Writing/Editing
Lists of Frequently Asked Questions help employees and customers master almost any information or procedure. These tips will help you create a useful list.
Write it right, say it right, spell it right.
In my job I often have to write some unpleasant correspondence to people and firms that have let us down or not given us what they promised. Do you have any tips for writing a complaint letter so it gets acted on, without resorting to becoming a bully?
Write it right, say it right, spell it right.
Like any communication tool, email takes some skills and practice in order to be effective. Pay attention to these areas.
Write it right, say it right, spell it right.
Question: “I’ve been asked to write a thank-you note to one of our clients who put the company through hell recently. How do we grit our teeth and write a pleasant paragraph that won’t seem disingenuous?”
Impact vs. affect, farther vs. further, emigrate vs. immigrate, and sympathy vs. empathy.
Over time, organizations gradually develop their own special terminology, abbreviations, acronyms, and jargon. But for new employees and people from outside the organization—like customers—this language can be bewildering. Here’s how to make it more accessible to the uninitiated.
It seems like a cop-out when a supervisor tells you they’ll be happy to give you a recommendation letter, but they don’t want to actually write it. This leaves you in the awkward position of praising yourself in the third person! These tips will help you power through this awkward task.
You can catch more typos, ungrammatical sentences, and so on in your writing by varying the speed at which you read the text. Try reading both faster and slower than your normal reading speed. Here are two techniques.
Write it right, say it right, spell it right.
Some words—no matter how trivial they seem—can make you look less sure, professional and capable. Make these small tweaks in your language to appear more confident and competent.