writing « We Write For You

One space, not two spaces, after a period. Period.

October 22, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Old School | Tags: AP, AP Stylebook, colons, copywriting, editing, editing tips, grammar, periods, spaces, spacing, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

A sign showing an exclamation point. For many years, writers were taught to include two spaces after periods and certain other punctuation marks, such as colons. There was good reason for this at the time: Typewriters produced a typeface that made it aesthetically unpleasant to have only one space separating sentences.

However, those days are long gone. The fonts computers produce have made the two-space method unnecessary. Today, every major style manual (including the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook) makes it clear that one space is proper.

Does it matter if you still use two? Actually, yes. Anytime we see two spaces in an article that was written in recent years, we immediately think “amateur hour.” And that’s the last thing you want your reader to think about you.

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Persuasive Writing: when “more” is “less”

August 28, 2009 | Posted in: Competitive Writing, Fundraising, General Writing, Grantwriting, Public Relations, Resumes and Cover Letters | Tags: brochures, business writing, compete, competition, copywriting, document, editing, funding, Fundraising, grant writing, Grantwriting, marketing, persuade, persusive writing, private donors, proposal, proposal scores, Public Relations, resume, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, winning grants, writing, writing tips |

Most of the time, persuasive writing is used in competitive situations.

It is the resume, when you compete with others to get the job. It is the grant proposal, when you compete with others to get funding. It is any time you compete with peers to get donors, votes and even “your way.”

More is less in persuasive writing when you use words that say the same thing. For example, “Our approach is economical, efficient and frugal, freeing up manpower, materials and money for other uses.”

It is obvious to the reader that your plan will save money. In fact, it is obvious over and over and over. The reader tunes out when statements include unnecessary words; and worn out by the repetition, gives little attention to the rest of your statements.

Imagine the sentence above being followed by “Think what we could do with the resources this method saves our organization.” When your sentences repeat the message, you suggest to the reader that you (in a resume) or your plan has no other good qualities; that much of the document is really filler.

In conclusion, when you write a resume, proposal or sales document, don’t use unnecessary adjectives and redundant sentences. Let each unique point you make stand out.

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Now, that’s an embarrassing typo: AP Stylebook edition

August 7, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Old School | Tags: AP, AP style, AP Stylebook, AP Stylebook 2009, business writing, editing, editing tips, FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions, grammar, proofreading, style guides, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

If you’re ever uncertain about how to spell a word, it’s always worth the time to look it up. As we mentioned in this earlier post, it takes only seconds to look up a word on an online dictionary.

By the same token, if you write quite a bit, it’s definitely worth the $15 to get online access to the AP Stylebook, the best go-to guide for proper usage. It’s a phenomenal resource you can check out here.

However, a visit to the site’s Frequently Asked Questions page reminds you that anyone can make a mistake. The FAQ’s second item reads:

Is the 2008 Associated Press Stylebook available? No, it has sold out and is not going to be reprint. The ISBN number is 978-0-917360-52-7

The obvious goof here is that “reprint” should be “reprinted.” But if we’re going to be picky (and you just know we are), the answer also is missing a period at the end.

And that’s not simply a “style” consideration, ironic as that would be. All of the other answers in the FAQ (including another that ends in a series of numbers) end with a period.

Again, we strongly recommend a subscription to the AP Stylebook to anyone who writes professionally on a regular basis (rest assured, we don’t receive a commission or anything else from the Associated Press).

But we have given the AP a heads-up about the FAQ goof, and we’re curious to see how quickly it gets fixed.

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Trailer conventions that have to go? Cool, but bad grammar has to go first.

July 14, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing | Tags: FilmHype.Net, grammar, movie posters, movie trailers, Old Dogs, proofreading, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

FilmHype.Net ripped on the "Old Dogs" trailer, leaving it to us to rip on this awful, painfully Photoshopped poster.

I care about good writing, but we don’t expect everyone to be perfect all of the time. Misspellings and typos happen.

However, it’s impossible to stress too highly how important it is to make a good impression right up front in anything you write. If you have an important 10-page document, I’d love for you to carefully proofread all 10 pages.

But at the very least, make sure the first few pages are golden. If nothing else, the first page must be pristine.

