Do You Make These Word Choice Mistakes? Part Too

Do you feel that spark?

When you noticed the error in the headline of this article, your brain had a “wait a minute, that’s not correct” moment.

It’s easier to spot errors when they are not your errors. Perhaps a little satisfying, some might even ponder, “How could anyone ever make that mistake?”

Even simple words, such as “two” and “too,” may be mixed up if a writer is rushed. Proofreaders provide peace of mind for writers—a safety net. However, initially avoiding common writing errors improves your writing’s clarity and saves you time later.

I recently pointed out the differences between three pairs of similar words. Here are three more sets to help you get in the habit of choosing the correct word on the first try.

Regard vs. Regards

The word “regard” can be used as a verb or a noun.

As a verb, the word is used to express the action of “taking into account or considering”:

In regard to your question, no, I do not prefer sugar in my coffee.

As a noun, the word is used to reference “a point or aspect”:

In this regard, I like bitter coffee.

“Regard” can also be utilized as a verb to signify “having esteem”:

After hearing his presentation, I highly regard Dr. Smith’s intelligence.

“Regard” is the word that you want to use if you aim to express any of the above thoughts (or any of the other meanings of the word “regard”).

“Regards” is used only as a noun related to emotions.

For example:

- “Linda has not been feeling well.”
- “Oh, really? I’m sorry to hear that! Please send her my regards.”

In the above example, you are feeling an emotion or sentiment about Linda’s illness, so you want to send her your good wishes.

That’s it!

In general, use “regard” unless you are sending your feelings of empathy to someone else.

Beside vs. Besides

Here are the essentials—some basic definitions.

Meanings of the preposition “beside”:

1. next to
2. compared to/next to
3. not connected to

Meanings of the preposition “besides”:

1. in addition to
2. other than/except

Associate the word “beside” with the word “alongside.” Both words end with the letters “s-i-d-e.”

The confusing part involves the fine line between “compared to/next to” or “not connected to” (uses of “beside”) and “in addition to” or “other than/except” (uses of “besides”).

Let’s make these differences explicit.

How do you make a comparison between items?

You may compare/contrast items by arranging them alongside/beside each other.

For example, if you have three apples and one orange lined up in a row alongside each other, the orange is the one that is not connected to, or not like, the other pieces of fruit.

Beside -> Alongside -> Compared to -> Not connected to

The phrases “in addition to” and “other than/except” may be substituted with the word “besides.” Let’s make use of the fact that the word ends with the letter “s” to help us remember when to use “besides” accurately.

The letter “s” reminds us of words that are plural.

Besides -> With an “s” = Plural In Addition To (Think Two or More—Plural)

Besides -> With an “s” = Except

Associate the “s” sound in the word “except” with the word “besides,” which ends with the letter “s.”

Stationary vs. Stationery

The word “stationary,” an adjective, is used to express “still, grounded, or motionless”:

I use the stationary bicycle at the gym three times a week.

Associate the “a” in the word “adjective” with the fact that the last three letters in the adjective “stationary” contain the letter “a.”

Tip: Stationary is an adjective.

“Stationery,” a noun, is writing material:

I have personalized stationery with my company’s logo.

Associate the noun “stationery” with “paper.”

The last three letters of the noun “stationery” contain the letter “e.”

The word “paper” ends with the letters “er.”

Tip: Stationery = Paper.

Check out a free sample of the anti-grammar ebook, Revision Fairy Tales: 21 Writing Mistakes You’ll Never Make Again.

About the Author: Stefanie Flaxman corrects business, marketing, and educational documents in 24 hours to eliminate reputation-crushing mistakes from your writing. She's a professional proofreader and the founder of Revision Fairy® Small Business Proofreading Services. Connect with Stefanie on Twitter.

Punctuation: A Different Kind of Symbolism

Punctuation matters. Period.

Your profound representation of a snowflake resting upon a marigold and crimson fall leaf won’t matter if your sentence structure is not clear. The reader isn’t going to enjoy your brilliant allegory if she can’t follow what you’re saying.

Proper punctuation guides the reader through your story. Here are punctuation tips to help ensure that your writing, at a basic level, is straightforward.

Commas

“To be, or not to be,” might have been the question for Hamlet, but “to put a comma before the word ‘and,’ or to not put a comma before the word ‘and,’” is the question for a lot of writers.

Use a comma before the word “and” if you are linking two separate clauses:

“At the grocery store, I went to the produce section to get grapes, and Jane went to the dairy section to get cheese.”

Use a comma before the word “and” if the word “and” precedes the last item on a list:

“While in the produce section, I picked up grapes, bananas, apples, and oranges.”

Quotation Marks

Quotation marks often mingle with other types of punctuation, namely commas, periods, colons, question marks, and exclamation points. Punctuation can be very incestuous.

