Write It Well

A piece of chocolate-covered bacon may … have been the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted.

Still, as both a fan of all things meat and a restaurateur, I have to speak truth to power: The bacon craze has gone too far…. Bacon coffee, bacon cereal, bacon ice cream — America, cut it out!

— Tim Love, “Stop the Bacon Insanity!”

Daily Beast, February 23, 2010

There’s the punctuation of Standard Written English, and then there’s nonstandard punctuation that signals an informal, conversational tone. The informal commas in the last sentence bend the standard rules.

Lighthearted journalism is one context. But in business writing, nonstandard punctuation can lower your credibility.

Adding the word and to the quotation’s last sentence would keep it informal, but make it impeccably standard: “Bacon coffee, bacon cereal, and bacon ice cream — America, cut it out!”

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For more guidelines on how to use punctuation correctly and confidently, and on when to write with a formal or informal tone, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!

While Burberry joined many designers in live-streaming its show online, it was the first brand to also do it in 3-D. Crowds packed the London show at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, but viewers in five cities around the world were also able to sit in the front row: the show was live-streamed in 3-D to Tokyo, New York, Paris, Dubai, and Los Angeles, where viewers donned special Burberry 3-D glasses.

— Isabel Wilkinson, “The Best of London Fashion Week,”

“Burberry Prorsum” page, The Daily Beast, February 24, 2010

Sometimes, perfect punctuation isn’t enough to make a sentence perfectly clear. Rewriting is the best answer.

Take this last sentence. Viewers in all five cities probably got the 3-D glasses, but the excellent punctuation still leaves you guessing whether the glasses were a perk of being in L.A.

We’d suggest this revision for clarity:

Crowds packed the London show at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. The show was live-streamed in 3-D to Tokyo, New York, Paris, Dubai, and Los Angeles, enabling all these viewers around the world to don special Burberry 3-D glasses and sit in the front row.

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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently and write crystal-clear sentences, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!

Listen to an interview about e-mail with Write It Well President and author of Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, Natasha Terk!

Write It Well’s one-hour webinar, “Effective E-Mail,”  is a great way to establish e-mail best practices for your corporation, department, or organization.

The agenda includes four sections: think before you write, get your message across clearly, present a professional image, and e-mail tips.

Contact Write It Well about delivering a customized webinar. Participants in last week’s webinar for ASTD said,

“Great presentation!”

“The webinar was enlightening.  Natasha is an awesome presenter!”

“Great seminar.  I learned a lot!”

Write It Well, a Bay Area-based training and consulting company that helps people improve their business writing skills, has just published a new edition of its popular book about writing for business. Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide now includes expanded sections on e-mail, grammar, and punctuation. The book addresses a fundamental yet largely overlooked skill in every career level of business: how to write business letters, e-mail, and other documents that communicate clearly and effectively. Poorly written documents can sabotage careers, threaten productivity, and negatively affect a company’s image, while effective written communication increases productivity and improves the workplace environment.

Employers should take note. A Write It Well survey found that nearly 75 percent of people think that they could make better use of their writing time. Wasted time affects a company’s overall productivity. In today’s increasingly global economy, companies rely on written documents and e-mail to allow large teams to work together efficiently across time zones. Poorly written documents and e-mail can be detrimental to a project’s results and deteriorate team dynamics, both of which directly affect a company’s bottom line.

“It’s very important to write clearly, concisely, and professionally if you want to be competitive in today’s business environment,” says Amanda Noguera, Regional Sales Director, AVOKE Caller Experience Analytics, BBN Technologies.

Even with so much at stake, more professionals are entering the workforce without the ability to express themselves clearly in writing. According to The National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, more and more schools and colleges today neglect to teach students the essentials of writing. As a result, many college graduates enter the workforce with poor writing skills. Yet writing is a fundamental business skill. In fact, a recent survey by the Commission found that half of all companies assess writing abilities during the hiring process and promotion decisions.

The solution is for companies to invest in business writing skills. “Most of our employees – engineers, developers, product managers, marketing staff – were never taught how to write professionally; they were just thrown into it,” says Jocelyn King, Director, Worldwide Marketing Operations, National Semiconductor Corporation. “Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide offers people what they need to get their point across clearly and present a professional image of themselves and of our corporation in everything they write.”

Designed for use by individuals, teams, or as part of classroom training, Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide is a cost-effective and flexible solution. “The book’s for anyone, really. It answers many of our everyday writing questions in simple language without getting bogged down with daunting grammar and style rules. And it offers clear plans of action for those who might get overwhelmed by the writing process,” says Michelle Meyers, Associate Editor, CNET News.

Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, ISBN 9780982447116, will be available at Amazon.com and bookstores nationwide for $37.00. Visit www.writeitwell.com for more information about Write It Well’s books, on-site training, webinars, and facilitator guides.

About the Author

Natasha Terk is the author of Writing Performance Reviews: A Write It Well Guide and the coauthor of E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide. As the president of Write It Well, she leads the firm’s business operations and strategy. Natasha holds master’s degrees from the University of San Francisco and the University of Manchester, UK. She served as a program officer at the Packard Foundation, as a management consultant with La Piana Consulting, and taught business writing at the University of California–Berkeley.

Natasha gives keynote speeches and presentations on business communications at seminars and large conferences. She develops job-relevant, engaging training solutions that help people work more effectively and efficiently.