Case in point: I’d never before heard of FilmHype.Net, but there’s a link to an article on the site today at the Internet Movie Database. As film buffs, we check out IMDb all the time. And the link sounded interesting: “Movie Trailer Conventions That Have To Go.”

I was intrigued. So I clicked on the link and read the article’s introduction. Here’s the first paragraph (the bold emphasis is mine):

In an industry filled with sequels, prequels, remakes, and sell outs, it’s sometimes difficult to find something truely noteworthy within the realm of cinema. But even worse than the films themsleves are the trailers that promote them; born from a world lacking any originality and at the hands of a single editor whose name is presumably Satan.

And suddenly I wasn’t very interested in the article anymore (you can find it here).

I realized that the writer might make some pretty good points in the article, but an opening paragraph that has at least two grammatical mistakes any high-schooler should understand (plus a third that’s admittedly a little nitpicky) makes me tune out immediately. (more…)

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Grammar Girl (referencing AP Style) takes on “To tweet or to Twitter”

July 11, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Outside the Lines | Tags: AP, AP style, AP Stylebook, Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty, tweet, tweeting, Twitter, Twittering, We Write For You, writing, writing tips |

This is really little more than a link to a recent post by Grammar Girl, a/k/a Mignon Fogarty, who does some fun writing about all things grammar at her site.

As Ms. Fogarty notes, the Associated Press recently released its 2009 AP Stylebook, which many organizations use to determine their default “style” for word usage. It’s an invaluable reference that we at We Write For You use as our style guide as well.

In her post, she points out that the AP ultimately decided that you can say a Twitter user is Twittering or tweeting, whichever verb you prefer. Note that “tweet” and “tweeting” are not capitalized, while “Twittering” is. There’s some more interesting stuff here, so we highly recommend you check out the post here.

P.S. If you Twitter or tweet, be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can find us here, and you can check out Grammar Girl right here.

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Before you write your resume (and especially before you write your cover letter)…

July 5, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Resumes and Cover Letters | Tags: cover letter, Hot Pockets, resume, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

If you read our previous post on resumes, we pointed out how important it is to tailor your resume for the particular position you’ve targeted. (And if you missed that one, read it here right now.)

Before you sit down to write that tailored resume, whether revising or starting from scratch, you need to refer to the one critical document that will determine what information to include or omit:

The list of job qualifications.

That’s right, the template for your resume should not be a list of stuff you’ve done in the past. The template should be what qualities the employer is looking for regarding this particular job. And this will be even more important in the cover letter.

Think about it this way: you’re looking for the perfect mate on an online dating site. Let’s say you’re looking for a woman, and you’ve come across one you believe would make the perfect partner. She lists all of her turn-ons, and they include: outdoor activities, dancing, kittens and romantic dinners.

So you decide to give her a “wink” online to gauge her interest. But the information in your profile notes that you spend all of your time playing video games, you hate to dance, you’ve only had dogs as pets and you only eat Hot Pockets.

Think there’s any chance of getting a date? (more…)

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Spell check is not your friend: discreet vs. discrete

June 20, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Spell Check is Not Your Friend | Tags: business writing, editing, editing tips, grammar, proofreading, spell check, spellcheck, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, Word, writing, writing tips |

Here’s the first appearance of another new segment at the wewriteforyou.com blog: Spell check is not your friend.

Sure, spell check can be a useful utility. But it is not necessarily your friend. Because as soon as you start to rely too much on your spell checker, it will toss you under the bus.

That’s because spell checkers do a fine job of recognizing words from non-words, but they’re still a long way (mostly) from knowing whether you’re using the right word.

Today’s case in point: the homophones discreet and discrete. With growing regularity, we’re seeing writers using discrete when they mean to use discreet. (We almost never see it the other way around.)

Discreet means “prudent” or “tactful” — many people also use it to mean “subtle,” which we suppose is okay. Discrete, however, means “distinct or “separate.” For example… (more…)

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The Best Writing Tip Ever: “Have went,” NEVER. “Have gone,” sure.

June 12, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, The Best Writing Tip Ever | Tags: "have gone", "have went", English 101, grammar, tweet, Twitter, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

Tom Petty HAS GONE to the theater. The Heartbreakers HAVE GONE to the theater. (Now maybe Petty SHOULD GO for a haircut and a shave.)

