10-08-2015 - Business Grammar and Proofreading - Raleigh, NC

Out With the Old Business Communication Rules and in With the New!

• Still clinging to "old" business writing and usage ideas? Professional examples of how modern, written business communication should sound
• Why a casual, friendly tone is key to contemporary business communication
• Strategies for eliminating stiff, formal language and avoiding wordiness
• Understanding why concise communication is imperative today, whether you"re writing a formal report or an e-mail
• Most-often misused words in business documents, including words that don"t exist

"Must-Know" Grammar Basics for Blunder-Free Writing:

• Image-crippling mistakes to avoid: Grammar blunders that professionals most frequently make
• What a misplaced modifier is and how it can wreak havoc with your meaning
• A simple way to make sure your subjects and verbs agree — guaranteed!
• "That"s up to you and I" or "that"s up to you and ME"? How to choose the right pronoun
• Handy grammar resources that will provide answers to even your trickiest questions

Smart Ways to Rev Up Your Sentences — and Polish Your Professional Image!

• How to use active verbs and voice to communicate more powerfully
• Wake up your readers by slashing adjectives and dumping unnecessary adverbs
• Tips for using varying sentence patterns and sentence lengths to express your ideas
• Less is more: "How-to"s" for trimming the fat from your documents
• Pointers for adding zing to your written communication

Handy "Cheat Sheets" for Capitalization, Numbers and Abbreviations:

• The 10 Commandments of Capitalization for business communication
• Rules for capitalizing professional titles and names of things
• The Rule of 10 for spelling numbers and expressing them in figures
• When — and how — to abbreviate and when to spell it out

Punctuation Made Easy for the Semicolon-Challenged!

• Punctuation mistakes that are instant credibility killers — ones you"ll never again make!
• Avoid "comma-itis" by knowing when a comma is essential
• Easy ways to keep semicolons and commas straight
• Correctly using apostrophe-"s" or "s"-apostrophe to keep your meaning clear
• When (and why) to use parentheses
• Understanding when you need quotation marks and how to use them with other punctuation
• Punctuation rules that were made to be broken and when it"s a good idea to break them

Secrets of Goof-Proof Spelling:

• A list to keep at hand from now on: The 100 most-often misspelled words in business communication
• 5 golden spelling rules every professional should memorize
• "Occuring" or "occurring"? The handy rule for adding word endings
• Hear are example of why you can"t depend on spell-checker to get your spelling write all the thyme
• Resources to check for the correct spelling of the newest words in our ever-evolving language

New Business Usage Standards: R.I.P. to "Dear Gentlemen":

• Guidelines for handling courtesy titles in business communication
• Fresh, new options for salutations in business correspondence
• Nonsexist alternatives guaranteed to help you steer clear of offensive language
• Solutions to gender-based pronoun problems
• Pet phrases and outdated words that need to be put out to pasture

Proofread Like a Pro to Catch Embarrassing Errors Before They "Go Public":

• Are you proofreading or editing? Why it"s important to know the difference before you start reading
• Tips for proofreading quickly without sacrificing accuracy
• Visual tricks that will help you catch hard-to-find errors such as duplicate words and omitted letters
• The secret to spotting your own typos and grammatical errors
• How to proofread numbers with 100 percent accuracy every time
• A proofreading checklist that will serve as your "safety net" so you can rest easy, knowing you"ve caught every error