How to Write a Cover Letter: Parts, Process, and Pro Tips

It doesn’t matter whether you’re just testing the job market or eagerly searching for your next gig—knowing how to write a great cover letter is an essential skill. We’ll talk about the whys and hows of cover letters, offer some examples of what to say (and what not to), and provide a few etiquette dos and don’ts. Read on to rev up your job-seeking game!

Why You Should Write a Cover Letter

Hunting for a job is hard. Completing online applications can be frustrating. Who needs to add a step to an already tedious process?

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We totally get it. And yet . . . cover letters are important. Even if you’ve got a killer résumé, even if you think your experience speaks for itself, writing a cover letter is a step you ignore at your peril. Unless, of course, you don’t really want that perfect job you’re applying for.

The only time you should ditch the cover letter is when an employer specifically asks you not to include one or the application process doesn’t allow for one. At all other times, consider it a requirement.

Cover letters do what résumés can’t—they tell a story that sets you apart from your competitors. Your résumé is a formal, fact-based listing of your experience and achievements; a cover letter allows you to showcase why those things make you uniquely suited for the job. It also conveys subtle insights into your personality that a résumé can’t. Think of it as an opportunity to promote yourself.

How to Write a Winning Cover Letter

A great cover letter should be as brief as you can possibly make it yet comprehensive enough to convey your potential for awesomeness. Your intent isn’t to provide a prospective employer with a recap of your work history (your résumé should accomplish that), but to intrigue the hiring manager enough to offer you an interview and, hopefully, a job.

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Ask anyone who’s ever been in charge of hiring—most cover letters are generic and dull. A few are amusing only because they’re so hilariously bad. If you want your cover letter to stand out, put energy into making it not only unique but also geared toward the company and position you’re applying for.

Let’s look at the components of a great cover letter step by step.

1Find and greet the right contact

Here’s a cold hard fact: it’s difficult to impress a prospective employer when you begin a cover letter with Dear Sir or Madam or Dear Prospective Employer. Of course, many job listings provide no contact information and offer nothing more than a catch-all email address like hiring@domain.com. Helpful? Not so much.

Whenever possible, address your correspondence to a real person. That may mean doing a bit of detective work. Let’s say you’re applying for an email marketing associate position at Stellar Widgets, Inc. No contact name was provided with the listing. Here’s what you can do:

• Read the job listing carefully. If you scanned it in your rush to apply, slow your roll! Many potential employers, intentionally or otherwise, embed important information in the depths of a job listing. Some may even ask you to include a word or phrase in your cover letter to make sure you were paying attention.
• Scour the company website. Look for a Contact or About Us page. Do you see the hiring or human resources manager listed by name? Bingo!
• Make a phone call. If you can track down the company’s phone number, simply make a call and ask for the hiring manager’s name.

Here’s a tip: If the company doesn’t have a hiring manager, address your cover letter to the head of the appropriate department. If there’s no hiring contact for that email marketing associate job at Stellar Widgets, you could track down the marketing manager instead.

• Check social networks. LinkedIn is a great resource. Simply search with the company’s name to find out who works there and what title they hold.

Once you’ve gone to the effort to track down a name, check and double-check to make sure you’ve spelled it properly. A typo could make you seem as though you lack attention to detail.

Here’s a tip: In business communication, it’s customary to open with “Dear [Mr./Ms.] [Last Name].” If you don’t know the gender of the person you’re contacting, use Dear [First Name] [Last Name]. If you happen to know that the person holds a PhD, use Dear Dr. [Last Name].

If you must use a generic greeting, make sure it’s in keeping with modern standards. The Balance reports that 40 percent of employers surveyed preferred “Dear Hiring Manager.” The second most popular salutation was “To Whom It May Concern,” preferred by 27 percent. Or, if the company strikes you as particularly edgy, you could try spicing it up with something like “To the Marketing Gurus at Stellar Widgets.”

2Open with a strong hook

It’s important to write a few sentences explaining who you are and what you’re applying for, but don’t make it boring. A yawn-inducing opener like “Enclosed please find my résumé, tendered in application for the email marketing associate position at Stellar Widgets” could get your application shuffled to the bottom of the pile, destined to receive a templated “thanks but no thanks” letter. Oh, and “best of luck in your future endeavors,” champ!

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Be direct, but don’t forget to be personable and show excitement. Your goal is to craft a couple of punchy sentences that say who you are, what position you’re applying for, and why you think it’s a good match for your talents.

When I was eleven years old, I created The Carver Elementary Gossip. It was a humble newsletter that I wrote and edited, then printed on my mom’s old Epson. I sold copies for 50 cents and even sold classified ads for a dollar. I’d made 85 bucks before the principal found out and shut me down, but not before she complimented me on my ingenuity and creativity. That hunger to create and innovate never left me, and it’s with that drive for success that I come to you with my application for the email marketing associate position at Stellar Widgets.

The Balance offers some excellent examples of powerful opening lines. The Muse has even more.

3Show them what you can do

There’s a sales idiom that says if you want to sell steak you should sell the sizzle. Your cover letter is a sales pitch for your talents and skills. Many job seekers make the mistake of writing a pitch that says “Here’s why I want to work for you.” If you’re going to win the job market, you need to take a different approach: “Here’s why you want me to work for you!”

Your objective isn’t to express your desire to work for the employer—everyone who applies wants that. Instead, demonstrate why you’re the perfect person for the job. Consider these winning ways to sell yourself:

• Highlight a major accomplishment. If there’s something you’ve accomplished that aligns with needs the company expressed in the job listing, highlight it.
• Focus on keywords. Larger companies use keyword tracking to help them sift through applications. Identify keywords from the job listing and make sure you let them shine in your cover letter.

Here’s a tip: Find keywords that are important to the hiring manager by using a word cloud generator like Wordle or VocabGrabber.

• Leverage your networking skills. if you were referred by someone who already works for the company, mention them. Don’t just name-drop, call attention to why your contact thought you’d be a fit for the job.

Here’s a tip: If possible, get a feel for the company’s culture. Bigger companies might have a Careers page that will offer valuable insight. Even a company blog can provide clues. Are they businesslike and formal? Hip and edgy? Mirror their style in your cover letter.

Remember, this paragraph isn’t for rehashing your résumé, it’s for highlighting your strengths and accomplishments. Focus on what you have to offer the employer. What needs do they have that you’re eager and qualified to fill?

Here’s a tip: Trick your mind into helping you write confidently by telling yourself that your potential employer already likes and respects you, and that you have nothing to prove. Even if the employer has never met you, pretending you’re winning the game can have a powerful effect on your subconscious. There really is value in faking it till you make it!

Although your cover letter is no place for modesty, it’s important to put your money where your mouth is. Give concrete examples of your successes. Don’t just say you’re great at writing marketing copy, show it.

I’ve always been fascinated by what it takes to hook people with compelling writing and brand storytelling. I’ve worked as an email campaign copywriter at Grizzly Gadgets for the past two years, and my most recent campaign earned a whopping 62 percent open rate and a 23 percent click-through rate. My efforts contributed to a team that exceeded its ambitious customer engagement goals by 220 percent last quarter.

4 Show off your skills

It’s best to keep your cover letter on the short side—what a great way to demonstrate that you can focus your thoughts without rambling!—but if you have any skills that are essential to the position you’re applying for, this is the place to call attention to them. For that email marketing job with Stellar Widgets, you could point out your experience with bulk email platforms and design tools.

Here’s a tip: Look for skills keywords in the job listing. If the employer states that experience with Adobe Illustrator is desirable, and you’ve got those chops, make sure your cover letter states so.

Keep it relevant—don’t brag about your 120 wpm typing speed unless you’re applying for a gig where typing speed is crucially important. Mention things like specialized certifications only if they make you better qualified to do the job you’re seeking.

Not only do I love words, but I’m also enthralled by design. I’ve worked hard to learn the necessary skills to give the campaigns I craft a compelling message and an eye-catching visual style. I’m a wizard with Adobe Illustrator, if I do say so myself. I know my way around bulk email platforms like Constant Contact and MailChimp, and I’m also a quick study with platforms that are new to me.

4 Close with enthusiasm and passion

It’s tempting to wrap things up by saying something like “I look forward to hearing from you,” but resist the urge to do it. You’ve put in too much effort to write a cover letter that doesn’t sound canned to blow it now!

Your close should reflect your enthusiasm for your career. What do you love about the work? What are you fascinated by learning? Here’s the place to express it and show the employer that you’ve got drive and passion.

And, of course, here’s where you ask for the interview.

In my tool kit, I’ve got writing chops, an eye for visual design, and the drive to figure out what makes customers tick through data-driven analysis and A/B testing. I’m excited to meet with you to discuss how my skills and talents could play a vital role in the Stellar Widgets email marketing strategy.

