Give your company a voice
It’s a generally accepted rule that numbers one to ten are spelt out as words whereas numbers over ten can be shown as a figure. That convention aside, however, much simply comes down to your personal preferences.
Round numbers and approximate amounts can be expressed in either words or figures. For instance:
“More than 29 million people have now received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine[1].”
But,
Do you rely on an accountant to produce your business’ annual accounts? If your business suffered a catastrophic IT failure, would you get out your screwdriver to fix it yourself? And if you had a legal problem, would you try to resolve it yourself or contact a solicitor?
In all these cases, I’m guessing you’d call in a professional.
It should be the same with copywriting. Because what you put out there matters.
The apostrophe is the small but vital punctuation mark that makes the difference between knowing your sh*t and knowing you’re sh*t.
Yet, despite their importance, apostrophes are one of the most misunderstood punctuation marks. We’ve all smiled (or groaned) at the apostrophe slip-ups we see daily. Who hasn’t winced at greengrocers’ signs like “Tomatoe’s” and “Apple’s”? Not to mention numerous other abominations such as “Carvery’s”, “Crisp’s” “Tattoo’s” and “Open Sunday’s”.
But apostrophes are simple if we remember one simple rule:
That there are only two possible uses for an apostrophe.
Causes
You may scoff but “writer’s block” really is ‘a thing’. Back in the 1970s, clinical psychologists Jerome Singer and Michael Barrios carried out research into the phenomenon. They concluded that there are four main causes of writer’s block:
It’s Halloween tonight, which seems a good time to talk about fear. I’m not talking about the fear that comes from mysterious goings-on, creaking floorboards and unexplained noises in the early hours when no one else is awake. Oh no, I’m talking about something far scarier than that . . . the creeping dread that, one day soon, you’ll run out of work.
This is a genuine worry that most self-employed people, with a few notable exceptions,
