Welcome to the blog – advice, opinions and musings on how to make words work
A client contacted us recently while still recovering from a mild trauma. He was the head of risk at an investment bank and had just finished reading a report on a major incident in the lending team. The report had rightly flagged the problem in the first two...
If you ever struggle with writing at work, take comfort in knowing that to do it at all should be impossible. In fact, the whole idea of...
The strange thing about writer's block is often it's not writing that's the problem at all. It's thinking. 'Thinking is to humans as swimming is to...
Struggling to write is a universal human experience. We all find it hard to some degree, as I've explained before. But if the key word is 'human',...
It's tempting to think that writing comes easily to everyone but ourselves. But if we could see inside their heads, we'd probably find that their...
An embarrassing mishap befell me during my recent summer break. It happened when I was searching for the bathroom in an unfamiliar West Country pub....
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I found myself in a strange situation recently – I was approaching a long Zoom call with genuine excitement. It was a webinar by an expert I'd just...
Telling someone they need help with their writing rarely lands well. You may be right. They may even agree with you. But they'll still probably feel...
One of the biggest dangers of relying on AI writing bots is perhaps not the most obvious. It’s not that what they produce is inferior to human...
Most of us don't like the way we look in photos. We wince slightly when we glance at a picture that includes us. Despite how it might feel, though,...
New research suggests that if you want your writing to be shared online then overusing adjectives is not wise, advisable, judicious, big or clever....
Subscribe via RSS / iTunes | Download | All podcasts 31 minutes In this podcast, communication strategist David Levin joins Rob Ashton and Andy...
No one ever said English was a straightforward language. No sooner have you learned one rule than you are presented with all the exceptions. As...
This may be a post mostly for our non-native English speaking readers. When to use in or on at any given moment is something native speakers give...
Subscribe via RSS / iTunes | Download | All podcasts 32 minutes Rob Ashton and Andy White discuss the secret life of pronouns, proofreading tips and...
Apple boasts that there are now more than 500,000 iPhone apps available. Some are useful, and some less so (we particularly love the virtual...
Subscribe via RSS / iTunes | Download | All podcasts 34 minutes In this series of lively podcasts, Emphasis CEO and former scientist Rob Ashton puts...
The proofreading competition is now closed. Taking the time to proofread your writing – whether it’s a letter, report, proposal or even just an...
It’s turned into proofing week here at the Emphasis blog. In this final part, we aim to finish turning you into mistake-spotting machines. How...
It’s a rule beloved by schoolteachers: starting a sentence with and or but is wrong. It’s also one of the few rules of grammar many people remember...
Ah, what a wonderful language English is. You can bear a child, bear a responsibility, ask someone to bear with you, bear a heavy load or bare your...
Should you write ‘the person that’ or ‘the person who’? Reader Simon Walters, of FD Solutions, wrote in about one of his language bugbears. Namely:...
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