Here’s a tip: Wondering whether you should sign off with Sincerely, Regards, or Best Wishes? Here’s some advice.

A Few Dos and Don’ts

Here are a few things to remember as you’re custom-crafting your employment opus.

• Do focus on what you could do for the company. Remember that you’re not begging them to hire you, you’re showing them why they need you.
• Don’t be overly formal. In most cases, it’s best to come off as personable and real rather than stuffy.
• Do consider asking someone else to read your draft to make sure you’ve struck the right tone and that everything is stated clearly. Try Tone Analyzer if you need some extra input.
• Don’t use the same cover letter for every job you apply for—customize it! It’s okay to start with a template, but make sure you customize parts of your cover letter to align it with the employer’s stated needs and interests.
• Do read your cover letter to yourself out loud. If you find yourself stumbling over anything, consider rewriting for clarity.
• Your cover letter is arguably the most important part of the application process, so be sure you invest time in writing one that shows off your skills in a way that a hiring manager can’t ignore. Demonstrate why the employer needs you on their team and you’re sure to score the interview.

How to Write a Good LinkedIn Summary: Powerful Tips and Examples

Imagine you were trying to get a job fifty years ago. You would find a job listing in a newspaper, set up an in-person interview, and walk in with your resume to introduce yourself to the company.

Today, LinkedIn has taken the place of the newspaper, your resume, and even that first meeting. Your presence on LinkedIn matters. In fact, 87 percent of recruiters will vet your candidacy by visiting your LinkedIn profile, according to data from Jobvite. So with this in mind, a great LinkedIn profile starts with a fantastic summary.

How to Write a Killer LinkedIn Summary (on a Live Example)

When setting out to write your summary, remember how LinkedIn users will interact with it on your profile. When someone goes to your profile, they’ll scan your title and location, see your photo, and notice if you have under 500 connections. After that, they’ll likely turn to your summary to get to know you. It’s the equivalent of a public cover letter: it gives your contacts a sense of who you are before they read what you’ve done.

Here’s a screenshot of my LinkedIn profile, for those of you following along at home.

Because it’s so visible (and often public), your summary is the best place to capture your potential new contacts’ attention and give them a glimpse of your personality. Therefore, the most important rule of writing a LinkedIn summary is to make it original. You are a unique, talented professional, and your summary should capture the things that make you the greatest social media manager, writer, banker, underwater basket-weaver, etc.

Before you start writing your LinkedIn summary, you should do two things. First, search for leaders in your field, and check out the key terms they use to describe themselves. These keywords will help your profile appear in LinkedIn’s search results. Then, ask yourself these questions, and jot down any surprising things you discover:

• Who am I at work?
• What are the core features and values of my personality?
• What unique perspectives and experience do I bring to my field?
• What original ideas have I brought to the place where I work now?

Here’s a tip: Don’t know which keywords to include? Try googling your job title and see which words are used in job postings, descriptions of your position, and other top search results.

After you’ve generated a few ideas, it’s time to draft. Check out these tips for structuring your summary.

3 Tips for Writing the Best LinkedIn Summary

Summaries don’t need to be long, but you might want to take a moment to plan and write yours. Here are a few tips to make your summary shine:

1 Write your summary in the first person. Unless you’re a celebrity or public figure, we all know you wrote it yourself.

2 Keep it short. Don’t say something in five words that could be said in two. Also, shoot for four to five paragraphs of no more than a sentence or two each.

3 Proofread everything multiple times. Read your LinkedIn summary out loud to make sure it sounds natural and eliminate mistakes.

Here’s a tip: Want a second set of eyes on your LinkedIn summary? Try Grammarly to keep your profile clear and mistake-free.

The Structure of a Good LinkedIn Summary

Authenticity and creativity are the hallmarks of a great summary, which is why most LinkedIn summaries feature distinct sections. Make sure you nail these to make your summary perfect.

The Opening Line

Writing an engaging opening line is key to drawing in potential employers, clients, partners, and contacts. To find your opener, just think: what is the first thing someone should know about me?

If you’re still stumped, try these tips for great first lines, and experiment! If you set a timer for ten minutes, you can probably write fifteen different opening lines. Then it’s just a matter of choosing the one that suits you.

The Pitch

After your first line (or first few lines), you’ll want to explain in the best way possible why you’re a rising star in your field. Remember those keywords we collected above? Now is the time to use them. Tell your readers what you’re passionate about, what you’re good at, and why these things matter.

If you need more help pitching yourself, check out these tips for writing a great pitch.

The Call to Action

After you’ve written three or four concise paragraphs, wrap it up. As you’re closing out your profile, consider the action you want your profile-viewer to take. Do you want them to email you if they’re interested in becoming a client? Do you want them to message you with job opportunities? Do you want them to tweet funny cat memes at you?

Whatever action you want people to take when reading your LinkedIn, list it at the end of your profile. In most cases, a simple “Message me with” or “Email me if” will suffice.

The Proof

Thought you were done with this whole LinkedIn thing? Wrong! Put your work samples where your mouth is.

Many LinkedIn gurus will suggest a “skills” or “strategies” list in your summary, both to pack in keywords and to show your skills at the top of your profile. If you have lots of relevant skills, certifications, or knowledge, feel free to include a list of your abilities. If that’s not your style, never fear! Attach samples of your work below your summary. Show off that video, slide deck, report, or publication that you finished recently. These embeds are very helpful in proving that you know what you’re talking about.

More Excellent LinkedIn Summary Examples

Need inspiration? Here are some real, live LinkedIn summaries you can use to guide your writing. Check them out, then leave your thoughts in the comments below. What similarities do you see between these summaries? Do you see any differences?

The Gold Standard: An Influencer’s LinkedIn Summary

Marianne Griebler is a two-time member of the LinkedIn Top Voices club, and with good reason. Her LinkedIn profile is polished yet original, and she produces high-quality articles on LinkedIn Publisher. Like everything else she writes, Marianne’s LinkedIn summary is top-notch.

What you say about yourself is almost as important as what you actually do.

So what words do you wish you could use? About your business? Your nonprofit? Your career? Your dreams?

If words are failing you, I’m here to help with clear, compelling messages targeted to the audience you want to reach. Maybe you’d like to do the writing yourself, with my coaching; maybe you’d like me to craft the content for you. You decide what makes the most sense for you.

I’m an award-winning marketing communicators strategist, writer and coach with deep experience on both for nonprofit and for-profit sides of the business world. A commitment to research will help us figure out the messages that will have the greatest impact on your audience … and on the goals you hope to achieve.

Contact me to set up a 20-minute call to talk about how I can help you with your messaging:

EMAIL: ______ PHONE: _______ Learn more about me on my website at _____; be sure to look at my testimonials to see what people say about working with me.

Specialties: Marketing communications | Content development | Coaching | Strategy | Branding | Brand management | Message development | LinkedIn | Digital marketing | Social media| Strategic thinking | Public relations | Job search | Project management

Surprising Celebrity: Shaq’s LinkedIn Summary

Shaquille O’Neal may not be the first person who’d come to mind when you think “great LinkedIn profile,” but his LinkedIn is a slam dunk. His summary is engaging, to-the-point, and explains his career transitions well. It’s definitely worth checking out.

During 19 seasons in the National Basketball League, I drove success on and off the court. I developed partnerships with global brands, pursued my academic interests in business and leadership and became the only current or former NBA player to hold three degrees: a bachelor’s, a master’s and a doctorate.

Basketball remains a big part of my life, whether it is providing NBA analysis on TV, serving as part-owner of the Sacramento Kings or appearing as a featured character in the latest video games. Since 1985, every NBA championship team has included a current or former teammate. I guess that makes me the Kevin Bacon of basketball.

Since retiring from the basketball court, I’ve expanded my brand relationships into one of the most diverse portfolios in the business world. As an early adopter of technology, I’ve identified innovative organizations as a serial tech investor. I work with brands that are household names such as Turner Networks, Reebok, IcyHot, AT&T and many other great companies. I also bring my business acumen to like-minded companies as a featured speaker at conferences and events nationwide.

Though I’m best known for basketball and business, my interests have always varied. I’ve released four studio albums and served as a sworn reserve officer in several law enforcement agencies across the country. I’ve collaborated on everything from fashion lines and jewelry to best-selling beverages and foods; from the latest technology products and games to children’s books.

Bonus: My Summary!

Want to see an average, everyday LinkedIn summary? Here’s the text of my summary, which was included above. Let me know what you think in the comments.

As a child, I once loaded up the entire Civil War section of my local library into a wagon, because I was going to write the next great work of 1860s historical fiction.

