October 15, 2009, bloggers from across the world join together to write about a single issue: climate change. The goal is to shift global conversations and raise awareness.
What do business writing and climate change have in common? Both, at their core, are about connection and interaction.
I’ve been writing a lot lately about social media [...]
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I am often asked which sources I use for business writing style and grammar guides. These are my most trusted sources:
Business Writing Format and Style
The Business Writer’s Handbook
Style Guides
The Gregg Reference Manual
The Chicago Manual of Style
The AP Stylebook
Grammar Guides
Garner’s Modern American Usage
Common Errors in English Usage
Grammarphobia.com
Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips
Dictionaries and Thesaurus
Dictionary.com
Merriam-Webster [...]
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Do you want to test your documents to see if you are prone to using jargon and gobbledygook?
Hubspot has a helpful tool: Gobbledygook Grader. It gives you a score based on how many overused gobbledygook phrases you included. I tested two pages on Instructional Solutions’ website, and it did a good job flagging one overused [...]
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Here are four websites that will help you build your vocabulary, in order of value to business writers:
Word of the Day – Learn a new word every day at Merriam-Webster Online. This site is most useful because the words chosen are valuable for precision in business writing.
Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day – another site similar [...]
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Instructional Solutions just launched a new better business writing support option: Business Writing Place, our company page on Facebook.
You will be able to view resources whether or not you have a Facebook account.
If you do have a Facebook account, become a fan (Facebook’s term, not mine) and receive updates and access to the interactive forums [...]
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Brian Clark, author of the wonderful Copyblogger blog clarifies 27 commonly misused words.
Being New England born and bred, I still have to stop myself from adding an “s” to toward and afterward, as “towards” and “afterwards” are New England colloquialisms. Do you misuse any of these words?
You keep using that word. I do not [...]
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Business cards are, of course, the traditional stationary that conveys your business information to contacts. They have shortcomings: they get lost, you cannot click links on them, and paper demands trees.
DropCard is a free web service that lets you send your full contact information, which you customize, via text message from your mobile phone to [...]
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I’m a little sad I need to offer this tip, but it is a reality: on the web, writing that you have created, shaped, and edited into good form to share with your readers gets swiped. It is unethical, but it happens.
You may publish a blog, or post a white paper, sales copy, product details, [...]
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“I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened.” – Mark Twain
For all of us reading this blog, despite recent hysterical headlines to the contrary, this quote by Mark Twain rings true. While our world economy is admittedly shaky, if you are reading this, you almost certainly have [...]
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