Look through your inbox or an online forum, and it won't be long until you hit someone making a request and concluding with 'thanks in advance'. But they're probably making a big mistake. What's more, they may have no idea about the hornets’ nest of irritation they're...
Jacob Funnell
11 ways to stop procrastinating and get writing
Do you ever feel like you're always in a face-off with your word processor – and losing? If so, you won't be surprised to hear that one of the biggest problems nearly everyone faces when they have something to write is getting started. Call it writer's block. Call it...
Three ways to tame wild sentences
You don't have to work in a zoo, the circus or pest control to come face to face with a wild beast at work. Sometimes they're found lurking in our writing. Sounds strange? Well, an out-of-control sentence can be a terrifying thing. Take this monster, based on a...
Why bullets won’t make your case
Bullets are designed to call out key points and help the reader scan large amounts of information. Or at least, that's the idea. You can start out with good intentions when you use them – you're probably trying to make life easier for your readers. Perhaps you're...
When do job titles need capital letters?
So, should you capitalise job titles? Ask around for opinions and you'll probably get several different answers. You might think this is because they're all mistaken about the 'right' answer. But that's not the case – there's no single, universally agreed upon...
60-second fix: Do you write Kind regards or Kind Regards?
When you've finished an email, all you need is a friendly, professional sign off. And there's one popular choice. That choice is 'Kind regards'. For most work emails, it's hard to go wrong with this. It's succinct and it's professional. Yet every week, I get emails...
Dare to be different
Just because someone has been writing documents for years, that doesn't mean they're doing it well. I wish it were that simple. The fact is that many people succeed despite their writing, not because of it. As we said in this recent post, that's why your standard...
The 5 easiest ways to improve any document (even if English is your second language)
Very often, people who struggle with business English as a second language assume all their problems stem from the fact that it's not their native tongue. But the truth is that many native speakers share the same problems. That’s because there are five fundamentals of...
The five most annoying ways to use an ellipsis
The three little innocent-looking dots of an ellipsis (...) probably carry more power to annoy and confuse your readers than any other punctuation mark. Apostrophe mistakes look harmless in comparison. Nobody seriously reads ‘orange’s 45p’ and assumes that the orange...
One space or two after a full stop?
In the battle of spaces, no one can hear you scream. The argument about whether to use one space or two after a full stop (aka period) is surprisingly heated. So, should you use one space at the end of a sentence? (Like this.) Or two? (Like this.) Until the early...
Power up with the active voice
Watch Emphasis CEO Rob Ashton as he transforms a selection of real-life examples from our clients. He shows you how to give your business writing an instant power boost by switching your sentences from the passive voice to the active. *Of course, things are rarely...
The fonts that make you remember more
We are more likely to remember information when it is written in a hard-to-read font, according to psychologists at Princeton and Indiana universities. Researcher Connor Diemand-Yauman and his colleagues wanted to explore how fonts affect how much we remember from the...