For direct quotes:

Quotation marks go outside of periods and commas.

Quotation marks go inside of semicolons and colons.

If a question mark or exclamation point is part of the quotation, then quotation marks go outside of the mark.

If a question mark or exclamation point applies to the entire sentence, then quotation marks go inside the mark.

Just because you prefer a double shot of espresso in your morning latte doesn’t mean that double quotation marks are always appropriate in your writing. Meet the “quote within a quote.”

To separate a distinct piece of information within double quotation marks, use single quotation marks:

John proclaimed, “I was so overtired and delirious that I thought my dog actually said to me, ‘John, you really should get some rest.’”

Parentheses

Parentheses, like quotation marks, are a basic form of punctuation, but become confusing when mixed with other marks.

If a phrase in parentheses is only part of a sentence, put other punctuation outside of the parentheses.

If an entire sentence is in parentheses, punctuation should be inside of the parentheses.

Apostrophes

An apostrophe + the letter “s” expresses possession. This formula can also sometimes make a word plural. There’s no real method to this madness, and there are a number of possessive pronouns that do not contain apostrophes, as well.

For example, “its” is a possessive pronoun used to describe that something is a characteristic of “it.” The word “it’s” is a contraction of the words “it” and “is.”

To simplify all of this nonsense, follow these rules for the letter “s,” in regard to plural and possessive forms of words.

‘s:

To make singular nouns possessive: the bus’s seating arrangement

To make proper nouns ending in “z,” “ce” or ‘x” possessive: Leibniz’s Monadology

‘ (Apostrophe Only):

To make plural nouns possessive: the boys’ toy trucks

To make singular proper names possessive: Descartes’ philosophy

To make single letters plural: Cross your t’s and dot your i’s.

s:

To make numbers plural: 1980s, ‘80s

Dashes

All dashes are not created equal. There are specific circumstances for each type of dash.

hyphen: -

en-dash: –

em-dash: —

Use a hyphen (the key next to the number “0” on your keyboard) to create compound words: time-consuming activity

Use an en-dash (PC: Alt + 0150, Mac: Option + Hyphen) to indicate range or to break a word and continue it on the next line: 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Use an em-dash (PC: Alt + 0151, Mac: Shift + Option + Hyphen) to indicate a break in sentence structure. Do not put spaces on either side of the em-dash: The words “compliment” and “complement” are essentially spelled the same way—there is only one letter that is different.

About the Author: Stefanie Flaxman corrects business, marketing, and educational documents in 24 hours to eliminate reputation-crushing mistakes from your writing. She's a professional proofreader and the founder of Revision Fairy® Small Business Proofreading Services. Connect with Stefanie on Twitter.

Do You Make These Word Choice Mistakes?

Some of the top titles on the New York Times Paperback Nonfiction Best-Seller List for the first week of September 2009 included My Life in France, Julie & Julia, and Three Cups of Tea. Noticeably absent from the list was 250 Pages of Confusing, Boring Grammar Rules That I'm Never Going to Remember Anyway. Hmm, I wonder why?

There's a lot of information to digest when you read a Grammar Bible. Are you really going to remember the past participle explanation about the words "would" and "could" that you read in Chapter One by the time that your eyes have scanned 250 pages?

In the current economic climate, you can’t afford to make mistakes. You need a quick fix. There, I said it. Simple, to the point, non-bullshit grammar lessons that you’ll actually remember the next time that you are choosing between Word Choice A and Word Choice B.

Let’s start with three sets of commonly misused words.

Premier vs. Premiere

Who would have thought that a little “e” could make such a big difference? Well, it does.

The adjective “premier” means “first-rate, best, number one in its class.”

Tip: Premier = premium. Both words do not end with the letter “e.”

The noun “premiere” means “the first public showing of an event.”

Tip: Premiere = movie premiere. The words “premiere” and “movie” both end with the letter “e.”

Compliment vs. Complement

The two distinct words “compliment” and “complement” are essentially pronounced in the same way (especially if one is mumbling) and essentially spelled the same way—there’s only one letter that is different.

A “compliment (noun)” is an “expression of praise.” When you “compliment (verb)” someone you tell her an expression of praise.

A complement (noun) is “something that completes something else.” When something “complements (verb)” something else it “makes it whole/adds value to it.”

Most people have a separate drawer for socks, a separate drawer for t-shirts, a separate drawer for sweaters, etc. Think of the following as a separate drawer for “compliment”, and a separate drawer for “complement.”

“I like the outfit that you have on” is a compliment. The word “compliment” that is spelled with the letter “i” should remind you of saying “I like”—the phrase that you begin with when you give someone a compliment.

A “complement” “completes, or makes whole.” Complement. Complete.

Insure vs. Ensure

The verb “insure” is “the act of protecting assets against loss or harm”:

You must insure your car if you plan to drive it.

