Give your company a voice
You might think it’s unnecessary to tackle full stops when giving tips on grammar. After all, most people are pretty confident using this most unambiguous of punctuation devices. According to The Times newspaper, the full stop is the best form of punctuation, bar none. It’s used like a knife to cut off a sentence at the right length, which is simply the point at which the thought is complete. But yet some areas of confusion remain.
ne of the golden rules in creating interesting copy is Avoid Repetition. But sometimes it can seem like only your chosen word will do. If you’re using Microsoft Word and want help to avoid using the same word twice in quick succession, try checking the Thesaurus tool for a suitable substitute.
The exact route will vary according to what version of Word you work with but in Word 2007 simply click on the Review tab,
I’m often asked, “What’s the secret of good writing?” Correct spelling and punctuation aside, here are my five Top Tips to make your marketing material more readable:
1. Make it personal – The best writing talks to us as individuals. I find the easiest way to get in the right frame of mind is to picture one of the people I’m talking to. If you’re drafting a letter to all of your customers,
The colon is one of the oldest punctuation marks, rapidly in danger of extinction with the growing popularity of the dash (more on these in a later issue). Yet the colon is a versatile workhorse with many functions including:
One important point to note is that the colon is never followed by a capital letter unless the next word is either a proper noun or the first word of a quotation.
Brackets are extremely useful tools to set apart essential information from “nice to have” details that add colour but could (if you had to be ruthless) be dropped without losing the meaning of the sentence. Taking my last sentence as an example, if you pruned the bracketed words, the sentence would still express the same thought but by keeping the words in brackets, the reader benefits from additional information without interrupting the sentence flow.
Explaining why brackets are so popular,
Hyphens are commonly used to join two or more associated words when no single word exists, for instance ‘on-site’, ‘stress-free’ or ‘mother-in-law’.
The interesting thing about them is that having done their job they are often discarded over time and – ta da! – a new word is born some years later, unencumbered by punctuation. We have seen this happen with words such as ‘book-seller’, ‘life-like’ and ‘pre-historic’, which are rarely, if ever,
The exclamation mark is one of the more popular punctuation symbols but has fallen into disrepute through overuse (and, often, misuse) and, consequently, is discouraged – if not banned – by most newspaper editors.
Yet, used sparingly, the exclamation mark adds colour and meaning to otherwise bland statements. Would the following examples convey anything like the same force and feeling without the ‘screamers’ (as the exclamation mark is sometimes, disparagingly, known)?
“Oh no”
In this issue’s grammar spot, we answer the puzzling question – which is correct: single or double quotation marks (or quotes)? The short answer is there is no definitive agreement. Even newspapers are divided on the issue with The Times, The Independent and The Sun preferring double quotes, while The Daily Mail and The Observer opt for single quotes.
Defenders of the single quote cite the advantages of simplified and more contemporary typography but double mark enthusiasts point to the usefulness of using double quote marks for direct speech and leaving single quote marks for everything else.
