Write It Well

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!

“Probiotics are live micro-organisms that work by restoring the balance of intestinal bacteria and raising resistance to harmful germs.”

– Tara Parker-Pope, “Probiotics: Looking underneath the Yogurt Label,”
New York Times online, September 28, 2009

A recent New York Times article refers to (unhyphenated) “probiotics,” which are (hyphenated) “micro-organisms” in yogurt. Two days later, the paper ran a Home & Garden article about a “Fixer-Upper” on the housing market in St. Paul, MN.*

So how do you know when your nouns need hyphens? Hyphenation can change over time, so just check a current dictionary like Webster’s Eleventh. Webster’s keeps a hyphen in some multipart nouns, like a self-starter and a heads-up, but omits hyphens in other nouns like roundup, highlights, and microorganism.

Still, feel free to add a hyphen if you’re uncomfortable when a prefix repeats a noun’s first letter – e.g., two back-to-back letter o’s. “Micro-organisms” is an OK spelling, too.

For more tips on how to use hyphens correctly, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.

*Also see Michael Tortorello, “No-Fault Fixer-Upper,” New York Times online, September 30, 2009.

“Why do some chocolates cost so much more than others?

“Although chocolate is an ‘affordable luxury’ in a general sense, some brands demand a king’s ransom.

“Much like coffee beans, cocoa beans are sold by commodity markets. The global price of chocolate spiked in the 1970s, after which it declined a little, only to recover somewhat in the early ‘90s. Prices have never reached the highs of the 1970s, but they have remained pretty constant since the 1990s.”

– Mary Goodbody, “Four Chocolate Questions Answered,”
The Daily Beast, September 29, 2009

Have you ever wondered how to use apostrophes to type dates? Forget about the apostrophe s. Mary Goodbody shows you how.

The Chicago Manual of Style uses an apostrophe when a date is spelled with two numerals, as in “the early ‘90s” or “the class of ‘99.” It’s exactly like the apostrophe for the omitted letter o in isn‘t. The apostrophe in those two dates stands for the omitted 19 in “the early 1990s” or “the class of 1999.”

Finally, it’s also correct Chicago style to spell out a decade as a word with no apostrophe at all: “the nineties.”

For more tips on how to use apostrophes correctly, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.

“Finance and clean technology—alternative energy, energy efficiency, the smart grid, etc.—are two vital industries centered on opposite sides of the country. Finance is New York, suits, and golf. Cleantech is San Francisco, khakis, and bicycling. The cultural differences between the two industries can also be seen in the attitude they have toward government intervention in, and assistance to, their markets….

“It’s common to hear bankers complain about the onerous terms of the TARP and how many banks didn’t really need it. The same folks, however, downplay the positive impact of other policies – the FDIC boosting deposit guarantees, the government guaranteeing the commercial paper market, the taxpayers standing behind the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Fed’s zero-interest policy—that have allowed the banks to survive and even thrive in a tough environment. They’re like people who show up at a restaurant, chow down at the cheap all-you-can-eat buffet, and then complain that there wasn’t any pudding.”

– Daniel Gross, “Wall Street vs. Cleantech: How to tell a West Coast businessman from an East Coast businessman,”
Slate Magazine, September 16, 2009

Here’s a typo we found on the Slate website. The author uses dashes correctly, but someone typed one dash differently from the others, before “the FDIC.” Consistency matters, but there is more than one way to type this kind of dash.

First, hyphens are shorter than en dashes, which are shorter than em dashes. Here they are in a row:

It’s become standard to use any of these three punctuation marks to indicate a dash:

All these methods are correct, though the last two look more professional. The important thing is to pick one way to type a dash – whatever way you prefer – and use it consistently.

For more tips about dashes, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.

“For decades, the drug-resistant germ called MRSA was almost exclusively a concern of humans…. But in recent years, the germ has become a growing problem for veterinarians, with an increasing number of infections turning up in birds, cats, dogs, horses, pigs, rabbits and rodents….”

“For protection, Dr. Oehler recommends hand washing or using hand gels before and after playing with a pet, not letting a pet lick people around the face, and not washing pet food or water bowls in the same sink that food is prepared in.”

