Write It Well

There are rumors that Amazon.com will start selling merchandise at brick-and-mortar stores. The following sentence about those rumors illustrates a common punctuation mistake:

“There wouldn’t have to be any [store] inventory, you would simply play with the stuff, talk to a professional …, and have it at your house in the next 24 to 48 hours,”  Jason Calacanis wrote in a recent blog post.

The comma in red makes this blogger’s sentence incorrect. Many readers don’t know the grammatical term comma splice but still wince at this particular punctuation mistake.

Comma splices can lower your credibility, including on blogs and in e-mails, but they’re easy to correct. Just ask yourself if you could separate two ideas into two complete sentences rather than with a comma:

• There wouldn’t have to be any store inventory.
• You would simply play with the stuff, talk to a pro, and have it delivered.

Since these ideas are full enough to stand as two complete sentences, they need a stronger punctuation mark than a comma to separate them. The handiest solution to avoid a comma splice is just to type two sentences, like this:

There wouldn’t have to be any store inventory. You would simply play with the stuff, talk to a pro, and have it delivered.

As a rule of thumb, if you think your punctuation may be incorrect, try backing up and typing two shorter sentences. You’re more likely to be correct and easy to understand.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two chapters 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.

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Have you ever felt drained just looking at an e-mail that was one long, unbroken paragraph of text? A long sentence can have the same intimidating effect. Here’s an example about the short battery life of the iPhone 4S:

For now, Apple isn’t saying anything about the issue – a spokeswoman didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment – in what has become a typical pattern of silence for the company after customers begin complaining about a technical problem with a new iPhone.

The sentence is 42 words long; we recommend that you keep most sentences in business documents under about 25 words. Breaking up the sentence into separate ideas can help you rewrite it:

• For now, Apple isn’t saying anything about the issue
• A spokeswoman didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment
• This has become a typical pattern of silence for the company
• Customers have complained before about a technical problem with a new iPhone

This separation of ideas makes it much easier to create two or more shorter sentences with new transitions between the ideas:

For now, Apple isn’t saying anything about the issue; a spokeswoman didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. This has become a typical pattern of silence for the company when customers complain about a technical problem with a new iPhone.

Busy readers appreciate having a clear path marked out for them, and these 18- and 22-word sentences are much easier to follow.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes a 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.

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This correctly punctuated sequence of sentences about the iPhone 4S is a perfect illustration of how you can avoid a comma splice:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5. That will have to wait.

Those last two sentences would be incorrect if they were connected only with a comma:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5, that will have to wait.

That sentence is a comma splice: two clauses, each of which could stand as an independent sentence, incorrectly joined with a comma.

When you have two clauses that could stand as independent sentences, you’ll always be safe if you use any of these other methods to join them:

A Semicolon:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5; that will have to wait.

A Comma and a Conjunction:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5, since that will have to wait.

A Semicolon, Linking Word, and Comma:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. It wasn’t an iPhone 5; unfortunately, that will have to wait.

Or, of course, you could just make each independent clause its own sentence, as in the original example.

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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.

Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two chapters on punctuation to help you boost the impact of all your business documents.

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!

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Colons and semicolons are like traffic signals: they tell readers how to steer through two parts of a sentence. The following sentence features a correctly used colon:

That’s the bottom line: The lawns go away when the water rates go up.

— “Author sees growth in the trend of replacing lawns,” sfgate.com, August 21, 2011

The colon signals that the second half of the first sentence follows logically from the first half. (I.e., the bottom line is that lawns are linked to water rates.)

The following quotation in the same article features a correctly used semicolon:

“I planted my native grass meadow in 1989; it’s never been fertilized.”

The semicolon merely links two loosely related thoughts. (It makes sense for the speaker to mention both fertilization and a planting date in a sentence about one meadow. However, the no-fertilizer choice doesn’t depend on the date.)

Using semicolons and colons correctly can help readers navigate through your prose and follow your ideas more easily. Being able to use them deftly adds sophistication to your business writing.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two full chapters 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 untangle your sentences or double-check your punctuation and spelling? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

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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.

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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.

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Correctly used semicolons signal that you know English well and want to help your readers follow the logic of your sentences.

Here’s an illustration. It’s from an excellent writer’s interview with the editor of a magazine that had just been redesigned:

“Joe and I both loved the old New Republic,” [editor Franklin Foer] says. “We felt that we were drawing on a really rich aesthetic tradition; magazines used to know how to make type look beautiful.”

– Emily Gordon, “Primary Colors,” Print magazine, November/December 2007

In other words, the New Republic‘s rich, individual design tradition stretches back to 1914; many magazines from the early twentieth century still look beautiful.

Foer knows that the second fact doesn’t follow automatically from the first. That’s what makes Gordon’s semicolon perfect.

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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 servicesfor 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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This description of a two-million-dollar loft in Barcelona provides a good example of when to use a semicolon rather than a colon: “The windows are also original, as are the wooden-beamed ceilings; in the main living area, they are 16 feet high.”

– Virginia C. McGuire, “”House Hunting in … Barcelona,”

New York Times, Aug. 17, 2010

This semicolon is right for this sentence because the ceiling’s height doesn’t depend on its woodwork. But it makes sense to collect these loosely related topics in one sentence because together, they explain why the apartment gets beautiful light.

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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 servicesfor 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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Here’s a great use of a semicolon to describe changes in the Supreme Court.

James Fallows points out that from 1789 “until 1970, the average tenure of a justice was under 15 years; since then, it’s over 26 years.”

– from “Modest Proposal: Fixed Tenure for the Supreme Court,”

the Atlantic, Aug. 7, 2010

Fallows describes the reasons for this change in other sentences. (Compared to previous centuries, justices are now younger when they join the court, and they live longer.)

A colon would be correct if this sentence showed cause and effect: “Change was inevitable: a new situation would emerge.”

The semicolon is perfect here since Fallows is simply saying, “This is how it used to be; things are different now.”

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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 servicesfor 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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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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