Although I never published my heavily referential short story, a spirit of intrigue and a voracious love to read have followed me to this day. In all aspects of my life, I gravitate toward three things: rapid innovation, unbridled creativity, and one hell of a challenge. For this reason, my interests range from stop-motion YouTube videos to discussing the sociological impact of comics, the judicious use of Google Analytics filters to the transformative power of the Oxford comma. I’m always in favor of the most effectively creative solution to a problem, even if it requires maximum effort.

Currently, I create engaging social experiences for a community of over 10 million bibliophiles and grammar nerds for Grammarly. Our free writing app ensures everything you type is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free. Want to know more about social strategy, effective creativity, or Grammarly? Message me here or at @allmystars on Twitter.

How to Make a Clear, Assertive Point Over Email

Giving someone a lot of work to do, taking on a new responsibility, asking for leeway, requesting a favor, disagreeing with someone, expressing a strong opinion, or just saying hi after a long radio silence—these topics are tough in conversation, and when you’re trying to broach a difficult subject over email, there can be even more at stake.

Grammarly has put together a guide of best practices for sending emails on difficult topics without coming across as aggressive, demanding, or rude. When the time comes for you to send such an email, make sure you take AIM.

What is AIM, you ask? It’s all about your Audience, Intent, and Message. It’s a useful tip for strategic communications in general and can come in extra handy when you’re writing an email with an unpleasant message, big request, or general bad news for your recipient.

Audience: The Big Picture

When you fire away email after email on a daily basis, you’re probably not thinking too hard about the hopes and dreams of every person you’re writing. But for the big, tough messages you have to send, take some time to think about your recipient and about using email to make your point.

Make sure email is the right medium for the message

With email, you have plenty of time to think through your message and carefully choose your words. However, you don’t get that human element that can make all the difference in some difficult interactions. Talking in person gives you the tools of tone of voice, facial expression, and body language. If you’re giving bad news, you can show that you’re sympathetic. If you’re asking for a raise, you can project confidence. Some conversations should take place in person.

That said, it’s also possible to craft your writing in a way that shows you’re a thinking, caring human—but it takes work. If you use email, choose your words carefully to convey the right tone to go along with the content of your message.

Know your recipient

Some people exchange pleasantries and personal stories over email before getting down to business. Other people read the subject line and click delete (or reply—but only if you’re lucky). If you know the person you’re emailing—or anything about them—you can probably hazard a guess about whether they’re the type of person who responds better to more lead-up and personal info or a short, pointed request.

For example, if you’re asking your cousin Fred to send you his professional-caliber photos of last summer’s family reunion, you’ll probably start off slow:

Subject: Hi and photos

Hi Fred!

I still have fond memories of our visit on the beach last summer! How did your bike race go over Labor Day weekend? If it was anything like our ride around the lake, I’m sure you made it onto the podium.

I remember you took a lot of photos over the weekend, and I’d love to revisit those memories. Would you mind sending me a few of your favorites?

Thanks, and looking forward to our next reunion!

Lots of nice family touches. And a few compliments don’t hurt either.

On the flip side, if you’re writing to a professor who gets hundreds of emails a day, it can be a good idea to put your request in the first line, or even in the subject line. For example:

Subject: Letter of recommendation by 1/15?

Dear Professor Stone,

I’m applying for a fellowship in New York this summer. Given my work as your research assistant, would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation? Here is a link with more information.

Bottom line: especially if you really need a response, try to envision your email recipient’s habits and plan your message accordingly.

Intent: Define Your Goal

What’s the goal of your email? How do you want the recipient to respond? It might be helpful to open an empty “compose” box and write the goal of your email. Sure, you’ll do lots of rewording to make sure the final message is tactful, polite, and effective. But keeping that main idea front and center while you’re drafting will help you make sure that your reader knows exactly what to do.

Be strategic with your subject

For most recipients, you’re not going to make your request or give your news in the subject line; it takes some working up to. Write a subject that doesn’t give away the bottom line but does give a sense of what’s coming. Here are some words and phrases you might use:

• Planning for
• Reply by
• Request for
• Action needed
• Decision needed
• Signature needed

In dire circumstances there’s always the big, scary, all-caps “URGENT,” but if you’re trying to be tactful, try to avoid that one unless all else fails.

Put your ask up front

Nothing says confidence like coming right out with the bottom line at the top.

For example:

Dear Boss,

I want to manage the company’s next big case.

It might seem scary to make your demand right at the beginning, but it shows confidence, responsibility, and willingness to tackle a problem head-on. Especially if you’re asking for responsibility or you’re writing someone who gets mountains of emails every day, a good way to get what you want is to say that you want it from the get-go.

It’s all about structure

The ingredients: a subject that gets the recipient’s attention, a friendly greeting, a direct statement of the purpose of the email, any necessary detail, and a friendly sign-off.

The recipe: short, direct sentences to get your point across and paragraphs with clear, informative topic sentences. If you have a complicated message that can’t be conveyed in five or so sentences, use lists. Bullet points or numbered lists have several advantages:

• They’re easy to read
• They help highlight key details
• They prevent your email from looking like a wall of text

See?

Message: Choose Your Words with Care

You have your audience and your intent: now you need to craft your message so that it’s best suited for the audience, effectively gets across your intent, and helps you achieve your email goals. After you’ve written a polite, carefully worded email, take another look at your messaging. Especially if you’re asking for something or broaching a topic that the recipient might not be thrilled about, the importance of careful communication can’t be overstated.

Check your tone for anger, accusation, or sass

What you wrote might sound neutral to you, but words can come across as condescending or aggressive without a face and tone of voice to go along with them. If you’re sure email is the right way to communicate, make sure the email you write communicates the point in the right way.

Take this message, for example. In person, the words could be stated in a nice way, but in writing, they could come across as passive aggressive, bossy, or even rude.

Dear Kevin,

I wanted to check whether you’re going to finish your part of the group project in time. It’s due on Thursday, and your part is the last one we’re waiting for. Can you let me know if you’re going to finish your slides so we can wrap up the presentation?

Thanks, Brenda

Kevin may not be a great worker, but Brenda’s message might make him feel defensive or insulted. It might even backfire, making him not want to continue with the project. Brenda will have better luck with a message like this:

Dear Kevin,

I hope things are going well with you. Just checking in about your status on the group project to make sure we’re on the same page. As we agreed last week, you’re in charge of slides 4-6, and the presentation is due Thursday. Let me know if you want to go over anything in advance.

Thanks for your work on the project, and let me know if you have questions! Brenda

In general, if you’re saying something the recipient won’t want to hear, take these tips from Psych Central:

• Put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and write with empathy
• Avoid the word “should” or making the recipient feel guilty
• Don’t make threats or ultimatums
• It’s okay to offer advice, but don’t give it unless you’re asked

It’s all about treating the recipient like a human. And there’s more where that came from.

Add a human touch

If you’re writing something that could come across as accusatory or angry, or if you’re giving bad news, a few simple phrases can really help turn the tone around.

Here’s how Brenda softened what might have seemed like an accusation to Kevin:

• I hope things are going well with you (human touch)
• Just checking in (gentle nudge)
• Making sure we’re on the same page (giving the benefit of the doubt)
• Thank you for your hard work (acknowledging Kevin’s work so far—and making him feel like he’d better live up to the compliment)
• Let me know if you have questions (offering help)

Phrases like these can help soften a blow. And even if there’s not a blow, they can show a glimmer of humanity that makes any email a bit more pleasant to read and respond to.

Finally, remember your grammar

We couldn’t leave that one off the list. And not just because we kind of like grammar, but because writing full sentences with proper spelling and punctuation is an important part of communicating your point. Not only will writing properly ensure that you’re being clear, it will also make sure you look professional, self-assured, and thoughtful.

And those are very good adjectives on the path to getting what you want.

9 Awesome YouTube Accounts for Tech Enthusiasts

Whether it’s the latest tech industry innovations, what’s next in space travel, or the most obscure gadgets out there, there’s a lot happening in tech. How to keep up with the trends?

A lot of tech innovators and enthusiasts have launched YouTube channels to talk about tech news, provide product reviews and how-tos, and explore new experiments in tech that are just starting to make a splash. Here are nine of our favorite YouTube channels on a wide variety of tech-related topics.

CNET. 1.4M subscribers.

CNET has one of the best and most established tech-focused YouTube channels. They’ve got tutorials, interviews (hi, Mark Zuckerberg), advice for finding and using new devices, exclusive coverage of big conferences and tech events, and first looks at new releases including cars, home appliances, computers, smartphones and watches, and more. You’re bound to find all sorts of tidbits on anything you’re searching for (or didn’t even know you were searching for).

Mashable. 526K subscribers.

Mashable covers robots, jetpacks, VR, and other toys of the future, but also your present-day gadgets and gizmos. Mashable’s short, digestible videos can help you fix your current tech problems and also stay on the cutting edge.

