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UpWrite Press understands the importance of writing skills in business: We're business people just like you. On this blog you'll find tips to improve your writing, along with topics of interest to our staff. We encourage you to join the conversation about good business writing skills.
September 2, 2008 @ 11:09 am — Filed under: Dave Kemper
In The Suspended Sentence, editor Roscoe C. Born describes a good sentence as a “rifle shot—one missile, precisely aimed—rather than a buckshot load sprayed in the general direction of the target.” Sorry if you find the metaphor off-putting, but it effectively calls attention to the measure of a well-stated sentence: A sentence works when it is clear, direct, and to the point. If the sentences in a piece of writing consistently hit the bull’s-eye, then the end result is a very readable text, one that gets results.
Of course, you can do many things to ensure that your sentences are “precisely aimed.” Here are four strategies that you may not have considered before, but each one is easy to apply to your writing:
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August 29, 2008 @ 9:00 am — Filed under: Human Capital, Steve Augustyn
As I prepared to graduate from college in 1997, I had a final conversation with my advisor. I was very excited to be graduating and knew that a world of opportunity awaited. The main topic of our final discussion concerned job opportunities. Had I done my résumé? Where was I going to apply? What was my interview strategy?
After discussing my options, my advisor gave me a statistic that at the time seemed unbelievable. She said that it was likely that I would change jobs up to ten times in my working lifetime. I couldn’t imagine. After all, I knew just what I wanted to do, and I was moving in exactly that direction.
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August 27, 2008 @ 9:55 am — Filed under: Writing Tips
There are two types of slash on your keyboard. The backslash, which slants from upper left to lower right, is used primarily in computer languages. The more common forward slash, which shares a key with the question mark and slants from lower left to upper right, has several important functions in writing.
The forward slash is generally a divider between alternatives. For example, an application form often has a line for the applicant’s name, preceded by the titles Mr./Mrs./Ms., each separated by a slash. A writer may also use this slash to indicate alternative genders, as in the phrase his/hers or she/he. The forward slash can also suggest two functions, as in the phrases and/or and either/or. Another use indicates a person’s dual position, as in secretary/treasurer.
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August 18, 2008 @ 12:38 pm — Filed under: Tim Kemper
Never underestimate the importance of a first impression. In the business world, a quality résumé can score you a job interview, while an inferior one means you never get a chance to bat.
First impressions are critical in the blogosphere, too. Your company’s blog entries have mere seconds to capture a readers’ interest; and the best bloggers do so by writing effective headlines. As Brian Clark of Copyblogger notes, “[The] headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader.”
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August 13, 2008 @ 11:04 am — Filed under: Writing Tips
One of the least used, and least understood, marks of punctuation is the bracket. Used in pairs, brackets look like squared parentheses, and are often mistakenly employed in place of them. But brackets do have separate, specific functions.
As a rule, brackets are used to indicate a writer’s comments, corrections, or criticisms within text written by someone else. For example, if a quotation includes a pronoun, but the noun referred to is not given, the writer can insert the noun in brackets to help the reader. Consider this example:
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August 8, 2008 @ 2:36 pm — Filed under: Dave Kemper
I’ve just read Steve Martin’s memoir Born Standing Up, in which he reflects on his years as a standup comedian. It was good to remember the 70’s when Martin was so popular, and I was a young man enjoying his act. One remark he made near the end of the book caught my attention:
“I always gave my performances, even my five-minute talk-show appearances, a beginning, a middle, and an ending.”
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