The verb “ensure” is “to make certain, or to guarantee”:

I would like to ensure that you use proper grammar.

The simplest way to determine which of these words is the most appropriate for the context of your writing is to examine the content that you’re writing about.

The word “insure” references insurance—such as health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, etc.

The words “ensure” and “guarantee” can be used interchangeable.

The last two letters of the word “guarantee” are “e.”

Tip: Guarantee = Ensure.

Want to quickly differentiate more frequently confused words?

Visit www.RevisionFairyTales.com and download Revision Fairy Tales: 21 Writing Mistakes You’ll Never Make Again.

About the Author: Stefanie Flaxman corrects business, marketing, and educational documents in 24 hours to eliminate reputation-crushing mistakes from your writing. She's a professional proofreader and the founder of Revision Fairy® Small Business Proofreading Services. Connect with Stefanie on Twitter.

The Secret to Perfect Grammar: Learning vs. Memorizing

Grammar is awful. It’s boring. It’s technical. It’s confusing.

But if you want to command the English language, you must master it. So, what are your options?

Learning proper grammar and memorizing proper grammar are different activities. The goal for each task, however, is the same: remember how to use language appropriately.

Since I don’t want to be boring, technical, and confusing, let’s remove the topic of grammar from our discussion for a moment. The following two sections illustrate learning a piece of information in contrast to memorizing a piece of information.

Which action is going to be more effective?

Learning

Picture yourself watching a mindless reality television show, such as Bravo Television’s Top Chef (certainly one of my own guilty pleasures). In the Quickfire Challenge, the contestants are required to make an amuse-bouche. Although you are not familiar with culinary terminology and you do not know French, you quickly realize that an amuse-bouche is a bite-sized hors d’oeuvre—an appetizer-like, little dish to “amuse the mouth”.

Through the context of the entertaining show, you have learned a new phrase that you will recognize in the future. You internalized information from a seemingly inconsequential source.

Memorizing

Bill is at a wine bar on Saturday night. After conversing with Lisa, he asks for her telephone number. This transaction used to involve finding a pen and something that roughly resembles paper, a napkin perhaps. The more 21st century-style of this exchange simply involves entering digits into a cellular phone. Pleased that Lisa has agreed to his request, Bill creates a new “contact” in his spiffy mobile device.

“No,” Lisa stops Bill. “You’ll have to memorize it. I don’t want you to enter it in your BlackBerry or write it down at all.” Bill agrees to the challenge and confidently repeats the ten-digit number a few times aloud. Lisa proceeds to talk about her cat Nibbles for an hour and then leaves the bar after she realizes how late in the evening it has become.

When Bill leaves the bar, he has forgotten Lisa’s phone number. He was distracted by everything that she said subsequent to stating the digits and felt pressure to memorize the sequence of numbers. Bill was overwhelmed by the information and unable to seamlessly incorporate the contact number into his psyche.

Grammar rules are easily forgotten when you approach memorizing them in the manner in which Bill attempted to memorize Lisa’s telephone number.

When you learn proper grammar within a meaningful context, choosing incorrect language becomes as unfeasible as mistaking an apple for an orange (assuming that you are familiar with fruit).

In my new anti-grammar ebook, Revision Fairy Tales: 21 Writing Mistakes You’ll Never Make Again, I provide word usage rules that make learning grammar more comparable to acquiring new knowledge from a reality television show, rather than memorizing a phone number in a loud, crowded bar. Download a free sample.

About the Author: Stefanie Flaxman corrects business, marketing, and educational documents in 24 hours to eliminate reputation-crushing mistakes from your writing. She's a professional proofreader and the founder of Revision Fairy® Small Business Proofreading Services. Connect with Stefanie on Twitter.

Become a Better Proofreader in 3 Steps

The main difficulty in proofreading your own text is simple: you have trouble recognizing your own typos, grammar mistakes, and inaccuracies. You know what you want to say; it’s just not always communicated in your writing.

When you act as your own proofreader, you may often overlook mistakes because your eye doesn’t recognize them as mistakes. You may even finish reading a sentence without actually reading the words on the page—the sentence already sounds correct in your mind since you know the meaning it is supposed to convey.

Here are three proofreading practices that will help train your eye to catch more of your own errors.

1. Find Your Proofreader Alter Ego. The Batman to your Bruce Wayne, the Superman to your Clark Kent. You need to look at your text as though you were not the person who wrote it, but someone with a superior eye for detail who does not know what you intended to write.

After you are done with your first draft, take a break from writing and reading. Spend time doing different activities before you edit your text. It’s important to plan a break and go back to your text at a later time, rather than writing and editing in one sitting.

2. Compare and Contrast. Inconsistencies occur in fiction and nonfiction. They make your text look sloppy and are often a matter of style, rather than grammar. What superpowers should your alter ego possess to combat inconsistencies, you may ask? To start: memory.

