Fall into the correct grammar patterns!

November is a month to give thanks to loved ones, health and happiness. Reading and writing are two of my favorite pastimes (both at home and in the office), so I decided to make a list of my Grammar Pet Peeves with easy-to-remember rules to cure the bad copywriting bug that’s been going around lately. 

(Please note: a few I already mentioned on the Blue Tide Productions Blog, but thought they were important enough to reiterate.)

1. Review your sentences and remove the word “that.” In most cases, your sentences still make sense without that word. The more you can condense your sentences and tighten up copy, the better.

2.   Finally, an easy way to remember they’re, their, and there!:

They are = they’re. Think of it as a drunken slur, you are just running the words together quickly.

So clearly, their = the “other” one, used for possessive. Easy to remember because an “heir” gets stuff. It just has a T in front of it.

And lastly, “there” indicates a location or destination. Also easy to remember because it is like the word “here” (another location/destination) with a T in front of it.

I.e. They’re going to pick up their car from there.

3. Capitalization versus little letters? Depending on the type of site and copy you are crafting, capitalization comes into play in a big way.

The Big Game. A powerful title, needing all caps.

That’s what SHE said. (Self explanatory.)

Eenie,meenie, miney mo…I may choose not to capitalize any of this sentence if I think the viewer will get the ambiguous feeling better without them.

4. God bless bullets. Not the ammunition, but the lovely little dots that help us categorize an otherwise bulky and confusing paragraph. We should all use them more often to help structure thoughts, outline documents and sum up reports. All too often a paper comes across my desk that is completely essay-style, and it takes too much brainpower to decipher meaning. Help your supervisor (or audience) sift through your thoughts by keeping similar content in list format.

5. Alliteration is always an appropriate option. If it rolls off the tongue smoothly, try typing it out and seeing if it also flows well when your eyes move over the text. If I had used words that started with other letters like “Alliteration is typically a reasonable selection,” it just wouldn’t resonate properly.

6. Make dashing sentences by using perhaps the most underrated mark of punctuation – the em dash. Add a little drama and anticipation to your readers, and leave them wanting more. Girls should be good at this one. The width of the letter m, em dashes may replace commas, semicolons, colons, and parentheses to indicate added emphasis, an interruption, or an abrupt change of thought.

Examples:

It was my favorite day of the week – payday.

He was the hardest-working intern we ever hired – period.

7. Commas suck, any way you splice it.
A comma splice is the incorrect use of a comma to connect two independent clauses (a phrase that is grammatically and conceptually complete: that is, it can stand on its own as a sentence.) To correct the comma splice, you can:

* replace the comma with a period, forming two sentences

* replace the comma with a semicolon

* join the two clauses with a conjunction such as “and,” “because,” “but,” etc.

Example:

Let’s go to lunch, I am hungry.                    INCORRECT

Let’s go to lunch. I am hungry.                    CORRECT

Let’s go to lunch; I am hungry.                    CORRECT

Let’s go to lunch because I am hungry.    CORRECT

8. Active verbs are healthy verbs! Active versus passive verbs
While there are exceptions to the rule, powerful sentences require action verbs to get the point.

The ball was dropped on this project by our team. INCORRECT
We dropped the ball on this project. CORRECT

If you every use the words “was, were, have or has been” family, ask yourself why. If it makes more sense and sounds better flipped around when you say it aloud, then in probably looks better on paper as well.

9. OMG. Text Jargon is NOT okay in the work environment.
Instant Messages to your colleague is one thing, but sending an email, ad, memo or report is quite another (no matter how close you are with clientele). I’d love to commend Marc Brownstein on an excellent post in Ad Age about this subject: U Think U R Such a Professional? Plz!

10. Don’t use words that are “too big for a sentence’s britches.”
There is a time and a place for showing off your vernacular and if you can’t tell the difference, it harms you more than it helps you. For example, a simple headline doesn’t need to use extensive vocabulary, especially if it makes readers stumble over the words. Nobody has time for it – they will drop it and move on to something else. Of course, in a 10-year strategic plan for your company, colloquial speech is accepted and in most cases, expected for the high-level eyes browsing the document.