MKBHD. 5M subscribers.

Marques “MKBHD” Brownlee is one of the most popular tech-focused YouTubers out there, and for good reason. His videos have good camera work and high-quality production value, and often a nice dash of humor. The content includes first impressions as Marques unboxes new gadgets, as well as explanations, features of his favorite hot tech, and answers to subscribers’ questions.

Tech Insider. 922K subscribers.

A spinoff of Business Insider, Tech Insider dives into big issues in tech. Sometimes there’s a business side to the inside scoop (a Tesla road trip, features on top-selling devices), but there are lots of videos that show the fun side to digital culture and tech innovations, too (inflatable obstacle courses, how deep the ocean is, scary VR games). For learning about how tech works and weird inventions that aren’t mainstream (yet), Tech Insider is a great hub.

Techquickie. 1.6M subscribers.

If you want tech, and you want it quick, Techquickie has got you covered. The videos are usually about five minutes and peppered with humorous asides. They generally fall into three categories: first, answering those questions you never knew you had (why do you have to use airplane mode? What’s a safe temperature for your computer? What are URLs, really?); second, fixes for your malfunctioning gadgets; and third, DIY projects for the technologically ambitious.

TechCrunch. 295K subscribers.

TechCrunch is like a bag of assorted candies where you can’t decide your favorite, so you just keep eating and eating. The formats range from interviews to news reports to talk shows (ish), and the topics include startups, space travel, transportation, gaming, Apple-focused news, robotics, and of course, gadget reviews. As far as range and depth of coverage, TechCrunch is one to beat.

Unbox Therapy. 8.6M subscribers.

It’s hard to imagine taking gadgets out of boxes as therapeutic until you’ve seen Unbox Therapy get into it. It’s no listening to the ocean, but it sure is entertaining. These videos, usually five to ten minutes, get into the nitty-gritty of a wide range of brand new tech. Some devices only show up once (how many $5,000 massage chairs can be there be?), but Lewis gets in-depth with video series that focus on different categories of products, like headphones, phone cases, speakers, and keyboards. Seriously, there’s a lot of variety in keyboards. Yes, there’s one made out of wood.

The Verge. 1.5M subscribers.

The Verge is another one with a lot of content and a ton of variety. They’ve got handy reviews and how-tos for the devices you’re likely to have, as well as series on things like space travel, consumer electronics events, and the latest experiments in technology, involving everything from airplanes to human emotions.

Grammarly. 100K subscribers.

Need a break from exploring tech’s latest and greatest, or maybe desperate to know whether you need an “affect” or an “effect” in your work report? Well, we’ve got you covered.

Need a break from exploring tech’s latest and greatest, or maybe desperate to know whether you need an “affect” or an “effect” in your work report? Well, we’ve got you covered. Grammarly’s YouTube channel explores the intersection of tech, writing right, and communication for business. Had to sneak that one in there.

This list scratches the surface, but there are tons of great tech-focused YouTube channels out there. What are your favorites? Join the brainstorm by sharing your picks in the comments section.

How Helpful Was Your Grammar and Writing Education?

This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.

Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!

If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.

Yes, Illiteracy Is Still a Human Rights Issue

Today marks the fifty-first anniversary of International Literacy Day, a holiday that recognizes literacy as “a foundation to build a more sustainable future for all.” Started in 1966 by UNESCO as a day to recognize literacy programs worldwide, this day continues to remind world leaders that universal literacy has not been accomplished. Far from it, in fact: in 2013, the adult (25 or older) literacy rate was 85 percent worldwide, and the population of illiterate adults was 757 million. But why does this number seem so high?

Reading Your Rights

Before we look at the current data, let’s take a look at how literacy has been defined in the past and what it looks like today. According to Merriam-Webster, literacy carries two definitions: “the ability to read and write” and “knowledge that relates to a specified subject.” The second definition is generally used in specific technical or academic settings. The first, however, maps back to the traditional requirements for literacy, the “three Rs” of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, education in these areas was reserved for members of the upper classes. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that discussion of universal literacy began.

When UNESCO held its first summit on literacy in 1966, the “three R” approach was held as the standard. They also focused on “eradicating” illiteracy in certain regions, which led to some forced non-native language learning in populations where written language for a certain dialect wasn’t accepted by national governments.

However, in 1970, a change began to take hold of the literacy community. Instead of viewing illiteracy as an evil that needed to be conquered, educational leaders focused on “functional literacy,” which emphasizes the ways literacy leads to economic growth for individuals and entire communities.

Today, UNESCO and others focus on literacy as a way to empower people and allow them to attain better employment, wages, and other economic benefits. Reading isn’t just for fun, it’s a vital measure of a person’s or community’s ability to tap into the global economy.

Literacy Is a Life-or-Death Issue

Since literacy is now seen in the context of economic and social prosperity, let’s contextualize some literacy statistics. As mentioned before, around 15 percent of the worldwide population is considered illiterate by UNESCO standards, and this percentage represents 757 million individuals. According to an international literacy test administered from 2012 to 2014, the worldwide average of adults who scored at or below the lowest reading level is 16 percent of those surveyed. In the US, this number is 18 percent, a full two percentage points over the international average.

But what does this mean to the lives of those in the 16 percent?

According to a recent analysis, life expectancy and literacy have a positive relationship, meaning that populations with high literacy rates also tend to live longer. The relationship between reading and lifespan is supported by other studies, but it also makes logical sense because literacy is tied to economic development, which has been shown to increase life expectancy as well. Perhaps it’s time for us to consider literacy as important a human right as clean water, healthcare access, and nutrition. It clearly has serious effects.

Literacy in the Digital Age

Today’s digital landscape means that literacy is more important than ever to upward economic mobility. In a world where 87 percent of people in the US and 45 percent of people worldwide report owning a smartphone, it’s important to give every person the ability to fully connect to and benefit from the Internet. To learn more about the state of literacy education and research today, check out UNESCO.org to learn more about International Literacy Day.

9 Tips for Effective Communication in the Workplace

Workplace communication shouldn’t be this difficult.

Your team is mere days out from releasing the project you’ve all been agonizing over for weeks. There have been flurries of emails and messages, presentations, a legal review, and an afternoon of confusing discussions leading to charts drawn on whiteboards with markers that turned out not to be dry-erase. Oops.

Above all, there have been meetings—so many meetings. There was the quick daily kind where people said what they were working on, or more often sidetracked by. Then there was a punishingly long session involving dozens of slides about user metrics; by the end of that one you were quietly daydreaming about taking up kickboxing lessons.

Still, all those rambling discussions and endless email threads somehow failed to avert a looming fiasco. Now no one seems to be on the same page, and your deadline is ticking relentlessly closer. What you have here is an abject lesson about communication in the workplace—or lack thereof.

How effectively you and your colleagues communicate says a lot about how well work is going more generally. It’s hard to get things done efficiently when no one has a clear plan. People can flounder when they don’t see a good way to discuss fresh opportunities—let alone unforeseen challenges.

That’s why we’re here with a few tips to improve your communication skills in the workplace.

Select the right tool for the job

There are many ways to connect—and misconnect. Choose wisely.

Emails may be de rigueur, but they’re also easily buried. Video conferences add a humanizing touch if someone’s working remotely, but they can be unwieldy. Basic phone calls are sometimes underrated, but you’ll often want to schedule in advance, or at least start by asking whoever you’re calling if it’s an okay time to talk.

The advantage of real-time conversation is how much it can clarify in a short amount of time while saving both parties a huge amount of typing back and forth. Be judicious about lining up meetings with multiple parties; this can easily become a chore, so you have to expect a worthwhile return to justify the effort.

Make your meetings count

As with work, which Parkinson’s Law states will expand to fill as much time as is allotted for it, so too with meetings. Set a time limit and an agenda. Budget how long you’ll spend on each item before moving on. The idea here is to respect your participants’ time, so communicate transparently about this; doing so will help you avoid seeming overly brusque as you shepherd things along.

For one-on-ones, take it offline

Potential rabbit holes abound in any discussion—and some might be worth following up on, at least among a subset of participants. For instance, if your designer realizes a new template that’s getting the go-ahead will soon require updated text, then she and her trusty copywriter can discuss those details after the meeting—not while the dev crew looks on and tries not to yawn. A handy turn of phrase for situations like this: “Let’s take it offline.”

It’s okay to repeat yourself sometimes

If something matters, it’s usually worth repeating.

Sometimes when dealing with complex subjects or ongoing processes, it’s helpful to remind people of the basics. You don’t have to belabor it. Consider this quick example:

“All right, this conference call is to update key players on prototyping. We’re trying to manufacture a better dog bed by fall, ahead of holiday sales, so we have a lot of work to do in terms of optimizing drool resistance. On the call last week, Susan informed us the supplier anticipates an eight-week turnaround. That means we need to settle on dimensions this month. Let’s talk about next steps. Who’s first?”

