7 Brilliant Tips on How to Proofread Emails

That typo or grammar goof you just made in an email might make a bad impression. It could signal that you lack attention to detail. At worst, it could make you seem less intelligent, conscientious, and trustworthy.

Although email typos happen to everyone, they happen less frequently to those who take a little extra time to proofread. Here’s a foolproof step-by-step guide to getting it right before you hit send.

1 Get your contact’s name right.

Did you spell your contact’s first and last name correctly? It’s important. And, if you doubt that, think of the last time you got an email from someone who got your name wrong. At the very least, you probably groaned or rolled your eyes. We get annoyed when people misspell our names because we assume they don’t care enough about us to pay attention to that basic detail.

If you’re uncertain about the spelling of your contact’s name, do a little research to see if you can come up with it via Google or social media. If all else fails, use a generic greeting like “Hi there” that doesn’t use a first name.

Here’s a tip: Make sure you’ve spelled business and website names correctly, too. It’s even a good idea to double-check how the name is formatted. Is it Buzzfeed, Buzz Feed, or BuzzFeed? (Hint: It’s the last one.) Little details do matter.

2 Check your tone.

Does your email sound cold or terse? It might. Often, what sounds fine in our heads doesn’t come across well in text. When you don’t stop to review and proofread your email before you send it, you risk being misinterpreted.

The trick here is to apply some empathy. Clear your head and imagine you’re receiving your email rather than sending it. Does anything you’ve written sound negative or even hostile? There’s a big difference between “I’m looking forward to chatting with you” and “I’ll be expecting your call.” One is friendly and positive; the other sounds as though you’re saying “You’d better call or else.”

3 Make sure you’ll be understood.

Make sure your recipient has enough details to understand what you’ve written. Remember that you and your recipient may not have all the same information—the things you understand aren’t necessarily things your recipient will know. Reread your email with this in mind and fill in the blanks as needed.

Here’s a tip: If you find yourself giving too much background information, take a step back and rethink your strategy. You may want to start with a simple “just the facts” approach that leads into a more involved discussion. For instance, instead of breaking down a multi-step plan in a long, complex introductory email, you might first write a quick summary and ask your contact whether they’d like you to share more details.

4 Check for clarity.

Make sure what you’ve written reads smoothly and conveys your precise meaning. Look for unclear pronoun references.

Scan your emails for words like it or they and then make sure your text conveys what those words refer to. If not, rewrite to replace those pronouns with something concrete.

When we hold it directly after the keynote, it always has good attendance.

Hold what after the keynote? What has good attendance?

When we hold the copywriting workshop directly after the keynote, the workshop always has good attendance.

Better. But we can rewrite to simplify the sentence and avoid repeating the word workshop.

The copywriting workshop always has good attendance when we hold it directly after the keynote.

Keep your sentences simple and direct. Emails written at a third-grade reading level have significantly better response rates. Long, complex sentences and big words can make your text more challenging to read for a busy person who’s rushing through emails. Do consider your audience, however. If you’re writing to a doctor of sociology to ask for an interview, go ahead and use lush language and more complex structure. Otherwise, make “simple is better” your default.

5 Watch out for wordiness.

Part of simplifying your text involves streamlining it. Eliminate filler words and phrases. Get rid of adverbs and use stronger verbs. (Instead of incredibly happy, try overjoyed, thrilled, or ecstatic. Instead of ran swiftly, how about dashed or sprinted?)

Consider George Orwell’s six rules of writing:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figures of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.*

*About Orwell’s rule #6, see our rule #2.

Here’s a tip: Grammarly Premium will help you find overused words and filler words. As you become more aware of your use of filler words, you’ll automatically use them less often. Win!

6 Proofread carefully.

Up to this point, we’ve been talking about proofreading in the broader terms of a developmental edit. Now, it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty and proofread line-by-line. Have you spelled everything correctly? Did you use the proper homonyms? (Did you type “There going to the festival” when you meant to type They’re?) Is your punctuation on point?

