5 useful tips to up your grammar game
It’s National Grammar Day! Our Content team could rant about grammar pet peeves all year, but instead, they assembled a group of word nerds to share their collective wisdom. From email text to customer-facing UX copy, this list will make your digital-first grammar shine!
1. Read it out loud
Typos and grammar mistakes can find their way into anyone’s copy, even —gasp! — professional writers. But it’s far less likely to happen if you take a moment to review what you’ve written before sending it out into the world.
I always read my work out loud as I’m writing. Not only does it help me catch missing words and run-on sentences, but it also helps my writing sound more human. You can bet that if it sounds weird when you say it out loud to yourself, it will sound even weirder to a person reading it on their own.
— Florence McCambridge, Senior UX Writer
Grammar pet peeve: “Unnecessary” quotation marks
2. Don’t be afraid to use contractions
Because so much of what we read when we’re learning how to write is formal — textbooks, newspapers, journal articles, literary novels — we learn to separate our don’ts into do nots. But…don’t!
If you follow Florence’s rule of reading your work out loud before you send it into the world, you’ll notice that contractions sound better. Try reading the following two sentences to a colleague, partner, or pet:
1. I am running late, so I will not be there until around 7:00 pm. I will have the macaroni and cheese!
2. I’m running late, so I won’t be there ’til around 7:00 pm! I’ll have the mac & cheese!
The first one reads a little robotic and formal, while the second is more human and casual. A warmer tone is inviting: people won’t mind reading what you write, and they’re more likely to retain the information you’re trying to communicate. One plate of deliciously cheesy pasta, coming right up!
— Cassie MacKenzie, Senior Manager, Digital Communications
Grammar pet peeve: Comma, splices
3. Say something. Period.
Exclamation marks have surged across the web and digital messaging. Too often an introduction, a statement of appreciation, or an informal exchange is injected with this semi-impactful piece of punctuation. A well-written sentence doesn’t need a visual cue as to how it should be received.
For example; “Thanks for your help!” sounds all too eager and excited. Especially for things like in-app copy, you don’t need to inflate the message to convey the sentiment. A simple “Thank you for your help.” to end your message is more sincere. Let’s try to calm down a couple of notches. Let the words speak for themselves.
No exclamation mark: it’s the new exclamation mark.
— Brian Whelan, Senior Product Designer
Grammar pet peeve: !!
Ed. note: I disagree! I love exclamation marks so much that I need to read through my emails to make sure I only use them every other sentence. See here! I just used it, so I can’t use it again. Oh, but now I can! And so on.
4. Make space
Forget everything you learned in grade school. Paragraphs don’t need to run for five sentences, and they don’t require a beginning, middle, and end. They only need one thing: a sentence.
A paragraph can consist of a single sentence, and since a single word can be a sentence, you could have a paragraph that consists of a single word.
Digital content is all about short, scannable paragraphs. Stick to one idea per paragraph. This will help your readers understand the text better, and they’ll enjoy reading it more.
A one-sentence paragraph is a beautifully underrated thing.
— Samantha Guyan, Content Writer
Grammar pet peeve: your vs. you’re
5. Making a point? Here’s the magic bullet!
Whether you’re a seasoned communications pro writing an email or an accountant blogging your tips for tax season, the most important advice I can give to anyone creating digital content is this: know your reader.
Customers are not pouring a bowl of Doritos and curling up on the couch with your website or mobile app like they do with a good book. They’re coming to get information. And nothing helps your readers scan information as quickly and easily as a bulleted list.
Those tiny dots symmetrically stacked down the left side of your screen break up large chunks of text and help your important points stand out. The second I see three or more items in a paragraph, I think: make that a bulleted list!
But there are many ways a bulleted list can go wrong. I’ve seen lists of 20 bullets (keep your lists to three, five, or seven points) and one-word bullets mixed with full sentences (try to make your bullet points the same length and structure).
After writing, editing, and fixing a lot of bulleted lists in my career, here are a few things you can do to make your vertical lists consistent and easy to scan:
- Start each point with a noun or a verb, never both
- Check the ending punctuation of your list — either use periods or don’t
- Decide if you want to start your lists with capital or lowercase letter (it’s a style choice)
- Use a numbered list instead of bullets if the order of the steps matters
- Add a little space after each bullet for some breathing room
Bulleted lists are so important in digital communication that it’s worth studying how to write and format them. Check out Grammar Girl’s How to Format a Bulleted List (and More).
You may not find them in great works of literature or that copy of Harvard Business Review you’ve been meaning to read (*cough* I’ve got a lot of cats to scroll through on Instagram, okay?), but learning how to write a bulleted list can save your content team time and make your digital content shine.
— Susanne Frame, Director, Global Content Design
Grammar pet peeve: Hyphen vs. en-dash vs. em-dash
