Teaching Business Writing Archives

Google, You’ve Gone Too Far

Certainly we can admire Google for its growth, global reach, inventiveness, and the brilliance of its teams. But they’ve gone too far. Cleverness has its limits. Analyze, yes. Optimize, yes. Publicize, yes–those are all things online content providers want to do. But troubleshootize? No, Google,… continue reading

Test Yourself: Changing Passives to Active Verbs

I'm copyediting a book this week, so I have immersed myself in rules and rule-breaking for nonfiction writing. The project is a church history. To work quickly, I have been using my grammar and spelling checker to make obvious errors and inconsistencies pop. One that… continue reading

Audience: A Good Example of a Bad Choice

A friend of mine who works at a large, urban university on the West Coast shared an example of a business person who did NOT think about their audience. And the person’s choice led to the loss of a customer order. The university’s Department of… continue reading

Why You Need a Style Sheet and How to Create One

I’m helping two friends who have just completed a book manuscript. They work beautifully together and will have a wonderful book when it’s finished. But right now, tiny inconsistencies appear everywhere. In one chapter, all numbers are in words; in another, most numbers are in… continue reading

Who/Whom, Whoever/Whomever: Test Yourself

The other day a friend told me he was concerned about having taken on a copy editing job because he didn’t yet feel confident of who/whom and whoever/whomever. How about you? Are you confident about where to use those pronouns? Take the test below to… continue reading

A Guide to Gender-Neutral Language

It’s LGBTQ Pride month and a good time to start using gender-neutral language if you haven’t started already. That’s words such as people, folks, everyone, they, them, and their, which do not indicate gender. It’s different from the expressions ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters,… continue reading

Read Your Dense Privacy Policy? No, I’ll Go Elsewhere

Earlier this month The New York Times published an interactive data-filled article on privacy policies titled “We Read 150 Privacy Policies. They Were an Incomprehensible Disaster.” Author Kevin Litman-Navarro performed several analyses. For example, he timed the minutes it took him to read a privacy policy. Craigslist’s… continue reading

Language That Enslaves Our Thinking

Traveling recently in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, I visited many places that told the story of slavery in the South. From the start, I noticed that presenters used the phrase enslaved people or enslaved person rather than slaves or slave. The first… continue reading

Can You Fix This Error-Filled Email?

Below is a screenshot of the first half of an email invitation I received for a bill-signing event in Seattle. I understood the content and appreciated the invitation, but I couldn’t help spotting all the errors. How many do you recognize? Feel free to edit… continue reading

Error or No Error?

I saw this great card designed by Jessica Hogarth at my local supermarket. It’s a thank-you card for a teacher. Does it contain an error? If so, where? If not, why not? Do you worry about whether errors are getting by you? Or that you… continue reading