Make mental notes of specific terms as you review your text. For example, the term “copy editing” is also often spelled “copyediting,” or “copy-editing;” “proofreader” may be written “proof reader.” Is there a character named “Ann” in your novel? Make sure the proper name is not sometimes spelled “Ann,” and other times “Anne.” Are you writing about Walmart? Do you refer to the company as “Walmart,” “WalMart,” and “Wal-Mart?” Pick one style and make sure that you use it consistently.

A similar genre of errors includes typos that are properly spelled words (and therefore not caught when you use spell-check), but are not actually the words that you intend to use. You could type “over” instead of “oven,” “of” instead of “off,” “peer” instead of “pier,” etc. The possibilities are endless. A thorough proofreading will eliminate these flaws.

3. Say What? Read your text out loud, paying attention to each word. It’s equally important to pay attention to punctuation. Your proofreader alter ego also comes in handy here. Enunciate the words and pause for punctuation as someone who has never read the text before. Is it clear?

This technique may identify sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and other abridged or convoluted thoughts. When a sentence is weak, and does not express the proper message, it is usually either incomplete or contains too many ideas for one single sentence.

To dissect your writing, pay attention to the sounds of words joined together to make up a sentence. Do the words flow naturally, or have you read for five minutes without taking a breath? Once you break it down, you’ll spot the areas that need improvement.

If you still need professional proofreading services, I’ve got my proofreader alter ego down. I’m Revision Fairy.

About the Author: Stefanie Flaxman corrects business, marketing, and educational documents in 24 hours to eliminate reputation-crushing mistakes from your writing. She's a professional proofreader and the founder of Revision Fairy® Small Business Proofreading Services. Connect with Stefanie on Twitter.

How to Immediately Improve Your Writing Skills: Two Simple Steps

Writing may occupy the majority of your workday, even if you don’t have the word “writer” in your professional title.

From co-worker and client correspondence over email to company presentations, creating text to express oneself is inherent in any type of media job. However, in a world where vowels are casually removed from words to fit Twitter’s 140-character limit, do the same communication rules apply to all types of writing? You bet your iPhone they don’t!

You write to convey a message. Don’t let carelessness misrepresent the message that you intend to express. If you incorporate the following guidelines into your everyday, seemingly inconsequential written communication, then your formal writing ability will become more cohesive, focused, and effective.

Apply the Appropriate Tone

Choosing the appropriate tone for your writing is as simple as paying attention to your audience. While you might jokingly sign a personal email to a friend with “Xoxo, GossipGirl,” avoid sending out that closing statement in a business email.

This rule is almost too simple. You may find yourself repeating the excuse, “Oh, it’s fine to play around. I’m just sending the email to my buddy Larry in the cube next to me.” It might not matter what Larry thinks, but you and Larry never signed a confidentiality agreement, did you? Electronic interaction can easily spread, so be mindful of your discourse. Although you can’t please everyone, carefully consider your potential audience, as well.

An email message is not an instant message. Use a greeting. If you don’t know the recipient’s name, a simple “hello” engages the human being who will be reading the email. When closing, use a signature. As an email correspondence develops, the tone will often become conversational, but avoid initiating contact in a casual, impersonal way.

Humor is not universal. Do not assume that someone wants to joke around with you. Keep parenthetical mentions to a minimum. Colloquial anecdotes make your writing less formal. Yes, spirited interjections are appropriate and welcomed in some types of writing (say, a “how-to” article), but it’s a slippery slope when you inject personal touches in business communications. You want your message to be straightforward and clear, so stay on topic.

Spot Your Frequent Typos

Typos turn of readers—err, I mean “off.” Luckily, this typo helps illustrate the following point.

Spell-check will not highlight all of your errors. Slowly proofread each word to ensure that your thoughts are successfully transcribed in your document. “Of” is a word; spell-check will not recognize that I intended to type the word “off.”

Poor grammar and misspellings/typos are an identifiable characteristic of email spam. If that Nigerian Prince’s $5 million offer did not display incorrect syntax you might have been duped, right? You do not want any of your writing to be viewed in the same light as unsolicited email.

Write now, revise later. Obviously “writer’s block” is not a good thing. You want words to eloquently dance off of your fingertips as you plié and pirouette beautiful choreography on your keyboard. It’s important to expel your thoughts and ideas in this manner, but most inaccuracies are inserted in your text during this early stage of the writing process. If you don’t have time to correct your errors, have someone with an eye for detail proofread your documents. Mistakes are only harmful if they are not caught before your writing is published, emailed, or printed.

About the Author: Stefanie Flaxman corrects business, marketing, and educational documents in 24 hours to eliminate reputation-crushing mistakes from your writing. She's a professional proofreader and the founder of Revision Fairy® Small Business Proofreading Services. Connect with Stefanie on Twitter.