Hope this hints help. What are your big pet peeves when it comes to grammar and writing?

Well, I know about energy, passion, and brainstorming.

I also am one of the few people that recognized what they loved to do at an early age, with my first published literary masterpiece* printed in the 4^th grade.

*By masterpiece, I mean a compilation of my schoolwork that my teacher loved so much that she found a printer to sponsor a beautiful rendition of my compiled essays.

However, there is a double-edged sword in having a profession where you love what you do every single day.

Entrepreneurial spirits tend to have a handful of other inventions or blooming companies you “moonlight” (stay up late working on your own projects) every single night. When you ask this type of person, “So, what’s new?” the answer is almost always a laundry list of projects and sites and books and blog and classes and new organizations and…are you still reading? I would have dozed off by now with my eyes open. You are probably one of these go-getters yourself. Good for you.

In a regular workday, I stare at the computer screen for hours on end, swapping syllables and cutting/pasting sentences so much it looks like a fridge magnet game. Then finally, everything just fits perfectly, and the perfect article or story gleams back at me. I barely have time to pat myself on the back when my momentary satisfaction is stolen by another sales letter or advertisement tapping my shoulder, waiting impatiently for me to write in time for deadline.

I know many creative designers and social media activists feel the same way. While I can’t fathom the notion, I imagine that is also how it works for other people passionate about other occupations (like number-lovers adding up budgets).

The problem with these kinds of people in an office or work environment where they actually love what they do? The moonlighting fades.

Since the passion is lit all day in the office while you are hammering away at your favorite tasks for your company, you can be burnt out by the time you get home. Ready for activities or creative outlets or god forbid, to relax.

Instead of spending time cultivating you big-money, game-changing idea, time goes by and you get comfortable working for “the man.” For some people, security and benefits are more important. For others, getting in this rut is dangerous and will ultimately make them unhappy if they don’t at least ATTEMPT to move forward with their lifelong goals.

• Take time out for yourself and soul search.
• Stay involved with activities outside of work that make you happy – whether it’s sports, or a more obvious form of networking. You never know who can help you take your dreams to a reality.
• Don’t make the office your new home, if you don’t plan on being there forever. Offer to take on a wider variety of projects. Take advantage of lunch breaks and office hours/holidays. Leave work at home when you can. Make one night a week a day for your projects only, and hole up to cross items of your to-do list.
• Timing is key. Bad economy is a bad time to start some businesses, while others are finding a niche market and finding it the perfect launch time. Perfect your business plan to incorporate timelines and profit margin comparisons.
• Dive in, don’t just dip your toes. If it’s worth doing, and you feel that strongly, starting out will always give you anxiety and make you nervous. Whenever you decide to move forward, as scary as it may be, don’t. look. back.

Creativity cannot be rushed. Yet for it to be productive, it must.

What music helps you “put blinders on” so that you only see your canvas / screen / notepad / sketchpad?

“Creative Mood Music” that helps stir creativity:

-         Film scores like Carl Orff: Carmina Burana

-         Soundtracks from your favorite movies

-         Slow Jazz, Instrumental, Environmental

-         New Age

-         Techno/electronica / dance / house (whatever this genre calls itself these days)

Perhaps there is a little coffee bar or jazz place on the water you can check out during lunch to breathe in the music.  Your mood music should change depending on the creative endeavor, because music effects emotionally.  I like to listen to smooth, sultry yet upbeat music from artists like Regina Spektor, Mandy Bergen, John Mayer, etc.

An artist trying to depict a dark message should probably listen to a different channel/track than a public relations professional trying to catch their bearings before coming up with new story angles.

Music that helps you focus and wrap out creativity before deadline time:

-         Golden Oldies

-         90s alternative

-         Classic Rock

(Psst: Sensing a pattern? Sometimes when you know the words so well you subconsciously sing along, or completely ignore the song altogether. Either way, it’s not getting in the way at your task at hand.)

I am one of those freaks that prefer silence during deadline time.

Not by choice, exactly.

My embarrassing lack of song lyrics knowledge makes for an interesting karaoke night, but not a fun working environment. My brain starts to get distracted and sing along, but since it never knows the proper words, it turns into a multitasking disaster.