Write It Well

Many business writers trip up when they add or omit commas. Here’s a comma that many writers would mistakenly leave out:

[A recent survey] ranked San Francisco sixth among U.S. metropolitan areas [in] providing goods or services that help the environment. San Jose [ranked] 26th, behind such contenders as Kansas City, Mo., and Albany, N.Y.

— David R. Baker, “S.F. ranked 6th in U.S. for green jobs by survey,”

sfgate.com, July 13, 2011

It’s necessary to mention Missouri in that sentence since there’s also a Kansas City, Kansas. And it’s necessary to include commas both before and after the state name since the quoted sentence continues after it.

Commas are the most frequently misused punctuation marks in U.S. English. Using them correctly makes your own prose look carefully written, and careful, correct writing boosts your credibility as a businessperson.

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Write It Well’s e-learning module Just Commas includes self-paced quizzes to help you test your knowledge of punctuation, and our book Essential Grammar includes a full chapter on commas.

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 double-check your punctuation? Just use Write It Well’s editing services.

We’ll make sure your prose is correct, clear, concise, and engaging so your readers will follow all your ideas easily and respect your voice.

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Correct hyphenation sets business writing apart. Here’s a tour de force example of it from the Wall Street Journal:

There are five dwellings on the property, including a 7,500-square-foot stucco-and-tile Tuscan-style house with three bedrooms.

— Candace Jackson, “Napa Estate Asks $35.8 Million,” wsj.com

These hyphens are correct because the three multiword descriptions all come before the noun house. No hyphen would be needed if you put any of these descriptions after the noun, as in “The house is stucco and tile.”

A hyphen would be necessary for the phrase “three-bedroom house” if it were before the noun. But before nouns, you do leave out hyphens for well-known multiword phrases like ” a tour de force example” or “a real estate listing.”

Using hyphens incorrectly is such a commonplace mistake that most readers won’t notice it. But correct hyphenation adds unmistakable polish to any document.

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Write It Well’s newly updated book Essential Grammar includes further tips on correct hyphenation as well as a thorough review of the fundamental grammar you need to project a credible professional image through your writing.

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Why do we give workshops on “E-Mail Efficiency” instead of “E-Mail Etiquette” like other people do? The short answer: our workshops cover more material. To use e-mail most effectively, of course you need proper e-mail etiquette. You won’t get much done with offensive, boring, or badly-timed messages! But you also need to know how to keep a tidy inbox, for example, and how to write persuasive e-mail messages — not to mention the nitty-gritty details of professional grammar and clean prose.

Write It Well works with your company to tailor an interactive e-mail workshop to your specific needs and strengths. We train your company to write e-mail that gets your work done in less time. That’s efficiency!

“The trainer’s enthusiasm was contagious” wrote one participant at a recent Write It Well workshop, “she was responsive to questions and interactive with the audience.”

“I thought an e-mail seminar would be a waste of time. I ended up wishing it could have lasted longer and gone into more detail,” wrote another participant.

“The content was timed just right, and flowed well,” wrote another.

Write It Well offers customized business writing workshops in the Bay Area and beyond, as well as workshop facilitator kits for delivering your own high-quality writing workshop, seminar, or off-site training.