• Soumalaya
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• 2009-07-22
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• No Comments

Keep Territories in Mind While Writing English

The young, tech savvy generation might be doing well when it comes to being acquainted with cutting edge technology but when it comes to communication, especially writing, an adverse effect of technology is slowly but surely making its presence felt. Some social networking sites impose a word limit on the users and we all know that mobile messaging (one of the most popular ways of communication nowadays) comes with a character limit. This is leading to the development of a whole new lingo in cyberspace where correct spellings are given very little importance owing to the necessity to provide as much information as possible within the character limits.

While messages like “Tk cr” and “Nice to c u 2″ have come to be accepted in messages and scraps, the trouble starts when people start mixing business communication with personal exchanges. Alarmingly, we are observing more and more people using short forms and incorrect spellings while writing business proposals, letters and so on. They might not be doing it on purpose, but heavy messaging and frequent chatting is modifying their writing style in such a way that they are failing to spot the incongruities of messaging lingo in their official assignments.

Care should be taken to avoid this at all costs as such writing will not be tolerated outside personal exchanges. Messages should be written in proper and correct English to avoid this habit from creeping into the writing style or if that is not possible, a conscious effort to keep personal messages personal and official communication official has to be made. Since messaging and social networking are here to stay and influence almost everybody, educational institutions have a role to play in making young minds aware of this problem.

• Soumalaya
• |
• 2009-07-13
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• No Comments

Figuring The Nuances of Jobs

This post is a continuation of an earlier post in which i had mentioned that professional life requires you to be an altogether different creative writer by and large. I thought of sharing some of my experiences of writing in the professional sphere. I plan to put up several posts on general as well as specific requirements.

I always wrote long sentences while writing answers or essays for my courses and in examinations. I had to ditch this habit and concentrate on making my sentences short and crisp. Long sentences often tend to get confusing where you are required to put things across as clearly as possible. This applies to lengthy business proposals as well. Though it will unavoidably be lengthier than blog posts or web content, you need to keep your language simple, your sentences short and make every effort to give maximum information using less words. In other words, you will need to get straight to the point.

It is a good idea to include pictures or sketches while trying to write about a place or a product instead of trying to describe everything elaborately in writing. A picture, as it goes, is worth a thousand words.

Keeping your English correct and keeping an eye out for errors will help you in copy editing, proofreading etc. I will put up a separate post to discuss the nuances of editing for a publishing house or other concerns.

It is important that your writings have some visual appeal as well. Split your article into several short paragraphs. Using numbers or bullets to highlight points will make your article eye catching and your readers will be able to easily spot the important points.