This quick recap falls well short of a lecture while still accomplishing a lot:

• Establishes the focus of the call, so speakers know to keep things on track and take other subjects offline as they pop up
• Also gives a sense of what to expect to anyone who hasn’t tuned in before
• Reprises Susan’s important takeaway from the last call in case anyone missed it
• Lays out a key priority and upcoming deadline

That last part will bear repeating later, but in the meantime, if your preamble has saved someone an awkward question or confused email, it’s done its job. And if you’re worried about spending too much time retracing your footsteps, just ask if you should skip ahead; your colleagues might surprise you by saying no.

Try stating key points a few different ways

It can also help to devise new ways to spell out key ideas—using different words or possibly different channels of communication, like a follow-up email that crystallizes the main takeaways from a meeting and who’s in charge of key action items going forward.

Alex Blumberg, the radio journalist-turned-entrepreneur who founded Gimlet Media, told Tape that despite his many years as a professional communicator, it took awhile to recognize the significance of helping coworkers understand:

When people say the same thing, it has different resonance, comes from a different place or means different things to different people… A big part of my job now is saying the same thing a bunch of different ways just so people understand where it’s coming from. If you just say it once, there’s no guarantee that people heard it the way you said it.

In other words, if something is important enough to bear repeating, it’s likely also worth rephrasing.

Run it back

Especially with technical matters, restating key ideas can also help you make sure you properly understand something new. If there’s time, try asking the person explaining it if you can restate their point in your own words, and ask if you’re getting it right. If there’s an important detail you missed, this is a good opportunity to get help grasping it.

Mind your body language

Intentionally or not, how you comport your body communicates a lot. For instance, do you appear closed off with your arms folded, or actively engaged, say by talking with your hands? It’s worth considering, lest you send the wrong message with your posture or facial expression.

Maybe as a colleague concludes a presentation and looks around the room, you seem to glower—not because the presentation was bad, but because you’re lost in thought. In moments like this, it’s sometimes worthwhile to explain yourself: “That wasn’t bad at all, I just need a moment to process. Let’s circle back in a moment.”

Summarize the highlights

It’s not unheard of for people to meet for an hour, raise a series of worthwhile questions, ponder potential answers, resolve nothing, and then realize it’s time to leave for another meeting. This is where follow-up notes can help ensure whatever headway you might’ve been making doesn’t just vanish out the door.

If you can avoid sending lengthy emails to long strings of recipients, it’s probably for the better. But if you must, you might also include a tl;dr (“too long; didn’t read”) that briefly encapsulates the highlights. Put it at the top so that guy in logistics who only seems to skim will at least lay eyes on the essentials.

Be kind

A quick word of thanks or a well-timed smile can go a long way toward helping your officemates feel appreciated and understood.

If that makes people want to talk with you more, well, isn’t that what better workplace communication is all about?

All the Coffee Words

At your local coffee shop, do you ever see words that you don’t understand? For instance, what is java? Why is a cup of coffee called a cup of joe? Ordering a cup of coffee can feel like speaking another language! No worries, here are the meanings behind all the coffee words.

Synonyms of Coffee

Let’s start with the words that just refer to a simple cup of coffee. The first and most puzzling is joe. No one really knows how that got started, but some think that joe may derive from java. Java, besides referring to coffee, is also an island in Indonesia where coffee is grown. Decaf is decaffeinated coffee. An espresso is a dark roast coffee brewed with hot water and pressure.

Types of Coffee Drinks

Do you add something to your coffee? Doing so might result in a name change! Let’s start with milk. If you only put a small to moderate amount of steamed milk in your espresso, you are drinking a macchiato. A cappuccino has a lot of frothy steamed milk. If the proportion of hot milk to coffee is two to one, it’s cafe au lait. If the proportion is three to one, it’s a cafe latte. Add a little boiling water instead of milk and it’s a cafe americano. The addition of chocolate makes the drink a mocha. You can even serve coffee with ice cubes, but that one is easy—iced coffee. It usually includes cream and sugar.

Coffee Sizes

Rather than small, medium, and large, some coffee shops use their own units of measurement. For example, at one popular chain the smallest drinks are called short and tall. Rather than being the largest, grande is overshadowed by the venti and trenta, which contain as much as 31 ounces of liquid.

With all the different coffee drinks, no wonder there’s a special name for the talented ones who serve it—baristas. They speak the language. Now, what kind of coffee will you order next?

Figurative Language: 5 Tools to Spice Up Your Writing

A cardinal axiom of good writing, “show, don’t tell” reminds authors that language is infinitely more vivid and poignant when it appeals to the senses. Writing that does this has an amnesic effect on readers, ensconcing them so deeply in the story that they forget they’re reading a story at all. Perhaps the most apt tool to cast this spell on readers is figurative language, which employs various devices that imply meaning rather than plainly stating it. Here are five figurative devices that will breathe new life into your writing by compelling the reader to look beyond the obvious.

The Double Epithet

An epithet is an adjective or phrase that expresses attributes of a person or thing, such as “Alexander the Great.” Considered a device of poetic diction, epithets abound in famous poetry, especially Homer’s. For example, he coined phrases like “the rosy-fingered dawn” and “the wine-dark sea.” Epithets have even more figurative force in pairs, known as double epithets. Shakespeare was especially fond of this tool, penning classics like “mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms,” “beslubbering swag-bellied ratsbane,” and “roguish tickle-brained fustilarian.”

Anaphora

Used as both a rhetorical and poetic device, anaphora refers to parallelism created by successive lines or phrases beginning with the same words. Poetically, the recurring sounds produce a driving rhythm that can intensify the language’s emotionality. Rhetorically, anaphora lends emphasis to concepts. Anaphora appears frequently in the work of Charles Dickens (e.g., “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”) and also figures prominently in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech (King repeats the phrase “I have a dream” eight times in the closing paragraphs of the address).

Alliteration

This literary device repeats consonant sounds in a sentence or verse, typically, but not always, at the beginning of a word. Alliteration can give writing character and add an element of whimsy. Strategically, alliterative devices draw the reader’s attention to a particular passage, set a mood and rhythm, and can suggest certain connotations. For instance, a recurring “S” sound connotes a serpent-like quality, suggesting treachery and peril. Poe’s line “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” from The Raven uses alliteration, as does Beowulf‘s “Hot-hearted Beowulf was bent upon battle.”

Onomatopoeia

Appealing to the aural senses, onomatopoeia uses words imitative of sounds, such as quack, boom, whoosh, whir, hiss, crunch, crack, and swish. Paradoxically, onomatopoeia can add both frivolity and reality to writing, as it quirkily yet accurately mimics common sounds. The Alka Seltzer slogan “pop, pop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is” uses this device, as does Poe’s line from the poem The Bells “How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle in the icy air of night!”

Hyperbole

When authors intentionally overstate for effect, they employ hyperbole. These exaggerations can be ludicrous or funny and help the author make a salient point. An excerpt from Monty Python’s “Four Yorkshiremen rel=”nofollow”” skit illustrates this device perfectly as used for comedic effect. In describing how poor he was, one of the characters says, “I had to get up in the morning at 10 o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work 29 hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing ‘Hallelujah’.”

If variety is the spice of life, figurative language is the cayenne pepper of prose, figuratively speaking. So what are your most clever or creative uses of figurative language?

How to Turn Your New Year’s Resolutions Into Habits

So you’ve decided to write more. That’s your goal, your resolution.

You’re there; the keyboard is there. Maybe in your head you’re repeating “you can do it, you can do it,” getting pumped for the outpouring of productivity, the astronomical wordcount that will no doubt ensue at any moment now.

Yep, at any second, we’re going to kick into high gear and—Hang on, let’s put on some coffee first. And while that’s warming up, we might as well start a load of laundry. Oops, we’ll get back to the keyboard in one second, and we’ll really rip into this writing thing as soon as—Actually, I just got some email, I should check this…

Getting into the discipline of writing isn’t easy. Even people who do it for a living sometimes dread it, and often procrastinate. But if writing is what calls to you, we’ve put together some thoughts on how to cement it as a new habit.

Read a lot

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others; read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.

Stephen King, the author of On Writing as well as dozens of novels, urges writers to constantly have a book on hand. (He’s also far from the only wordsmith to lay into the distraction of television. The late David Foster Wallace counselled writers not to mistake watching shows for observing actual humans in the wild: “The dots are coming out of our furniture, all we’re spying on is our own furniture,” Wallace wrote.)

In the smartphone era, doing away with all manner of distraction in order to lug around a three-pound book may sound like unwieldy, curmudgeonly advice. The key here is knowing it’s easier to replace an existing habit with a new one than to erase an old habit altogether.

