Proofreading Tip: CTRL+F Helps You Find Typos

Some of us mistype words, and we don’t see them when we’re proofreading because we read the word as we meant to type it, right? And just because they’re typos doesn’t mean that spell checker will find them because they’re words; e.g., you for your, form for from. Word can help you find these typos:

1. Press CTRL+F.
2. Type the mistyped word in the Find what: textbox (form).
3. Press Enter.

Word will find each occurrence of the word; then, you can determine if the word (form) is used properly. Continue to press Enter until the dialog box displays, Word has finished searching the document. Press Enter to close that dialog box; then click Cancel to close the Find and Replace dialog box.

Judy Beaver, The Office Pro
Founder of National Proofreading Day
Judy@TheOfficePro.net

Proofreading Tip: Paired Punctuation Marks

How many times have you written an explanation or comment in parentheses and forgot to use the closing parenthesis? Some punctuation marks come in pairs. Excel will tell you it found an error in the formula if you don’t have matching parentheses. And Excel will offer a correction. The closing mark--quotation mark, parenthesis, or bracket--is easy to overlook.

In Word, use the Find command to help you. Press CTRL+F; type the beginning mark in the Find what: text box. Press ENTER to search the document. That way, you’ll find the beginning mark to see if its companion mark was typed.

Judy Beaver, The Office Pro
Founder of National Proofreading Day
Judy@TheOfficePro.net

Proofreading Tip: Checking It Twice

This month, I received a newsletter that had an author's book entitled Get Client's Now! (The book's title is Get Clients Now! by C. J. Hayden. No apostrophe.) Check the source--that's an important proofreading tip. People don't like their names misspelled, and I'll bet authors don't like their book titles misspelled either.

Checking the source is worth the effort; and that's true for company names, addresses, phone numbers, dollar amounts, and numbers in a list.

Judy Beaver, The Office Pro
judy@TheOfficePro.net
National Proofreading Day

Business Writing Tip: I Hear Voices

March 8 has been approved as an official holiday for National Proofreading Day by Chase’s Calendar of Events. This holiday was founded by Judy Beaver. The National Proofreading Day Web site has been updated with a monthly proofreading survey. (Please click here to take the proofreading survey!) What do the first three sentences have in common besides shameless promotion? They’re written in passive voice.

Do you know the difference between active and passive voice? According to William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, “The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style—in clarity and vigor—is the difference between life and death for a writer.” He’s right; the first three sentences are boring! And, active voice is easier to understand than passive voice because the reader knows who’s doing what. Active-voice sentences are written in subject-verb order.

Use active voice to keep your writing strong and concise for business. However, if you write in passive voice, revise the passive-voice sentence by changing to subject-verb order. Ask: who did what to help identify the subject. Sometimes you know the subject; it follows the word by. Otherwise, you may have to add a subject. So, what’s the subject in the first sentence of this newsletter? (Who did what?) Chase’s Calendar of Events. Here’s the sentence written in active voice: Chase’s Calendar of Events approved March 8 as the official holiday for National Proofreading Day. Still boring? Perhaps, although it’s active voice!

Microsoft Word can identify your passive-voice verbs so you can improve your writing. Then, you can decide if you want to change the sentence to active voice. To be sure Word places the green zigzag line under passive-voice sentences, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Click the Word Options button.
3. Click the Proofing link (left side).
4. Click the Settings button.
5. Scroll down to Style category (under the Grammar and style options list); select Passive sentences to place a check in its check box.
6. Click OK two times.

Even though active voice is the preferred writing style, you can use passive voice for certain situations. Use it to place emphasis on someone other than the subject (Laura was honored vs. We honored Laura) or to avoid placing blame on someone (The program couldn’t be installed vs. Joe couldn’t install the program). See the difference?

