5 Top Writing Mistakes to Avoid in Business (Unless You Enjoy Losing Money)

When it comes to the current epidemic of bad English-language writing skills, a common defense goes something like this:

English is an ever-evolving language, and so-called “bad writing” is simply part of this evolution. The classic “rules of writing” are needless twaddle and bother, and inconsequential to a new generation.

In everyday communication, the classic rules of writing may indeed be inconsequential. If you choose, for example, to send someone a text loaded with emojis and acronyms and that person understands your message, then who really cares whether you wrote words out in full or observed correct spelling, punctuation or grammar.

The problem is, the same approach in business can have a tremendously negative impact on sales and brand reputation.

The Millennial generation has been particularly set up for this risk by a short-sighted and (dare I say) lazy educational system that let them down by deeming tech savviness as key to the future, and chucked traditional language-arts training into a bin of relative unimportance. And that may be no nevermind to some Millennial businesses producing content to market goods or services to other Millennials. Those customers may not notice or even care about spelling, punctuation or grammar and will just “get what you mean.” Yet if you’re a Millennial business selling to Baby Boomers, the classic rules of writing become hugely important to content because Baby Boomers were trained in spelling, punctuation and grammar, and consider bad writing a mark of a company’s quality and character.

Moreover, many Millennials equally care about good writing, and while they may struggle with it, they’re also willing to label companies and their offers as suspicious because of bad writing.

Unless you enjoy losing potential customers, here are five common writing mistakes and how to avoid them:

The Adjectival Phrase

An adjective describes a noun. Example:

“She was a brave soldier.”

What kind of soldier was she? She was brave.

When a group of words describe a noun, the words function as a collective adjective where words are typically connected by a hyphen to show their relationship to the noun. Example:

“Barney was a taco-eating lizard.”

What kind of lizard was Barney? He was a lizard who enjoyed eating tacos.

When you remove the hyphen from the above example, the sentence completely changes:

• Taco becomes a stand-alone noun describing Barney.

• Eating becomes a stand-alone verb connected to taco.

• Lizard becomes a stand-alone object.

In other words, the sentence describes Barney as being a taco engaged in the act of eating some unfortunate lizard.

To avoid similar misconceptions about you or your business, consider how words act as modifiers to the nouns in your content and connect those words with hyphens as needed.

The “ly” Exception:

When the first word in an adjectival phrase ends in “ly,” the phrase does not receive a hyphen. Example:

“John met Susan at the duly appointed time.”

Its Versus It’s

The word it’s stands for it is. Example:

“It’s going to rain.”

The word its (without the apostrophe) denotes possession. Example:

“Bad writing met its end, and the world celebrated.”

There, They’re and Their

The word there denotes position. Example:

“Set the vase over there.”

The word they’re is a contraction meaning they are. Example:

“They’re going to the movies.”

The word their denotes plural possession. Example:

“He brought their car to the shop.”

The Ellipsis

In traditional use, the ellipsis (“...”) denotes words that have been removed from a sentence. As a standard tool of journalism, the ellipsis is typically used in quotes to tighten up sentences or remove extraneous words without compromising the overall integrity of a quote.

Example (Original Quote): “After examining the evidence, which included several hundred testimonials from clients and a dozen studies from dispassionate third parties, the judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff.”

Example (Modified Quote): “After examining the evidence… the judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff.”

Contemporarily, the ellipsis is widely used to denote a dramatic pause. Example:

“Well… I suppose that’s okay.”

When used sparingly, the ellipsis can be visually striking. When used as liberally as cheap parmesan across a pizza, however, the ellipsis easily comes across as needless, distracting and annoying. Example:

“When he got to the store, it was closed… so he went home… but he didn’t have his key… he felt lost… so he went for tacos… and a side salad… then went to the zoo.”

The ellipses in the above example are all easily replaced with other punctuation marks that reduce the distraction. Example:

“When he got to the store, it was closed. So he went home, but didn’t have his key. He felt lost. So he went for tacos and a side salad, then went to the zoo.”

However you choose to use the ellipsis, the correct form is three periods in a row. Adding more (a popular trend) only amplifies the distraction.

The Exclamation Mark

The exclamation mark denotes special emphasis like a shout of surprise. Example:

“Crikey! You scared the beejeezus out of me.”

When used sparingly, the exclamation mark is an excellent attention-grabber. When used repeatedly in machine-gun succession, multiple exclamation marks are like beating someone over the head with a club.

If you want or need to denote special emphasis in quick succession, try staggering different options like bold type, italics, font choice and/or color.

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