For instance, you might wonder when you’re supposed to have the time to read more, while also hemorrhaging precious hours over the course of each week perusing mundane social media. But if you want to take King’s advice, your phone doesn’t have to be an enemy; thanks to a variety of apps, it can be a library, both for reading and for listening to audiobooks. So rather than looking at your old classmates’ depressing vacation photos, you can open a book on your phone and begin enriching yourself as a reader.

And reading, King continues, can inform how you write, even if what you’re reading this week happens to be dreck:

I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read. It’s what I do at night, kicked back in my blue chair. Similarly, I don’t read fiction to study the art of fiction, but simply because I like stories. Yet there is a learning process going on. Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.

In other words, while you may want to write brilliantly, you’re under no obligation to choose strictly brilliant books to read.

Write a lot

If you were to take up running for the first time (as Haruki Murakami did when he first became a novelist), you probably wouldn’t expect to finish a marathon your first day, or even in your first month.

The work of writing is similar. It’s easy to forget, when you’re reading neatly assembled words on a page or a screen, that a human sat somewhere and labored to organize each thought. Writer Harlan Ellison used to remind people of this fact by demonstrating it in public; he would sit in bookstore windows and mash out page after page. “By doing it in public, I show people it’s a job,” he said, “like being a plumber or an electrician.”

Some people set out a goal of drafting their entire book in one month, but it’s a tall ask. King’s goal for himself is about two thousand words daily, including holidays; he suggests neophytes start by aiming for a thousand daily, six days a week.

Specifically, he recommends you find a room with a door on it, close that door, and stay there until you hit your goal. But in an era when people publish novels composed entirely via mobile phone and articles drafted using speech recognition while walking around New York, you’re not necessarily confined to King’s strict regimen of solitude and dad-rock. (The dude loves AC/DC.)

Indeed, no matter how you write or who you are, “writing is hard for every last one of us” as author Cheryl Strayed noted in her seminal pep talk on the subject, continuing: “Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.”

I know it’s hard to write, darling. But it’s harder not to. The only way you’ll find out if you ‘have it in you’ is to get to work and see if you do.

You’ve got this

If this all sounds daunting, take heart; journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates has called the very task of writing “an act of physical courage.”

Much of writing can be a battle with an inner editor—a voice reading each word as you write it, declaring “no, that’s not good enough. Rework this. Strike all of that. Do it better.” Managing to shut this voice up is no small feat, but doing so is crucial, explains Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, among others.

Calling perfectionism “the voice of the oppressor,” she argues that perfect can be the enemy of the good, or perhaps the hey-at-least-it’s-finally-done first draft, continuing:

Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here—and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.

Lamott also warns that while writing is essential, “publication is not all that it is cracked up to be,” suggesting it’s perhaps better to see your new writing goal as its own reward than as a career path. On this point, she is echoed by King:

If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind—they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death. Writing is at its best—always, always, always—when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer.

As you cement your writing goals into habits, don’t forget to have fun. We believe in your victory.

How to Adapt Your CV for an American Company

Many people dream of living and working in the USA, but no one would claim it’s easy. To secure a work visa, you’ll need a job offer before you leave – which means perfecting your CV is more important than ever. Don’t simply roll out the CV you’ve been using at home; there are a few key differences you’ll need to know first. Before you hit send, check through this list of tips to make sure American employers can easily see what a great candidate you are.

1 Your CV is no longer a CV!

While languages as diverse as Arabic, Spanish and British English use the term (short for the Latin curriculum vitae) American English prefers the term résumé. It’s important not to neglect this detail as the term CV is used in America, but only in academia.

2 Lose the photo

In many countries it’s normal to include a photo of yourself, and it’s tempting to try to get the employer to picture you in the office, looking dynamic and ready to work. But the USA has strict laws concerning discrimination, so employers can’t be seen to be making decisions based on any aspect of your appearance. You should also remove any details about your marital status, ethnicity, date or place of birth, parents’ names or religion. All you need in terms of personal information is your name, contact details and where to find you on LinkedIn.

3 Keep it short

The name change signals a change of attitude. This is a summary of your skills and achievements, rather than a detailed account of your working life. On average, employers spend only six seconds looking at your résumé! Aim for a single page, or two at the very most. Cut out irrelevant hobbies or unrelated positions you held years ago. After your contact details, recruiters will be looking for:

• Summary statement – a few short, strong statements that sum up why you’re the perfect candidate for this job
• Professional experience – start with the most recent position and work backwards
• Skills – this could include relevant computer programs you can use or languages you speak
• Education – unless you are a very recent or current student, keep this down to a line or two and put it toward the end of the résumé, not at the beginning

If English is your second language, you may be tempted to prove your proficiency by including your TOEFL score. Don’t! Your fluency should speak for itself. But the fact that you are bilingual is a big bonus – list it under skills.

4 Third or first person?

Should you write “Maria has exceptional organizational skills,” or “I have exceptional organizational skills?” This question raises some surprisingly strong feelings. Not so long ago, the advice was to use the third person, and some employers still feel this avoids the impression that you’re just stating your own opinion of yourself. On the other hand, you are stating your opinion of yourself, and as a result many employers hate third person résumés, finding them weird and artificial. Our advice: where a pronoun is unavoidable, use “I,” but in so-called “résumese,” it’s acceptable to avoid pronouns altogether and even to drop the occasional verb. For example: “A manager with exceptional organizational skills. Successfully increased staff retention by 50%.”

Whatever you do, don’t mix “I” with “he/she”!

5 Use action verbs

American culture isn’t big on modesty. Where some cultures would see boastfulness, Americans see confidence and straightforwardness. This doesn’t mean you should make grandiose claims of personal perfection, but it does mean that when explaining your employment history, you should focus on the successes you achieved, not just your duties and responsibilities. You can approach this by avoiding the passive voice and by replacing verbs like “worked on,” “handled” and “was responsible for” with bolder alternatives like “accomplished,” “created,” “increased,” “transformed” or “led,” as well as by giving specific examples of your results.

For example, “handled fundraising” could become “raised $105,000 in new donations in 2017.” Don’t worry about showing off – if you think back, you’ll probably find more relevant achievements than you expect!

7 Avoid clichés

Don’t claim to be “passionate” about your field – is anyone really passionate about, say, data management? And even if your work truly is your passion, the word is so overused that it no longer communicates anything. Instead, tell a story that demonstrates your depth of commitment in your cover letter, or include a bullet point that showcases the results your enthusiasm has helped you achieve. Don’t claim to be a “good team player” or “hard worker” and don’t boast of your “communication skills.” These are vague virtues that employers will tend to assume everyone should have! Give examples of times you’ve taken on extra responsibility, or times you’ve collaborated with others to accomplish something tangible.

8 Don’t forget American vocabulary!

Make sure to use American terms throughout. Even if it feels strange to change your job titles, use “attorney” instead of “solicitor,” “realtor” rather than “estate agent.” Write all dates in the American format: month/day/year. Finally, switch your spell-check to “US English” and do a last sweep to be sure you’re describing your skills as “analyzing” data, not “analysing” it and writing “programs” not “programmes.” And of course, you’ll want to proofread multiple times to be sure that your spelling and grammar is perfect.

9 Nail the cover letter

In some countries a cover letter (or these days, a covering email) is optional, but an American employer won’t even consider an application without a letter – which needs to be individually tailored to every job you apply for. If at all possible, find out the name of the person who will be receiving the letter and address it to them, “Dear Mr./Ms./Mrs. [xxx].” Even if you really can’t find a specific name, don’t lead with “Dear Sir” – female recruiters will not appreciate it. “Dear Hiring Manager” is an acceptable alternative. Like your résumé, your cover letter should be short – no more than one page. It’s the first thing that employers read, which means it’s your best chance to grab the recruiter’s attention: make it clear why you are interested in this particular company, and why they should be interested in you.

Once again, don’t be shy – Americans appreciate self-confidence and will expect you to be proud of your achievements.

Kaplan International English is part of Kaplan Inc., a global education and career services company. With 40 language schools across 6 English-speaking countries, Kaplan helps 50,000 students from 150 countries each year go further with English. Our courses include Business English and preparation for exams such as TOEFL® and GMAT®.

This Is Why You Should Check Your Email in the Morning

Do not check your email! Plenty of people with fancy credentials will tell you to avoid your email at all costs in the morning. Time management consultant Julie Morgenstern wrote a whole book about it. She told The Huffington Post that if you give in to the temptation, “you will never recover.” Personal development writer Sid Savara gives seven reasons not to check it. For starters, the requests in your email aren’t on your agenda of “things to do” yet. If you add them to your plate, you will be distracted from the important things already on your to-do list. Do you want to lose the bliss that accompanies ignorance? On the other hand, just as many experts will tell you to check your email at the beginning of the day. Here’s what they have to say.

