Write It Well

Bulleted lists are an excellent way to present complex business information clearly. Numbered items are better than bulleted items when you need to present an intricate sequence of steps.

This New York Times paragraph is a perfect example of information that cries out for a numbered list; just compare it to the reformatted version below.

Original

If you’re a business owner, a team coach or a performer who wants to keep everyone on Facebook apprised of your coming events, simply creating separate Facebook events for each one can be ineffective. These can get lost in the stream of events, making it hard for people to check for, say, your next game. As an alternative, use the Social Calendar app, which was not developed by Facebook. Go to facebook.com/SocialCalendar and click the Add to My Page link in the lower left corner. That will pop up a menu of pages you manage. Click Add to Page next to one or more pages, then click Close. Those pages will now include a Calendar link in their upper left corner, just below Wall, Info and Photos. Social Calendar is pretty smart — it will autocomplete the names of events you’ve already created, and if you type in an Address field, it will add a map link to the location on the calendar.

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Revised

If you’re a business owner, a team coach or a performer who wants to keep everyone on Facebook apprised of your coming events, simply creating separate Facebook events for each one can be ineffective. These can get lost in the stream of events, making it hard for people to check for, say, your next game. As an alternative, use the Social Calendar app, which was not developed by Facebook:

1. Go to facebook.com/SocialCalendar.

2. Click the Add to My Page link in the lower left corner. That will pop up a menu of pages you manage.

3. Click Add to Page next to one or more pages.

4. Then click Close.

Those pages will now include a Calendar link in their upper left corner, just below Wall, Info and Photos. Social Calendar is pretty smart — it will autocomplete the names of events you’ve already created, and if you type in an Address field, it will add a map link to the location on the calendar.

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In the original paragraph, the instructions are buried in a dense block of text, making it easy for readers to get confused or lost. The numbered list makes a clear sequence of steps stand out immediately.

Customers and clients can appreciate the clear guidance you offer in a chronologically numbered list. A little document planning on your part can boost their relief at your offering hassle-free, well-organized information.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two chapters on punctuation as well as tips for formatting a bulleted or numbered list. We’ve made all the book’s exercises available as a free download here to accompany the e-book, which is now available on Amazon.com!

Do you have an important document but not enough time to clarify your thoughts and double-check your punctuation and grammar? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

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Dashes and parentheses have opposite effects. Parentheses de-emphasize information, while dashes call attention to it. Click here for our April newsletter, which explains how you can use both kinds of punctuation mark confidently.

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Write It Well’s newly updated book Essential Grammar includes a clear chapter on comma usage and another chapter on correct uses for colons, semicolons, hyphens, parentheses, and dashes. The book is a thorough review of the fundamental grammar you need to project a credible, professional image through your writing. It also includes nuances of punctuation and grammar that help writing stand out for its polish and precision.

Just in case you missed it, our March newsletter offered tips and tools for writing effective press releases!

We could write a long introduction about why we liked this article but thought instead that we’d keep it short.  Here it is:  Tips for Writing Less!

It’s often hard to figure out what details to include in a proposal, how to organize your information, how to keep the document concise, and how to bring together several people’s contributions into one well-integrated whole. It’s much easier to write a great proposal if the instructions are clear.

There’s nothing straightforward about the rules for using commas in U.S. English. Commas have more uses than any other punctuation mark, we use commas more often than any other punctuation mark, and they’re the most difficult punctuation mark to use correctly every single time.

Commas keep sentence parts from bumping into one another and creating misunderstandings. Your readers need to see correctly placed commas to navigate their way through your sentences and quickly grasp your meaning.

In the hundreds of writing workshops we’ve taught over the years, people ask us about commas more often than any other punctuation topic.

Just Commas: A Write It Well Guide is our new online, free e-learning module to answer these questions. It covers rules for correct comma usage in these nine situations:

Rule 1: For Items in a Series

Rule 2: Between Two Clauses

Rule 3: For Introductory Words

Rule 4: For Nonessential Clauses

Rule 5: For Transitional Expressions

Rule 6: Between Adjectives

Rule 7: For Quotations

Rule 8: For Dates, Addresses, and Numbers

Rule 9: With Other Punctuation

Read our October newsletter for free tips and tools for anyone who writes marketing copy.

September newsletter

This whirlwind summary of Chelsea Clinton’s wedding shows a good use for semicolons: “The Wedding of the Year is over, and what have we learned? There was an interfaith ceremony; Bill lost the required weight, and then some; the cake was gluten-free.”

– Sally Law, “Personal Style,” The New Yorker, August 2, 2010

Semicolons are a polished way to connect two or more parts of a sentence that don’t have a clear logical connection. You use a colon instead of a semicolon when the connecting logic is obvious – e.g., “The wedding party was formidable … and so too was security: guests needed specially issued ID bracelets to board a bus to the ceremony.”

– Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger, “Chelsea Clinton, Marc Mezvinsky

wedding details,” The Washington Post, August 2, 2010

A semicolon would be right for the made-up sentence, “The bride wore Vera Wang; the guests wore specially issued ID bracelets.”

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Check out our new, one-page PDF “Semicolons: A Write It Well Guide”! And for a thorough guide to punctuation in business writing, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide.

Could you use some help making sure your punctuation is correct, and your prose is engaging and easy to understand? Write It Well offers proofreading and editing services for your or your employees’ business documents.

Just send us a document, noting any concerns or goals you have for it – e.g., whether the reader gets enough information from the text to understand your message. We’ll copyedit a sample portion for free and return it within two days.

You’ll get estimates of the cost and time frame for our sending you back a full, edited, engaging document that will make a great impression.

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