About Write It Well

Write It Well is a woman-owned training and consulting company that helps people in the workplace communicate clearly and work together effectively. Write It Well offers step-by-step techniques to improve business writing through on-site and online training courses, as well as business writing books with companion facilitator guides including Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, Writing Performance Reviews: A Write It Well Guide, How to Write Reports and Proposals, and Grammar for Grownups. Visit www.writeitwell.com for more information.

Things that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size are natural and almost magical on the iPad.

— Daniel Eran Dilger, “Hands on with Apple’s iPad (with videos and photos),”

Apple Insider, January 27, 2010

Imagine this sentence were longer. Would it still be correct without any commas if it read this way?

Activities like looking at large webpages and reading e-books that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size are natural and almost magical on the iPad.

Yes, it would still be correct. That’s because those highlighted words are crucial to the author’s meaning. The sentence would mean something else without them.

It would be incorrect to use commas in either sentence – e.g., “Activities like reading e-books, that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size, are natural and almost magical on the iPad.”

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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!

After months of speculation, Apple launched its tablet, the iPad on Wednesday.  The lightweight device (1.5 pounds) features a luminous touchscreen and a user interface similar to the iPhone. The iPad, which can cost $500 to $830 depending on the model, runs an expanded version of the operating system used in the iPhone.

— Priya Ganapati, “Apple iPad’s Display Is More Like a TV Than a Laptop,”

Wired magazine, January 28, 2010

This quote’s first and last sentences are good illustrations of when you need two commas — not just one — to surround information inside your sentence.

The last sentence would still be true if you left out the prices inside the orange commas, so those two commas are correct. That’s also why the single comma in the first sentence is incorrect.

The sentence would mean the same thing without the product name (as “Apple launched its tablet on Wednesday”). So the product name needs to be set off with commas: “Apple launched its tablet, the iPad, on Wednesday.”

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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!

Peter Frenette of the U.S. jumped during a training session in Whistler, Canada, on Thursday.

— Jeré Longman, “Battle of Weight Versus Gain in Ski Jumping” (photo caption),

New York Times website, February 11, 2010

Commas like the one after “Canada,” above, are always required. If a place name or street address includes one comma, add the second comma if your sentence goes on to include further information.

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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!

Out of more than 30,000 runs in the three sliding sports — bobsled, luge and skeleton — Whistler has seen 340 crashes.

— David Epstein, “Luge dangers exaggerated,”

CNN Opinion, February 16, 2010

“Skeleton” in the sentence above refers to a winter sport (AKA tobogganing). The writer uses only one comma because it’s standard journalistic practice to leave out a comma before “and” in a list of three or more items in a series.

For most writers, though, we’d strongly recommend adding a comma after “luge” in this sentence. Always including the series comma means your reader will always understand how many separate things you’re listing in a sentence.

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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!

Here is a  simple way to use commas to write crystal-clear sentences when you need your reader to understand items in a series (lists of three or more things).  Without any commas, three or more items in a series run into one another. The result is confusing.

Joe’s first assignments will be to clean the shelves move the filing cabinets put the books in alphabetical order and take the outdated files to the warehouse.

Commas make it clear that each item in the series — in this case, four activities — is separate from the other items.

Joe’s first assignments will be to clean the shelves, move the filing cabinets, put the books in alphabetical order, and take the outdated files to the warehouse.

“Red, white, and blue” is an example of three items in a series. The most common conjunctions for items in a series are the words and and or.

One of the most common punctuation questions is whether to use a comma before the final conjunction in a series of three or more items. This punctuation is sometimes called the serial or series comma.

Without series comma: The store has the shirt in red, blue, green and yellow.

With series comma: The store has the shirt in red, blue, green, and yellow.

In fact, there is no hard-and-fast rule about including or omitting the series comma. Some organizations have rules requiring that you always use the series comma or that you avoid it. Very few journalists use the series comma because omitting it saves column space.

If your organization doesn’t have this rule, we recommend always using the series comma. It makes your writing clearer and makes your life simpler. If you always use the series comma, you’ll never have to pause and ask yourself if your reader will grasp your meaning, and you’ll always be correct.

One more thing: remember that the series comma always goes before the conjunction, and never after it.

Incorrect: Send the company treasurer your last three pay stubs, a copy of your federal tax return and, copies of any form 1099s you might have received.

Correct: Send the company treasurer your last three pay stubs, a copy of your federal tax return, and copies of any form 1099s you might have received.

Finally, here are some sentences without the series comma. Try inserting the series comma in these sentences.

1. The doctor said the condition’s symptoms include itching, hunger and thirst.

2. There are three new team members: Erin Copland, Jennifer Steinblum and Pat Jonas.

3. The valedictorian thanked his parents, Ms. Brown and Mr. Weir.

Next, you’ll find the same three sentences with the series comma. We think you’ll agree that the series comma helps clarify the meaning of each sentence.

1. The doctor said the condition’s symptoms include itching, hunger, and thirst.

2. There are three new team members: Erin Copland, Jennifer Steinblum, and Pat Jonas.

3. The valedictorian thanked his parents, Ms. Brown, and Mr. Weir.

Without the series comma, Sentence 3 could refer to the valedictorian’s thanking either two or four people. The reader is left guessing whether or not Ms. Brown and Mr. Weir are the valedictorian’s parents. The series comma makes it clear that the valedictorian thanked four people.