Tom Petty HAS GONE to the theater. The Heartbreakers HAVE GONE to the theater. (Now maybe Petty SHOULD GO for a haircut and shave.)

We’re going with the assumption that virtually anyone reading this blog already knows this, but maybe we shouldn’t: there is no such phrase as “have went.” Not ever. Never, ever, ever.

We bring this up because we recently “officially” joined Twitter (shameless plug: click here to follow us on Twitter), and one of our followers claims to have three undergraduate degrees. He further claims to be working on a postgraduate one.

We have no reason to doubt these claims, yet he recently “tweeted” that a certain talk show host’s rating “have went up” in recent days.

Ouch. Total fail, man.

Presumably this particular grammatical issue hasn’t hurt him so far — he’s apparently well-educated and always well-spoken (well, at least until now). But maybe it has.

Maybe writing “have went” cost him a fellowship here or a promotion there. He’ll never know. An employer just passed him by, not knowing he’s a very bright guy making one very bad grammatical error.

For the record, it’s “I went to the store” or “I have gone to the store,” and so on. You never say “I should have went to her birthday party.” You should have gone.

(Speaking of which, you really should have gone to her birthday party. What, were you too cheap to buy a present?)

As usual, we won’t bore you with the English 101 details. Just understand that “have” and “went” should never be adjacent. (And next time, go to the party!)

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More on resume basics: one thing you need to know to get the job

June 10, 2009 | Posted in: Resumes and Cover Letters | Tags: cover letter, editing, editing tips, experience, fast food, interviewing, interviews, job search, job searching, Lindsay, Lindsay Lohan, Lohan, marketing yourself, resume, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

Resumes seem so simple — but they’re not. Not the good ones, anyway. Not the ones that actually lead to job offers.

The last time we talked about resumes (read it here), we talked about how a resume is a marketing document (it’s marketing you, of course) and what contact information to include.

This time, we at wewriteforyou.com want to address another resume tip that makes all the difference and yet very few people follow it. Here it is:

Instead of having a single, universal resume and using it every time you apply for a job, you should tailor your resume every time to the job you’re after.

Listing ALL of your experience -- at a burger joint, for example -- might actually work against you on a resume. (And you definitely won't get an interview if you admit you're Lindsay Lohan.)

Isn’t that more work? Sure it is. But it’s worth it: tailoring your resume will exponentionally improve your chances of getting an interview.

How do you tailor your resume to a specific job? There are many ways, but they include:

Highlight the aspects of your experience that fit the job’s needs.

Omit (or at least, downplay) aspects of your experience that are irrelevant to the job or serve no useful purpose.

Relate your experience in the context of the posted job qualifications for that position. You want to show a high degree of similarity between who you are and who they’re looking to hire. Makes sense, right?

Employers don’t care what fast-food jobs you worked in high school or where you tended bar during college, unless there are skill sets specific to those positions that help qualify you for the position you want.

Even then, consider omitting them if you’ve had similar experience since then at a more professional level. Listing too much low-level work experience can actually work against you in a resume — a topic we’ll expand on in the future.

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The Best Writing Tip Ever: Speaking of dos and don’ts — what’s the deal with apostrophes?

June 5, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, The Best Writing Tip Ever | Tags: apostrophe, business writing, dont's, dos, ghostwriting, grammar, grant writing, Grantwriting, plural, plurals, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

Since we used the phrase “dos and don’ts” in the last post, we thought it might be a good time to quickly address that phrase.

My, that's a cute apostrophe.

Sometimes in writing, you have to wrestle over the choices of going with what’s technically correct versus what looks best. Again, this depends on your audience and what you’re looking to accomplish.

For the most part, it’s best to err to the side of proper grammar. That’s why we use “dos and don’ts.” Yes, “dos” looks weird. It looks like it the Spanish word for two, pronounced like “dose,” instead of what it is, which is the plural for do, which sounds like “dooze.”

In general, you should never use an apostrophe to make something plural. Even people who would never write “we have banana’s for sale” will still add an apostrophe to some plural acronyms: DVD’s, TV’s, etc. The apostrophe is not needed. “DVDs” and “TVs” is correct.

If they look strange, look at it this way: if we can get everyone to start writing them correctly, they won’t look strange anymore!

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