Why you should check email

Get it out of the way

The biggest reason to check your email in the morning is simply to get it out of the way. Lifehacker reports the personal experience of Harvard Business Review contributor Dorie Clark: “Pushing email correspondence to the end of the day, I found that I consistently avoided answering certain messages because they required hard choices that my brain found taxing. I realized that if I finally wanted to vanquish those messages straggling at the bottom of my inbox, what I needed most wasn’t simply time to respond; it was the willpower and discernment to make good judgments and respond accordingly.” She recommends setting aside twenty-minute periods throughout the day to handle email correspondence.

Train others to respect your time

Has anyone ever called you or sent you a message asking if you got their email that they sent five minutes ago? In today’s world of technology, people want things fast. But isn’t patience a virtue? When you don’t reply instantly, you might irritate others at first. However, when they receive a thoughtful reply, they might learn to appreciate your diligence. If your custom is to reply to emails in the morning, you can respond within twenty-four hours. That’s a reasonable time frame that gives you time to answer properly. Eventually, your frequent contacts will become familiar with your routine. They will see that you are too busy to be at their beck and call, but you will get back to them in due time. For real emergencies, they can call you on the telephone.

Give yourself time to cope

If you read your emails early, you have time to react. If you wait too late for an urgent email, you might miss an opportunity or not have enough time to meet a deadline. A morning review of emails prevents you from holding up others. If someone needs your reply to progress, you can help out your team productivity by doing your part as soon as possible.

You can avoid “email pressure”

According to an article in The Guardian, London researchers from Future Work Centre reported that workers feel pressured from constant streams of demanding emails. Employees who receive emails on their mobile devices via apps are even more stressed. In Germany, the problem became so concerning that the minister of employment began entertaining “anti-stress” legislation to prohibit companies from contacting employees outside of business hours in non-emergency situations. Though checking email at the beginning and end of the day had the strongest correlation with email stress, the report suggested turning off automatic notifications of new messages. If you check your account in the morning, handle the most important messages right away, and then close the app, you might find that you stay on top of your emails without feeling overwhelmed. Interestingly, personality also influenced how pressured people felt. What a psychologist and a science writer found out about the effects of willpower may surprise you.

Willpower is finite

In the book Willpower, Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney uphold willpower as one of the greatest human feats. According to Tierney, “You only have a finite amount [of willpower] as you go through the day, so you should be careful to conserve it and try to save it for the emergencies.” How does this apply to emails? It’s easy to put off answering them if the responses require research or a long reply. Delay too long, and you seem rude. Answering the tricky ones requires willpower and you have the most of it in the morning, before you have depleted it dealing with other challenges. Perhaps you won’t have weighty replies to write every day, but when you do, the morning is a great time to address them. Tierney also says that willpower is comparable to resistance training. The more you exercise willpower, the stronger your self-control will become. Once you train yourself to handle key communications first thing in the morning, you will have the discipline to avoid spending mental energy on the time-wasters.

How to do it right

Writer Laura Chin tells us how to check emails without zapping our mental energy. The process starts before you even power up your laptop. She quotes NeuroLeadership Institute director David Rock: “If you can’t recall what your goals are, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to scan the environment for things relevant to your goals.” First, define your objectives. When you scan your email later, you will be able to zero in on important messages and make a decision how to handle each one.

Next, open your inbox. Remember these two words—discernment and willpower. Channel your top priorities as you scroll through your new emails. Use your judgment to decide which messages are most important. Open them and respond immediately or flag them as high priority. Next, use your willpower to close your browser. Anything less than critical can wait until later in the day.

Do you feel that sorting critical from unimportant drains too much of your time? Try an email organization service, such as Unroll.me, which groups low priority messages together so that you can concentrate on the important stuff. Outlook has recently implemented a similar service. It’s called focused inbox. The system responds and adapts as it observes which contacts you interact with the most. It also filters forwards, newsletters, and bulk emails into a separate tab that you can read in your leisure time. Besides automatically deleting spam, you can set “rules” to keep only the latest copy of overly frequent newsletters.

You will stress yourself out. You will get distracted from your daily objectives. You will waste too much valuable time. These are some reasons people may tell you that you should never check your email before lunchtime. However, many experts have found that clearing away important emails in the first part of the day will free up your brain for other matters. People will learn that you are busy, but you will answer within a reasonable amount of time. And you will build up your willpower as you answer only the key messages. What’s the bottom line? No one can tell you which philosophy is best because you must take into account your personality and circumstances. What time works best for your job? What method makes you feel the least stress? When do you work most productively? No one will knock your choice if you are capable and competent in your job.

Why Is the Oxford Comma a Heated Debate in 2017?

If you stare awhile at the string of characters that a sentence comprises, the squiggles lose all meaning. That humans somehow manage to agree on the use of these symbols well enough to communicate at all can seem miraculous.

But what about when we don’t quite agree—when it seems a writer has added a superfluous, bafflingly out-of-place comma, perhaps, or inexplicably used the wrong pronoun? Maybe they’re simply mistaken. Or maybe they’re in the vanguard of a futuristic linguistic trend that, decades or centuries hence, will be widely embraced and regarded as correct.

Our language is forever evolving, and 2017 was no exception. Two key authorities on proper usage—the Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style—both made modernizing tweaks in their latest updates.

Examined closely, these offer glimpses into the past and future: “Often people think of language shifting over centuries,” says Grammarly copy editor Brittney Ross, “but some of these happened pretty quickly.”

We’ll give a rundown of a few of the recent changes that felt consequential, and then delve into one particularly contentious stylistic faultline we’re still watching—the Oxford comma.

Both style guides are through with capitalizing “internet” and “web.”

Associated Press editors made this move last year, and the Chicago Manual has now followed suit. Not to make anyone feel old, but if you remember the sound of a dial-up modem, you’ve witnessed the arc of these terms trending from exotic to mundane. Same goes for this one:

It’s now email, not e-mail.

Chicago Style lagged a few years after the AP made this shift, but it’s now unanimous—no hyphen required. Similarly:

AP Style now has an entry for esports.

The e is not a typo; we’re talking about competitive multiplayer video games. One could argue that 2017, the year of Starcraft: Remastered, approximates a 20-year anniversary for esports, which have now become commonplace—and so lucrative that popular streamers on Twitch have their own agents.

AP editors also added an entry for autonomous vehicles.

It will likely be years before you get a chance to ride in a self-driving car, but in the meantime, journalists can’t stop thinking about them. (Guilty.) Just don’t call them driverless unless there truly isn’t a human onboard who can take the wheel.

They can now be singular—sometimes.

AP and Chicago Style editors both cracked this door open in 2017, but neither yet seems ready to charge fully through it, prompting the Columbia Journalism Review to declare “it’s the middle of the end for the insistence that ‘they’ can be only a plural pronoun.”

The style guides allow for a singular they when referring to someone who doesn’t identify as he or she, but they also note you can often just write your way around this by reworking the sentence. Here are highlights from the new AP entry:

They, them, their — In most cases, a plural pronoun should agree in number with the antecedent: The children love the books their uncle gave them. They/them/their is acceptable in limited cases as a singular and-or gender-neutral pronoun, when alternative wording is overly awkward or clumsy. However, rewording usually is possible and always is preferable…

In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her: Use the person’s name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible. If they/them/their use is essential, explain in the text that the person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun.

Whether this shift heralds the widespread adoption of what’s known as the “epicene they,” we’ll have to wait a few more editions and see.

Whither the Oxford comma?

No discussion of warring (okay, not really) stylebooks would be complete without considering the Oxford (or serial) comma. For the uninitiated, that’s the last comma in a list of three or more things, as in this example:

“My goals for 2018 are to learn how to use commas like a champion, to run a half-marathon, and to get good at poaching eggs.”

Whether that last comma is necessary is hotly debated. It featured in a 2008 lyric by the band Vampire Weekend that might be politely paraphrased as “Who gives a hoot about the Oxford comma?” And this year a single Oxford comma was even the subject of a court fight with millions of dollars at stake.

Chicago style recommends its use in almost all instances, while AP style leans somewhat against it. The AP’s position is squishy, though, as it recently noted in a series of tweets that began “We don’t ban Oxford commas!” Rather, they say you should use it when it adds clarity and ditch it when it’s nonessential.

As AP Stylebook lead editor Paula Froke told a roomful of colleagues this spring, “The stylebook doesn’t ban the use of a serial comma. Whether you put it in at all times is a different debate.” That’s hardly a hard-and-fast declaration, but the Oxford comma is divisive, as anyone who’s served as a copy editor at a student newspaper can attest. Brittney, Grammarly’s resident style maven, puts it this way:

“Oxford commas are like the Ugg boots of the punctuation world. People either love them or hate them or don’t know what they are.”

