Write It Well

The longer a sentence gets, the more difficult it is to group its ideas clearly. But even average-length sentences can be unnecessarily tangled, as in this example:

As investors clamored for shares, Groupon, at the end of the day, priced its initial public offering at $20, above the expected range of $16 to $18.

That sentence is 27 words long — a good length in business prose. But the sentence is hard to follow because several ideas are mixed together:

• Investors clamored for shares at the end of the day
• Groupon priced its initial public offering at $20
• That price was above the expected range of $16 to $18

Separating those three ideas makes it easier to weld them back together with new, user-friendly transitions:

As investors clamored for shares at the end of the day, Groupon priced its initial public offering at $20 — above the expected range of $16 to $18.

•

•

Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes one chapter on sentence structure and two more on punctuation. 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.

•

•

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.

•

•

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.

•

•

Careless writing can confuse your readers even when it sounds perfectly clear to you. Correct punctuation can prevent this confusion.

Careless punctuation leaves this article title unclear:

“No Pseudonyms Allowed: Is Google Plus’s Real Name Policy a Good Idea?” Audrey Watters, nytimes.com, July 12, 2011

Adding a hyphen makes the article topic immediately clear: “Google Plus’s Real-Name Policy.” This hyphen is also grammatically necessary.

Without a hyphen, it’s not clear if the article topic is the company’s real policy about names. The hyphen makes it immediately clear that the policy concerns real names as opposed to pseudonyms.

It pays to spend some time and effort on your punctuation: readers will grasp your ideas immediately, and they’ll see you as a effortlessly clear communicator.

•

•

Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar is a thorough review of the punctuation rules you need to project credibility, clear thought, and professionalism through all your writing.

The book includes two user-friendly chapters on punctuation, including hyphenation guidelines that enable you to project an especially polished image as a business writer.

Do you have an important document but not enough time to polish it or boost reader comprehension? Just use Write It Well’s editing services.

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

•

•

Bulleted lists can help readers follow your ideas as easily as they’d step down a staircase. Here are two illustrations, starting with an intricate sentence about an array of covers you can buy to protect an iPad 2:

There is the shockproof CoverBuddy from SwitchEasy.com, available in 10 colors (plus ultraclear) for $25; the Snap Shield cover from Belkin.com, which comes in clear, Apple Pink and Smoke and sells for $30; the BackBone from ifrogz.com, which sells for $35 in matching Smart Cover colors, plus white and clear; or the higher-end iFrogz Summit for $60, which combines a folio style with a snap-in core.

— Mickey Meece, “Options Abound to Protect the iPad,” nytimes.com, July 6, 2011

The same information is much easier to read when it’s unpacked and reformatted as a bulleted list:

Here are four cover options for the iPad 2:

• The shockproof CoverBuddy from SwitchEasy.com is available in 10 colors (plus ultraclear) for $25
• The Snap Shield cover from Belkin.com sells for $30 and comes in clear, Apple pink and smoke
• The BackBone from ifrogz.com sells for $35 in matching Smart Cover colors, plus white and clear
• The higher-end iFrogz Summit sells for $60 and combines a folio style with a snap-in core

Any time a series of items gets longer than about 30 words, back up and ask yourself if the information would be easier to follow in list format. Your readers may thank you for helping them move forward.

•

•

Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar is a thorough review of the fundamental grammar you need to project credibility, clear thought, and professionalism through all your writing. The book includes two user-friendly chapters on punctuation, tips for using colons correctly in list introductions, and tips to maintain parallel structure inside a list.

Do you have an important document but not enough time to polish it? Just use Write It Well’s editing services. We’ll make sure the prose is correct, clear, concise, and engaging so your readers will follow all your ideas easily and respect your voice.

•

•

You convey leadership through your writing when you master nuances of punctuation. For example, this sentence features a strong, strategic colon:

Though he is routinely armed with an iPhone and at least one iPad, the man who oversees the entire animated film output for both Pixar and Walt Disney Studios prefers doing things old school: warm-embrace greetings followed by face-to-face meetings.

— Peter Newcomb, “A Day with John Lasseter, King of Pixar,” wsj.com

The journalist’s colon is correct: it introduces an explanation of the preceding idea. John Lasseter has an old-school style. In what way? He greets people warmly and he meets face to face.

Readers follow punctuation marks instinctively even if they themselves don’t know how to use them. It can feel like struggling through a traffic jam to try to follow poorly punctuated sentences and paragraphs.