Judy Beaver, The Office Pro
Founder of National Proofreading Day
Judy@TheOfficePro.net

Business Writing Tip: Text Speak

Last week a Wisconsin teen won $50,000 for the 2011 LG U.S. National Texting Championship. The contestants competed in several challenges, ending with the “Text Attack” challenge. The finalists had to type as quickly and accurately as possible. Accurately? By whose standards?

I think vanity license plates are easier to figure out than text messages. Earlier this month I wrote about corporate speak and its readability problems, although is text speak any easier to understand?

awgthtgtta degt b/c i’m awltp
What the heck does that mean? Translation: Are we going to have to go through this again? Don’t even go there because I’m avoiding work like the plague.

Spell check obviously has problems with the spelling of that text message; however, the Flesch Reading Ease Scale gives it a score of 100, which means it’s easy to read. Really? Dr. Flesch didn’t figure text speak into the formula.
 
Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, writes that while there are many positive aspects of social media, Generations Y and Z have difficulty with writing and face-to-face interactions. Even though these groups are writing more, they’re not following grammar, punctuation, and capitalization rules. Plus most words look like typos.
 
So, is text speak appropriate for business communication, including blogs and e-mails? Remember, you want to write a document so your audience understands it.
 

What do you think? Will text speak become the new standard? What did you think when OMG and LOL were added to The Oxford English Dictionary? Do you think that’s the death of language?

Judy Beaver, The Office Pro
Founder of National Proofreading Day
Judy@TheOfficePro.net

Proofreading Tip: How Easy Are Your Documents to Read?

Have you ever read something that makes no sense? Contracts? Reports? Proposals? Do you quit reading the document because it gives you a headache? You're not alone.

Corporate speak, legal speak--call it what you want; it's not easy to understand. Furthermore, people are too busy to read a document more than once to figure out what someone is trying to say. The writer needs to write in plain English!
 
Dr. Rudolf Flesch created a readability formula that measures how easy something is to read based on the average sentence length in words and the average word length in syllables. The calculation results in a number between 0 and 100. The higher the number, the easier the message is to read.
 
He applied his formula to several publications; the scores are averages from random samples:

• Reader's Digest: 65
• The Wall Street Journal: 43
• Standard auto insurance policy: 10
• Internal Revenue Service: -6

The minus six makes me laugh every time! Of course, you want to write a document so your audience understands it. But does anyone understand a message written with a readability score of minus six? Dr. Flesch's advice: "If it's too hard to read for your audience, you shorten the words and sentences until you get the score you want."

But who wants to count words and syllables? The good news is you don't have to calculate the readability formula. Let Word and Outlook do it. Here's how to set it up in Word 2007:
 
But who wants to count words and syllables? The good news is you don't have to calculate the readability formula. Let Word and Outlook do it. Here's how to set it up in Word 2007:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Click the Word Options button.
3. Click Proofing link (left side).
4. Under When correcting grammar in Word, be sure Check grammar with spelling and Show readability statistics are selected.
5. Click OK.

In Word 2003, select Tools | Options from the menu bar. Click the Spelling & Grammar tab. Be sure Check grammar with spelling and Show readability statistics are selected. Click OK.

According to Dr. Flesch, "the minimum score for Plain English is 60." Remember, the goal is to have your readers understand your message.

To help you improve your writing, I recommend reading Why Business People Speak Like Idiots by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, and Jon Warshawsky. The authors conduct studies and give pertinent examples to back up their claims that "bull has become the official language of business." They write in an easy-to-read, humorous style that helps you learn how to update your business writing and speaking skills, so people understand your message.


Judy Beaver, The Office Pro
Founder of National Proofreading Day
Judy@TheOfficePro.net

September 24 is National Punctuation Day

Happy National Punctuation Day! Today is the eighth annual celebration of this holiday. Jeff Rubin is the founder of National Punctuation Day. Check out his Web site: http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/. You can enter a Punctuation Paragraph Contest (entries are being accepted through September 30), learn about punctuation, and more.

What are you going to do on National Punctuation Day?