An app like Grammarly will help you catch and fix your errors. But keep in mind that it’s a tool to enhance your proofreading ability, not replace the need for proofreading altogether. The advantage of using a proofreading app is that every mistake the app catches will teach you something about your writing and ultimately make you a better writer.

7 Sit on it.

Some emails need a while to simmer, especially if they’re sensitive. Let’s say you have to write an email to report the inappropriate conduct of a coworker, or you have to draft a performance review for someone whose performance hasn’t exactly been stellar. Emotion can make you write things you’ll later regret.

Draft your email in your word processor rather than your email client so you’re not tempted to send it impulsively before you’ve given it a thorough review. If you’re able to hold off for a bit, sit on that email for a day before sending it. When you reread your email in the light of a new day, you’ll often find things to revise, especially in terms of tone and clarity.

Here’s a tip: When it’s critical to deliver an error-free email that won’t be misunderstood, it may be helpful to have someone else (particularly someone impartial) look over your draft.

At the very least, make sure the unsend feature is enabled in your email client. (Here’s how to do it in Gmail.) The few seconds of time it will buy after you’ve hit Send will occasionally rescue you from being owned outright by a glaring typo. I once received an email with the subject line “This learning toy made my child crap with glee!”

I’m pretty sure that’s not what the sender meant.

The 10 Biggest Leadership Mistakes You Really Should Avoid

You made it. You’re a manager or boss, maybe even a business owner or CEO. Now, it’s time to be a leader. If you know anything about managing other people and their ideas, you know that it’s a super tough gig. There are many tempting traps you can fall into when it comes to being in charge, but as long as you’re cognizant of them, they’re possible to avoid. Keep reading for our top ten mistakes leaders make, plus how to be sure you steer clear of them.

1 Not listening to others

Two brains are better than one, right? Even when you’re in charge, the ideas of others are highly valuable. No two people see the same issue in the exact same way, so thinking that you always know best is extremely closed-minded. You don’t always have to take the advice or ideas of others, but even just acknowledging other perspectives can help inform the decisions that are ultimately yours to make.

2 Forgetting about the details

The big picture is important, and as a leader it’s your job to define what that is. It’s also your job to make sure that your company is on track toward achieving those important goals you’ve set. But here’s the thing: those major objectives are only reached through a series of smaller projects and wins. It’s true that you don’t want to sweat the small stuff, but you can’t have a completely hands-off approach to what’s going on in the lower rungs of your organization. Make an effort to understand the day-to-day tasks of all departments in your company—that way you’ll notice when something’s gone awry.

3 Failing to recognize individual successes

Praise is an incredible motivator and you should give it out where it’s due. If someone does something great, they deserve to be recognized for it. It’s also important to remember that taking credit for others’ successes is a major no-no, since it will immediately alienate them and put them on the defensive. You want your employees to feel like they’re part of a collaborative team rather than a power-hungry dictatorship.

4 Not being open to change

It’s easy to get comfortable with the way things are, but systems by their very nature evolve. In most cases, there is an improvement that can be made to any process, idea, or product, so if you see that change needs to happen in order to increase efficiency or productivity, don’t resist!

5 Being inaccessible

If your employees or direct reports can’t come to you with issues or to seek advice, you’re not doing your job as a leader. Of course, you don’t want people to come to you about every small thing that happens in the office, but even the lowest-level employees should know that if a major problem is occurring, your door is open.

6 Micromanaging

As mentioned earlier, your job is to manage big picture goals. There’s a difference between being keyed-in to the details of your company and obsessively micromanaging things that are outside of your scope. Hire people you trust to get the smaller jobs done and check in with them regularly—but there’s no need get involved in every single thing they do.

7 Not making communication a priority

If something important is going on at your company, the employees should know about it. With all the communication options we have available in the business world (email, workflow apps, conference calls, meetings, intranet websites, etc.), there’s no reason people should have to feel in the dark about what’s going on. Obviously, there are some sensitive topics you may not want to share with all employees publicly, but they should know that there are open communication channels with you that go both ways.