– Brenda Goodman, “Tie to Pets Has Germ Jumping to and Fro,”
New York Times online, September 21, 2009

Do you see how Goodman uses commas in two different ways here? She leaves out a final comma in “pigs, rabbits and rodents.” Yet she does add a final comma before “and” in the last sentence.

Why? Because the Associated Press tells journalists to use commas in different ways for different kinds of lists. The last sentence isn’t a list of simple items like birds and rodents. The final list item includes a conjunction of its own: “not washing pet food or water bowls in the same sink that food is prepared in.” The list of three complex items would be confusing without a final comma before the list’s main conjunction: “and.”

We recommend that most writers always add a comma before the conjunction in all lists of three or more items. (Not “The flag is red, white and blue,” but “The flag is red, white, and blue.”) Then you’ll never have to ask yourself if you need another comma to make your meaning clear.

For more tips about commas, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.

Communication is a two-way process. It takes place when the message you send has been received and understood by the person at the other end.

When you’re face-to-face with people, it’s easy to know when they have questions about what you’re telling them. Furrowed eyebrows, a vacant look, restlessness, and questions are all signs that listeners need more information. When you’re writing, though, it’s difficult to know if your reader has questions that need to be answered before they can give you information, approval, or another response you want.

Here’s a common situation. Jillian is working on an important new internal project. She needs Alan, her supervisor, to approve her budget as soon as possible. She sends Alan an e-mail message that outlines her budget and asks for approval right away.

How can Jillian increase her chances that Alan will approve her budget quickly?

One of the most important steps that Jillian can take is to make sure — in advance — that she has answered all of Alan’s questions. By taking the time to brainstorm a list of questions about your readers’s needs and interests, you can usually identify some of their questions before you start writing. Keeping those questions in mind, Jillian can try to overcome potential resistance, answer questions Alan might have, and even increase her credibility.

Example A (BEFORE):

Here’s what the memo might have looked like if Jillian didn’t take the time to think about Alan’s needs and interests.

Alan: We’ll be working for three weeks on the marketing campaign and would like your approval to get started and authorize the budget. The marketing campaign will include writing and a firm has been chosen. 

Example B (AFTER):

In this example, Jillian brainstormed a list of of questions that Alan might have and then answered them in her message.

List of Alan’s needs and interests:

• Wants to know when the project will be completed. Include: A timeline has been assigned to each deliverable.
• Wants to see the deliverables spelled out. Include: Identify deliverables and break them up.
• Wants to know who else is overseeing the project. Include: Rosanna will approve the first e-mail before the others are drafted.
• Wants to know more about the company named in the budget and why they were chosen. Include: More information about Write It Well and their role, prior experience, and our selection process.
• Wants to know that we’ve reduced the budget per Mark’s e-mail from last week. Include: Our budget has been reduced — we’ve reduced it by 30 percent.

Here’s the memo Jillian wrote after brainstorming:

Alan: Please see the following chart (with deliverables and delivery timeline) as well as the budget that follows. I’d like your approval by Friday, please, so that we can get started right away. Here are some key points to consider while reviewing the materials:

To make sure that we’re on the right path, Rosanna will approve the first marketing message before the others are drafted.

More information about the firm we hired, Write It Well, can be found on their site. We conducted a thorough search and chose them because of their wide range of writing and teaching experience, competitive pricing, and stellar references.

We’ve already reduced the budget by 30 percent per Mark’s e-mail of last week.

Which one, Example A or Example B, is more likely to be approved quickly?

“As with any public health intervention, the precise effect of a tax cannot be known until it is implemented and studied, but research to date suggests that a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages would have strong positive effects on reducing consumption.”  – Kelly D. Brownell, PhD, et al., “The Public Health and Economic Benefits of Taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages,” New England Journal of Medicine online, September 16, 2009

This sentence was taken from an article about taxing sugary drinks. Don’t you think that the quotation is longer than it needs to be?  We do   We re-wrote it this way:

“Of course it is difficult to predict, but research suggests that if sugary beverages were taxed, the public would drink less of them and would be healthier.”

 For more tips about writing clearly and concisely, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.