Brittney notes that Grammarly is pro-Oxford comma, in part because many long-timers (“the OG Grammarly users”) have voiced fondness for it. “It’s really carried over into our blog, social media, emails,” even in settings where AP style might be more typical: “We’ve kept the Oxford comma just to keep things consistent.”

And consistency, alongside clarity, she says, should be more important than pitting one stylistic tribe’s abstract symbols against another.

“When it comes to AP vs. Chicago style, I think a lot of people forget the importance of the word style. The important thing to remember is when the style isn’t working for you, you should do what works.”

From Pens to Keys–The Complete History of Writing Tools

Writing isn’t what it used to be.

That is, writing is no longer an ink-stained task of scrawling on parchment. Getting your thoughts down is faster and easier than ever. Indeed, as voice-recognition software continues to improve, using your fingers to bang out sentences on a keyboard may soon look charmingly quaint.

Here, at a glance, is the evolution of the technology that shapes how we write.

Writing by hand

Writers in bygone centuries had to dip reed or bamboo pens, ink brushes, or feather quills into ink, then place them on papyrus or paper. This notoriously messy process prompted the invention in 1636 of a reservoir pen made from two quills. One was sealed with a cork and held the ink, which was squeezed through a tiny hole.

By 1827, a fountain pen with an ink chamber in the handle had earned a patent in France, but it wasn’t until 1888 that the first ballpoint pen, featuring a tiny moving ball in a socket in the tip, followed suit. Next came felt-tip pens in the 1960s, rollerball pens in the 1970s, and erasable pens in 1979.

In recent years, sales of that other erasable stalwart, the pencil, have fallen on hard times, although colored pencils have exploded in popularity, thanks to the advent of adult coloring books. Meanwhile, pen sales continue to rise slightly.

Typewriters

The first commercially successful typewriter was invented by Americans in 1868. Just a few years later, in 1875, Mark Twain dashed off an admiring letter to his brother:

The machine has several virtues. I believe it will print faster than I can write. One may lean back in his chair & work it. It piles an awful stack of words on one page. It don’t muss things or scatter ink blots around. Of course it saves paper.

How best to operate such machines was controversial at first: Should the user type with just two fingers, or would eight be more efficient? And should one’s gaze be fixed on the buttons or on the page? But the arrangement of the keys – the now-familiar QWERTY design – was widely embraced, and it has barely changed since.

The QWERTY arrangement owes to the work of Christopher Latham Sholes, whose flawed early attempts placed the letters alphabetically in two rows. This led to frequently paired letters, such as “st” and “th,” mashing close together and jamming the machine. So, collaborating with an educator name Amos Densmore, Sholes rearranged the letters according to their popularity. At first this confused typists, but with fewer jams, it ultimately made for a smoother writing process.

First digital, then mobile

Typewriters were widespread for roughly a century before giving way to the rise of computers. Apple, RadioShack, and Commodore all began manufacturing keyboards for their models in the 1970s. (For a throwback, check out this ancient RadioShack commercial for the TRS-80.)

With technology’s inexorable drive toward the smaller and sleeker, the late 1980s offered an early glimpse of what would be recognized today as primordial text messaging. Devices like 1989’s Motorola MicroTAC 9800X promised typing on mobile phones, albeit with a multi-tap approach that meant each number on the keypad mapped to several letters of the alphabet – what’s known as an alphanumeric keypad.

By 1993, the IBM Simon delivered the world’s first full QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen; in 1997, the Nokia 9000 Communicator followed as the first such device with a push-button keyboard. Since then, laptops have supplanted desktop computing. Now, roughly a decade into the iPhone era, smartphones appear poised to obviate many people’s need for other computers altogether.

Talking with machines

Before Siri, there was Audrey, a 1952 Bell Laboratories speech-recognition system that could understand only digits.

Because computing was still in its infancy at the time, this technology evolved slowly; IBM’s “Shoebox” machine could understand 16 words spoken in English in 1962, but adding hundreds of additional entries to the vocabulary of machines was a decades-long process. It wasn’t until 1990 that Dragon introduced a consumer-targeted speech-recognition product, Dragon Dictate, for a whopping $9,000.

Until fairly recently, such technologies plateaued at around 80 percent accuracy. But in the last few years, Apple and Google devices have made typing by voice easier than tapping words into a screen, and this technology looks increasingly crucial as competitors like Amazon, with its Echo device, also crowd in. Such gadgets not only sift your words out of any surrounding noises but also analyze the linguistic context to better understand precisely what you’re saying.

Is handwriting obsolete?

As machines continue to improve, is old-timey ink on paper bound the way of the dinosaur?

One survey found hundreds of people who said they hadn’t written a single thing by hand in over a month. And while current U.S. educational standards don’t require cursive, lessons in keyboarding are mandatory, down to grades where students have barely learned to write by hand. Indeed, even as many of us aren’t sure what drawer we last saw a notepad in, we now spend hours each day texting and writing online.

Of course, longhand still has its advantages; studies suggest it’s a better way to take notes than on a laptop. That’s not just because computers can be an endless source of distraction, either. Rather, researchers found that when you take notes by hand, because you can’t keep up with everything that’s being said verbatim, you instead reframe it in your own words, prompting deeper thought than rote transcription. There is also evidence that writing letters out cements the ability to recognize those characters, both for children learning to read and for adults studying foreign languages.

Whether you still like the feel of pen on paper or prefer the glow of a touchscreen or a machine that takes dictation, you’re still getting your ideas down and communicating, albeit in different ways. And that’s really been the point all along, says Anne Trubek, an author and former professor at Oberlin College, referring millennia-old forms of writing on clay tablets:

What we want from writing – and what the Sumerians wanted – is cognitive automaticity, the ability to think as fast as possible, freed as much as can be from the strictures of whichever technology we must use to record our thoughts,” Trubek wrote. “This is what typing does for millions. It allows us to go faster, not because we want everything faster in our hyped-up age, but for the opposite reason: we want more time to think.

So what about you? What’s your favorite way to capture an idea in writing?

It’s Time to End Grammar Trolling

During a recent discussion here at Grammarly HQ, someone on the team asked a very good question: is there actually a difference between correcting someone’s grammar and being a grammar troll?

As a copy editor by trade, I have a strong opinion on this one. Yes! Of course there’s a difference!

A good editor, a caring teacher, or an upstanding grammar lover offers corrections that are helpful, polite, and appropriate. A grammar troll insults, mocks, or tries to embarrass another person for making an error. It’s time for that to stop.

But the Internet is destroying proper English! the grammar trolls whine. Everyone is just too stupid! Somebody has to draw the line!

Actually, English is doing just fine. Ask any actual linguist. And everyone is not too stupid. Misspelling a word, making a grammatical error, or even writing a sentence that’s hard to understand doesn’t make you stupid. But insulting someone for making a mistake does make you a grammar troll. And a jerk.

I don’t care! Part of me dies every time I see the word IRREGARDLESS, cry the grammar trolls.

Wow. Aren’t you special.

Consider this: Maybe the person on the other side of the screen is a nonnative speaker who is trying hard to learn English. Maybe it’s someone who speaks a dialect of English that’s different from your own. Maybe they have a different educational background than you do. They could have a disability that makes writing or typing difficult. Maybe they do, in fact, know the difference between to and too but accidentally mistyped.

Ugh, my eyes are bleeding, the grammar trolls sneer. You just used the singular “they.”

Yep! I do it all the time—proudly. So far, exactly zero people have died because of it.

PEOPLE? The Elements of Style clearly states that it should be PERSONS.

Listen, Strunk and White were full of baloney. They couldn’t even identify the passive voice correctly.

You’re a moron and I hate you!

That’s what it really comes down to, isn’t it? Grammar trolls claim that they just want to uphold the standards of proper English. But if that were true, they’d offer polite, respectful suggestions instead of contempt. Why would I change what I say and write just because of some rude, angry stranger? Why would anyone? Grammar trolls don’t want to fix anything. They do what they do because they feel smart when they shame others.

But what if you really do just want to help people write better? What if you’re convinced the typo on the sign in the window of your favorite diner is hurting business? What if you enjoyed someone’s blog post, but there’s a typo the writer missed? What’s a well-meaning grammar lover to do? Here’s what you do: BE NICE. Don’t be rude. Don’t be mean. Don’t be condescending. Just be nice. Tell someone about the mistake if it’s important, and if it’s not, let it go.

If you’re not sure how to be nice, or if you’re a penitent grammar troll without a lot of practice showing kindness, read on. We’ve got all the tips you need in one handy infographic.

Now go out there and give grammar lovers a good name. And if you have a tip for fighting grammar trolls, share it in the comments section!