8 Being too personal or impersonal

It shouldn’t be all about you, all the time. Employees don’t need to know every time you go on a date, why you’re annoyed with a parent or anything that you would share only with an extremely close friend. On the other hand, if your employees know nothing about you, it will be difficult for them to relate. It’s also a good idea to get to know your employees on a personal level as much as feasible, since it shows that you’re invested in their success.

9 Failing to admit when you’re wrong

There’s nothing worse than a leader who won’t acknowledge a mistake or error in judgement. If it turns out that you were wrong about something, own up to it and then move on. No harm, no foul. Your employees will respect this stance a lot more than if you try to play the blame game or deny any fault.

10 Being afraid to fire people

Of course, you should only fire someone if their performance is very poor, but many leaders will let under-performers slide because they don’t want to lower morale or have a difficult conversation. Imagine you could replace that person who isn’t a good fit with someone who is perfect for the job, who meets all your goals and adds value to your team. How much more productive would your team as a whole be? If you’ve made an effort to give constructive criticism and your poor performer isn’t improving, chances are, the uncomfortable conversation will be worth it.

A version of this post originally appeared on Glassdoor’s blog.

4 Infuriating Work Habits and How to Avoid Them

Considering all the time you spend at the office, it’s no surprise that your workspace, coworkers, and overall approach to everyday tasks have a big influence on your morale. We’ve all been there: you’re chatting with colleagues and you get a little heavy-handed with the emojis, or you’ve got an update most of your team will enjoy so you pop it into the general chat. It seems innocuous enough, but as it turns out, these—and other—little tendencies can really get under others’ skin. We polled our community to see which behaviors are the worst. Here are four irritating work habits that we’re all guilty of and tips on how to avoid them.

Emoji Overload

Despite how it might feel sometimes, it is possible to overuse emojis—especially at work. When we asked our community, 54 percent said that excessive emoji use was worse than noncommittal one-word replies (46 percent). Emojis are suboptimal because they have layered meanings, and as such aren’t necessarily inclusive. Furthermore, certain emojis or too-frequent use of emojis can seem unprofessional. Here is how to get your emoji use under control.

How to Avoid It

Obviously, the best way to stop emoji overload is not to use them. But it’s not always necessary to completely eliminate emojis. Try identifying people and situations that you should not use emojis with. Conversations with managers and new professional contacts, mass emails, or large group chats are all iffy situations for emojis. Furthermore, it can be helpful to know that some emojis are too casual or even borderline offensive. Stick to the oldies: smileys and thumbs up.

Giant Group Chat

These unwieldy group chats usually have too broad a scope, too many members, or both. At one time or another, we’ve all been guilty of sharing too much or too often in a general chat. Our community even voted this peeve worse than sending work messages way too early in the morning. Here are some helpful tips for deciding what and when to update in the general chat.

How to Avoid It

Though one person alone cannot tame the beast that is “Giant Group Chat,” you can make things easier on your co-workers by:

• Highlighting or formatting important general updates so they are easier to find in the chat.
• Tagging the most relevant stakeholders so they are more likely to get updates.
• Duplicating very urgent or important messages in another channel—like email.
• Messaging people directly if the conversation isn’t relevant to the whole group.

Boss CC Sneak Attack

A sneak attack is when someone adds your boss to a thread to intimidate you or encourage a specific outcome. This peeve significantly beat out excessive forwarding with more than 65 percent of poll respondents voting in favor—one of our most strongly supported peeves in the series. Including the manager unnecessarily is decidedly uncool. Here’s how to tell when to CC your boss.

How to Avoid It

Sometimes it can be difficult to know for sure if your boss needs to be looped in on certain issues. Make sure to think about your motive. If you are adding your manager to a chat or email thread because she needs to be abreast of what’s happening or you need her insight, it’s a great idea. If you are adding the boss to get attention or sway team members to behave a certain way, don’t do it. It’s passive aggressive and makes teammates resentful.