“[A] seven-person team of statisticians, machine-learning experts and computer engineers …. was the longtime frontrunner in the contest…. The Netflix contest has been widely followed because its lessons could extend well beyond improving movie picks.”  – Steve Lohr, “Netflix Awards $1 Million Prize and Starts a New Contest,” New York Times, September 21, 2009

Finally…!  Someone who knows how to use a hyphen!  Lohr hyphenates “seven-person ” and “machine-learning” because these two-word phrases come before the nouns they describe – “team” and “experts.” There’d be no hyphen if either two-word phrase came after the noun: “They were experts in machine learning.” 

For more tips on how to use hyphens correctly, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.

If you followed the tips for writing effective performance objectives, the task of reviewing an employees’ performance — or your own performance — will be easier and more rewarding.  Acceptable performance documentation includes enough information and uses specific, objective language.  Here are the criteria for acceptable performance documentation:

• Describes behavior, performance and results the evaluator has observed
• Describes behavior, performance and results that other have observed
• Explains, illustrate and support the evaluator’s conclusion about the employee’s rating or ranking
• Documents agreements
• Tells employees clearly what they are doing well, what they need to improve
• Documents learning plans or other expectations for growth

Here are several sets of statements taken from performance documents.  For each one, use your imagination to re-write them so that the follow the criteria above. 

1. Cecile’s clothing is inappropriate.
2. Daniel is very reliable.
3. Josh is very unprofessional in his dealings with clients. 

Here’s one way to re-write the statements so that they follow the criteria for effective performance documentation. 

1. Cecile often wears jeans and sandals or sneakers to work, although she has been told that the dress code prohibits such casual cothing for customer service staff.
2. Daniel is at his desk ready to work by 8:30 every morning.
3. Three times during this performance period, I overheard Josh telling off-color jokes to clients.

Here are some training providers to visit: 
Data Directions, Inc. – IT Training : Customized, instructor-led custom training for IT developers, specializing in DB/SQL technologies
The Kilgore Group : Executive, management, supervisor training, coaching. Communication skills, soft skills
The Negotiation Skills Company : TNSC builds provides tools for negotiation, conflict resolution & decision making.
Competitive Solutions, Inc. : A leadership training and consulting company that specializes in business scorecards.
The Quest Team, Inc. : World-class sales, marketing, and customer account team training and development.
True Solutions, Inc. : Project management consulting and training services, PMP exam prep, PMI PMBOK 3rd edition, PMP exam
LodeStar Institute – dfss, Lean, Six Sigma, Statistics : LodeStar Institute – Lean Six Sigma, dfss, statistics, process improvement, exceptional training
Online Event Registration Software : Premium Event and Training Registration Management
Train The Trainer : Train the Trainer Program (T3) for managers, supervisors, and new training professionals.
The Training Bank : Customizable training in Management, Leadership, Customer Service plus great range of online courses
The Pincus Group, Media & Exec Communications Tr : Premiere customized training for executives in speech, presentation, media and crisis communications
Green Peg – Metrics & Training : Management Training, Leadership Training, Customer Service Training, Metrics, BSC, KPIs
CBA_Link : Performance Improvement Technology for manufacturing, financial, and service organizations,
Learning and Performance Solutions : We work with companies to improve individual performance and management and leadership effectiveness
Eogogics Inc : Eogogics provides technology and soft skills training and services
Henderson Training : Solving your people problems
Assessments : DiSC, Emotional Intelligence, iSight, Via Strengths and Coaching
Laurel and Associates, Ltd. : We specialize in helping technical trainers design and deliver effective classroom training.
DiSC Profile Assessments – Online or Paper : DiSC profile assessments. Choose self-scored paper or use online DiSC for instant results.
Merit Training Corporation : Training and consulting for corporations and government institutions.
ContactPointe Training and Classrooms : ContactPointe Provide Professional Training Services and Classrooms for Clients in North America
Walt Slaughter Associates : Public and in-house sales training with an emphasis on Value Selling and Cracking New Accounts
New Directions Consulting : Team building training and consulting, coaching and leadership development
Dr Rick Goodman : Dr Rick Goodman is an Author ,Speaker and Consultant on Leadership, Healthcare and Customer Service
The Effectiveness Group : Trainers and developers of courses in engagement, leadership, team building, Conversity, etc.
The Training Registry: Training Resources Directory: Courses, Consultants, Speakers, Trainers, Facilities, Coaches, etc.