NFIB

Improve Your Image
03/ 22/ 2002


Although E-mails and brief memos have become so prevalent in business that the traditional letter has all but vanished, you can enhance your image among peers and supervisors by sending out well written, clear, and grammatically correct written material. In today's Workshop, Jeffrey Moses outlines a step-by-step editing process to ensure excellence in all your communications.

While much can be said in favor of the brevity and spontaneity of E-mails and memos, you're still judged on the merit of your writing, whether you know it or not. When your writing contains misspellings or grammatical errors, readers may assume that you don't know any better -- even when you were just zipping out a quick memo and didn't take the time to check it over before sending. This quick approach can give the impression that your message isn't important, or that you're the type of person who doesn't take care with your work. Worse, it can give the impression that you don't value the person to whom you're sending the message.

Since you probably write using a computer, you have the built-in advantage offered by spell checker and grammar checkers. The former Workshop "Writing Through Technology" thoroughly discusses using these software features.

Probably the most important tip to improve your writing is never to assume that something you've written is perfect. Careful writers take a moment to read over and edit everything they've written -- before clicking the Send button. Using the Spell Checker is the first step to making sure that your written material is error free. But the spell checker may not catch all your spelling errors. Four instance, there are too words in this sentence that are not correct -- but neither would be picked up by spell checking software. For this reason, you need to read every word carefully before sending out written material.

The second step to excellent writing is using a Grammar Checker, which will take you sentence by sentence through your material. The software will question some of your sentences, based on accepted grammatical standards. At every step you'll have the option to change what you've written. Even if you choose not to make changes, at least you'll have been shown possible errors or ways to potentially improve your writing.

Many experienced writers find that it's easier to spot errors after printing off in hard copy, rather than reading material that's still on the computer screen. So print out your material and take pen or pencil in hand, getting ready to edit.

1. First read the material to be sure that your words say what you meant them to say. Often it's best to have another person read your writing, then question the person to see if your words conveyed the meaning you intended. If not, re-write the material and show it to the person again. Don't send out written material that is ambiguous or confusing.

2. Second, read every word carefully to find misspellings that may not have been picked up by your Spell Checker.

3. Read the material again, looking for errors in punctuation -- commas in the place of periods, question marks in the place of /'s (they're the same key on your keyboard, you'll notice).

4. Examine every sentence for accuracy of verb tense. The mistakes in the following sentences easily could have been caught and edited: "Did you knew that the meeting was postponed?" "I'm sure that I tell you that in our phone conversation yesterday."

5. Since most of us use computers for writing, you can easily adjust the final "look" of the page when preparing material that will be printed in hardcopy. Always check to make sure that paragraph indentations are consistent throughout the document, and that table columns or bullet points are evenly indented.

6. When you have the time, put your written material away overnight and re-read it in the morning. A fresh eye may find mistakes that were overlooked on first reading.

Remember, nothing written is ever perfect. Even books published by major publishing companies contain errors. Be confident that by reading and editing everything you write -- before sending out -- your writing gradually will become better and better.

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