Background Noise on Calls

There are already too many frustrating ways that video conferencing and conference calls can go wrong. Background noise is understandably one of the worst because it’s largely preventable. Sixty-one percent of our poll respondents rated excessive background noise worse than unhelpful message updates. Luckily, there are a number of simple troubleshooting tips to prevent feedback on your calls.

How to Avoid It

Background noise during conferencing isn’t completely preventable, but you can make it less of a nuisance by:

• Finding somewhere quiet to take your call.
• If calling from home, alerting others in the house before you start your call.
• Using headphones so the microphone doesn’t pick up feedback from your speakers.
• Muting your microphone as needed.

Which of these bad work habits bother you most? What other peeves do you have? How would you fix them?

Grammarly Reviews – Where to Find Them

For every product conceivable, there are hundreds of reviews. You can find 5-star reviews as easily as 1-star reviews for the same product. The problem is, many reviews are unverified. Most websites allow anyone to post their opinions. As a consumer, wouldn’t you like to be sure that reviews are based on the experiences of real customers? How can you find trustworthy customer feedback for products like Grammarly?

The good news is that there is a new website to help you in your quest for reliable criticism. We would like to introduce you to eKomi, the feedback company. eKomi uses special software to request Grammarly reviews from customers who purchase the product. Therefore, the contributors of the reviews on the eKomi website are all actual customers. What a relief! You can be confident that each review reflects genuine opinions based on real experiences using the product.

If you are considering a Grammarly purchase, why not read some of our reviews on eKomi? Here is an example of a constructive comment from an eKomi’s dedicated Grammarly page.

“I use Grammarly to write everything. I wish I could integrate it with the word processor on macs as well.”

This review is helpful for Mac users. It is also helpful to us at Grammarly because we can gauge what upcoming features are most important to our clients. While we appreciate feedback of all kinds, the ones that highlight specific aspects of our products are most informative. For example, this comment from an eKomi rater was particularly descriptive:

“I like Grammarly very much. I have been compiling a book based on 1921 letters written by my wife’s great aunt. [Grammarly] has been immensely helpful in cleaning up grammar in making the content clearer and… easier to read.

“I did have a problem using Grammarly with Safari; however, the excellent technical support worked diligently in finding the problem and developing a solution. Once that problem was solved we flew through the project. I use Grammarly almost daily.”

Have you recently purchased the Grammarly program? If so, we will be looking for your unique perspective on the eKomi website! In addition to our reviews on eKomi, we are also featuring Grammarly opinions on the Grammarly reviews page. Send your feedback, along with a photograph if you’d like, to feedback@grammarly.com. Be sure to mention what you like best about Grammarly and what improvements you would like to see.

How can you find and leave reliable, informative reviews for Grammarly? There are now two great options! The eKomi website and our reviews page both feature Grammarly feedback from verified users. Why not visit both websites today?

What’s the Worst Poem of all Time?

It was a Sunday evening, the 28th of December in the year 1879. A dire storm was hitting Scotland hard—in Glasgow, the wind speed was measured at 71 mph. In Dundee, the wind was pummeling the bridge over the Firth of Tay, the Tay Rail Bridge, blowing at a speed of 80 mph and at a right angle. The wind, along with questionable design and craftsmanship of the bridge, was blamed when the the bridge collapsed that night, taking with it a train that was passing over it and the lives of everyone aboard. The event was later dubbed the “Tay Bridge disaster,” and there were at least two poems written about it.

One of them was “Die Brück’ am Tay” by the German poet Theodor Fontane. The other was “The Tay Bridge Disaster” by the Scottish poet William McGonagall, who was considered to be a particularly bad poet during his lifetime. Over a century later “The Tay Bridge Disaster” is still one of the top contenders for the title of Worst Poem Ever.

What Makes a Poem Bad?

There are those who believe that there’s no such thing as a good poem. Plato was one of them—he believed that all poetry was bad. The ancient Greek philosopher had three objections to poetry. He considered it to be unethical because it promoted passions he deemed undesirable. He did not find poetry to be philosophical, because it didn’t provide any true knowledge. He also found it less worthy than more practical arts, which diminished poetry’s educational value. These views, of course, had their opponents—most notably Aristotle, who defended poetry, saying that it provided the valuable experience of catharsis, among other things.