But when you punctuate your sentences correctly, readers can be grateful for your clear directions through a maze of complex ideas. That’s one way high-quality writing can convey the quality of leadership.

•

•

•

Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two user-friendly chapters on punctuation. It’s a thorough review of the fundamental grammar you need to project credibility, clear thought, and professionalism through all your writing.

Do you have an important document but not enough time to polish it? Just use Write It Well’s editing services. We’ll make sure the prose is correct, clear, concise, and engaging so your readers will follow your ideas and respect your voice.

•

•

•

Long sentences can be correctly punctuated, but too intricate for busy readers to follow easily. Here’s an example:

Employers who fail to provide timely and accurate performance appraisals risk exposure to age discrimination claims, but more importantly, they deprive themselves of good workers who, with proper guidance and honest feedback, could be productive employees for years to come.

— Laurie McCann, “Do Older Workers Need a Nudge?”

nytimes.com, June 15, 2011

That intricate sentence is correctly punctuated with four commas. One clear sentence with four commas could read, “Employers should provide [A], [B], [C], [D], and [E].”

But the quote isn’t a simple list of items: it’s three complex ideas glued together. Busy readers could absorb the information more quickly in two or more sentences:

Employers who fail to provide timely and accurate performance appraisals risk exposure to age discrimination claims. More importantly, they deprive themselves of good workers who could be productive employees for years to come if they received proper guidance and honest feedback.

A simple sentence break can solve a host of punctuation problems.

•

Write It Well’s new book Essential Grammar is a thorough review of the punctuation and grammar knowledge you need to project a credible, professional image through your writing. Our book Professional Writing Skills helps you craft concise, clear sentences.

Our book Writing Performance Reviews helps you write performance objectives, reviews, appraisals, and other documentation that is clear, descriptive, objective, and acceptable in today’s workplace.

Do you have an important document but don’t have enough time to polish it or make it easy for your readers to understand? Just use Write It Well’s editing services. We’ll make sure the prose is correct, clear, concise, and engaging so your document will create an excellent impression.

•

Your writing can look incoherent if you use too many different punctuation marks in a short space. In this example, it looks as if the author threw in parentheses and dashes at random:

[Lonnie magazine] has attracted big-name advertisers (Kravet, Room & Board and Bloomingdale’s all ran ads in the latest issue), as well as competitors. Since Lonny started, in October 2009 — at a time when many traditional shelter magazines, including House & Garden, Metropolitan Home and Blueprint, had gone out of business — three more online shelter magazines have popped up.

— Steven Kurutz, “The Thriving (Online) Shelter Industry,”

June 1, 2011, nytimes.com

We think simple commas and periods would make these sentences much easier for a busy reader to follow:

[Lonnie magazine] has attracted big-name advertisers such as Kravet, Room & Board and Bloomingdale’s, which all ran ads in the latest issue. The venture has also attracted competitors. Many traditional shelter magazines such as House & Garden, Metropolitan Home and Blueprint had gone out of business when Lonny started in October 2009. Three more online shelter magazines have popped up since then.

At Write It Well, we love to see authors correctly use a range of punctuation marks. But we like clear writing even more. Short sentences and simple punctuation are usually the most effective ways to communicate for a busy audience.

•

Write It Well’s newly updated book Essential Grammar includes two clear chapters on punctuation. 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 your writing look especially polished.

Do you have an important document but not enough time to polish it? Just use Write It Well’s editing services. We’ll make sure the prose is correct, clear, concise, and engaging so your document will create an excellent impression.

•

MBA students’ … writing and presentation skills have been a perennial complaint. Employers and writing coaches say business-school graduates tend to ramble [and] use pretentious vocabulary.

•

Many businesspeople hold on to very bad writing habits from our school years.

As students, most of us tried using rambling prose to make papers long enough. Most of us also tried using pretentious vocabulary to compensate for skimpy homework.

Both  tactics can be disastrous in business writing. Countless times at Write It Well, businesspeople have told us they want to read clear, concise documents that get straight to the point.

•

•

•

For entire chapters on clarity and concision in business writing, see our book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide.

Please e-mail Write It Well or call us at (510) 655-6477 to find out how our customized trainings and line of books can help your organization and all its writers communicate more clearly and concisely.

Or if you have an important document that you don’t feel confident sending out, our editors can help you deliver your message effectively in prose that feels effortless to read.

•

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.

•

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!

“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.