Good correspondent with English

Many people place a high importance on a well-written letter or document—and rightfully so. Not only does proper grammar and spelling increase the likelihood of a positive response to the message contained in any piece of writing, it also demonstrates your own care and attention to detail. If you send out a letter that is rife with misspellings and grammatical errors, you will present yourself as someone who doesn’t care enough to proofread—or simply doesn’t care about the basics of good writing.

Reacquaint yourself with the basic rules of grammar and style. Read The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, if you’re looking for a concise review of the most important rules. Use the spell check in your word processing program to catch any spelling errors you might have missed, but make sure it’s proofread by a qualified human being, too. (Spell checkers have a way of passing over errors such as “two much time” or “wind-win situation.”)

In addition:
��Take care in capitalizing names and titles. Consult a style guide, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, if you are uncertain about the approach you should take.

��As much as possible, use the active voice (“John will write the memo”) rather than the passive voice (“The memo will be written by John”). The active voice adds strength, brevity, and definition to your sentence structure.

��Avoid using incomplete or run-on sentences. Write in complete sentences that have a subject and a verb.

��Check your document carefully for punctuation. Make sure it’s been used properly and is
consistent throughout the piece.

If the document is an important one and you feel uncertain about your grammatical skills, you will probably want to get feedback from more than one source on your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The more care you take, the better both you and your correspondence will be received.