GrammarPhile Blog

Have you ever read a report or research paper you’ve written after it was published and questioned everything you wrote about because it fell flat and received little feedback? Or have you ever wondered why your business memos, plans, reports, or emails don’t gain influence or get responses from your bosses and colleagues? Do you ever write something with the intention of instigating a discussion and all you hear is crickets in return?

Do you typically pride yourself on being able to catch even the smallest of errors in any piece of writing, whether they’re in an online advertisement or a novel? Do misspelled words and typos in a printed document drive you crazy? If so, here’s a fun proofreading quiz for you to take.

Take our quiz to test your basic proofreading knowledge and see if you can catch every single typo. See if you can get every question right and ace the entire quiz. And don’t look for any of the answers online, so you can really step up to the challenge!

Let us know how you did in the comments below. Good luck!

Do you rely on a grammar-checking software or tool, beyond what’s included in your everyday word processor? See if you can find your ideal grammar-checking tool on this list. And after scanning through the review of the most popular grammar-checking tools out there, continue reading to see why you still need a proofreader for your most important pieces of written work.

Establishing a voice in your writing isn’t just beneficial for writers of novels and opinion-based columns. It’s beneficial for all types of writers, including business writers.

When you distinguish your voice in your business writing, you reveal your professional personality to your bosses, coworkers, clients, and a broader industry-wide audience. Instead of sounding like a robot rambling off statistics and numbers in a report, or coming across as an unreliable novice, you become an approachable expert who can offer real guidance and support when necessary.

Continue reading to see the benefits of establishing a voice in your business writing, as well as some tips for developing and maintaining your voice.

Writer’s block and looming deadlines can make work challenging for any writer regardless of what they’re writing. But disorganization and randomness can make completing writing tasks and projects seem almost impossible at times.

We’ve recently shared posts about different style guides and when they should be used. Now it’s time to test your knowledge, to see how well you know some of the most common style guides used. Match the entries to their respective style guides.

Have fun and let us know how you did in the comments section.

Professional proofreaders work hard to carefully examine every detail in your written work. They scan it multiple times to fix typos, grammar errors and spelling mistakes, and to ensure that it’s consistent in style and voice. But sometimes, especially if you have someone editing your writing, you may think that it’s okay to skip hiring a proofreader and save the time and money. If more than one set of eyes has scanned your work, then it should be good to go, right? Well … not exactly. Editors are certainly valuable and can fix and point out certain errors in your writing, but they aren’t trained to do the same things that proofreaders do. (Read Editor or Proofreader: Who Does What? to learn more about that.)

Before becoming convinced that you can forgo hiring a proofreader for your writing, you should consider what you’re writing first and whether it requires the attention and care that a proofreader will assign to it.

Listed below are six types of writing you should always want a proofreader to review.

As promised last week, here are some popular style guides listed by industry.

By Industry

American Medical Association Style Guide (AMA)

The AMA style was developed by the American Medical Association for the purpose of writing medical research papers. Many scientists use this style too.

American Psychological Association Style (APA)

The APA style guide is the style manual of choice for writers, editors, students, and educators in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides vital direction on all aspects of the writing process, from the ethics of authorship to what words writers should choose to best reduce bias in language. And it offers guidance on choosing the headings, tables, figures, and tone that will result in strong, direct, and sophisticated scientific communication.

Many grammar aficionados will fiercely debate writing rules and techniques among themselves and with others until they run out of breath. But sometimes their quibbles may prove to be entirely pointless. And that’s not because there are no grammar rules worth knowing or following, but because these self-proclaimed grammar aficionados are from different industries and have developed their writing skills with very different schools of thought and practice. Or it’s because they’ve simply had different professors or teachers who encouraged them to follow very different style guides for very different purposes.

It’s important to consider how you have come to understand grammar and writing techniques as a writer, editor, or proofreader, and where the rules and techniques you follow come from, because you could unwittingly be making grave errors. Or you could be confounding your readers, and that’s never good to do.

At the very least, you should know and designate a style guide for everything you write that will be published or somehow shared with others, especially in professional settings. After you review the list below, you might discover a style guide that better suits your needs or the needs of your organization.

As a writer, your job is to make your writing enjoyable and easy to understand. That applies to everything you write, whether it’s a manual, a text book, a report, or any other type of technical writing that isn’t typically known as being “enjoyable” reading material.

Writers will often use industry jargon to make their writing easier to read and understand. But—as every reader knows—it doesn’t always work. In some cases, using industry jargon provides clarity. But in other cases, industry jargon will leave readers bewildered, frustrated, or bored.

So, how do you know when and how to use industry jargon so that your writing is clearer and easier to read? Continue reading to learn more.