Plato’s objections and Aristotle’s valiant defense dealt with the very essence of poetry. Both men were philosophers, after all. But Quintus Horatius Flaccus, a.k.a. Horace, was a Roman poet who, in his work Ars Poetica gave the world a set of guidelines for what makes poetry—or any other kind of writing, for that matter—good. Horace was an adversary of purple prose, which was the term he coined for flowery language. He advocated for unity and proper use of meter and style. He set standards for the traits a poet should possess, including a superior intellect, common sense, and adherence to higher ideals. By setting standards for good poetry, Horace also set standards for poetry that’s not good.

What Would Quintus Horatius Flaccus Say Today?

Horace’s ideas proved to be very influential—he was an inspiration behind the thirteenth century Poetria nova by Geoffrey of Vinsauf, which aimed to replace Horace’s work. Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism, written in the early eighteenth century, gives what we call today best practices for poets, but also draws on Horace, among other classical sources, for inspiration.

Over time, of course, the perception of what is good and what is bad in poetry has changed a lot. It would be interesting to see what Horace would say about Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” or Gil-Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised.” But what was set up so long ago remains true to this day—there are those who think that all poetry is bad. There are also those who think that only certain types of poetry are good and that everything else is bad.

The unfortunate William McGonagall had rotten fish thrown at him when he read his poems in front of audiences. Today, he is still considered one of the worst poets in the world, but if you read any of his works, you might think it’s so bad it’s actually good—there is such a thing today. The same might be said for Theophilus Marzials, whose poem “A Tragedy” might just match the badness of anything McGonagall ever did. Or you can look up Margaret Cavendish or Edgar A. Guest, who are also often cited as very bad poets. Or maybe hunt down the poetry of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings. But maybe, just maybe, you might take Bad Poetry Day as an opportunity to write your own bad poetry. And remember—the worse it gets, the more fun it will be to laugh at it.

Practice or Practise–Which Spelling Is Right?

Practice with a C or practise with an S—which spelling is correct? In American English, practice is always right. In British English, whether practice or practise is the correct choice depends on its role in the sentence. How can you know which form to use?

In American English, practice may function as a noun or a verb. Regardless of its role in the sentence, the correct spelling is always practice with a C. In British and other non-American versions of English, spelling may vary depending on the function of the word. For example, if you are referring to what a doctor does, you would say that he practises medicine. You spell the verb form, practise, with an S. However, if you are referring to the the doctor’s business, you can use the noun form, practice with a C. Nevertheless, language is always changing. In some forms of English, such as Canadian English, practice with a C is becoming more popular for nouns and verbs. Some examples may help you visualize the point.

Every day after school, Robert likes to practice singing his solo for the spring concert. [American]

Even though she knew she would regret it during soccer practice, Bonnie devoured a large chocolate ice cream cone.

Shelby met the lawyer to discuss the case at his practice.

Bart lost his licence to practise medicine when he was convicted of a criminal misdemeanour. [British]

I quickly learned to type, though I don’t have a computer on which to practise. [British]

Examples

Take note of these interesting instances of practice and practise from literature and the media.

The Sparkle Cheer Team held its first practice last week at Paso Robles High School with five new athletes.

Paso Robles Daily News

Practice makes perfect, but a new study shows you might need to keep practicing even when you think you are perfect already.

Daily Mail

British medical and legal professionals living in EU countries fear they may no longer have the right to practise law, medicine or other disciplines if the government does not rapidly agree a post-Brexit deal.

People Management

Which spelling is correct—practice with a C or practise with an S? In American English, practice is always correct. However, in other varieties of English, you’ve learned that the answer isn’t as simple because you have to take into consideration whether the word is functioning as a verb or a noun. Besides spelling, have you ever wondered how American English differs from the English spoken in the United Kingdom?