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COPYWRITING TIPS
Stumped by a grammar question? Looking for marketing writing best practices? Check out the Content Bureau’s B2B marketing copywriting tips.
Featured Resources
Scrub “Master/Slave” and “Whitelist/Blacklist” from Marketing Content
Five Tips from a PowerPoint Script Writer
Avoid the Pitfalls of Online Research for Stats and Surveys
More Resources
Scrub “Master/Slave” and “Whitelist/Blacklist” from Marketing Content
The technical phrase “master and slave” describes a scenario where one device or process controls another, like two hard drives; it’s also used to describe photography flash technology. The phrase has been around for decades, according to Wikipedia. To read the words...
The Oxford Comma Argument Rages On
“Nothing, but nothing—profanity, transgender pronouns, apostrophe abuse—excites the passion of grammar geeks more than the serial, or Oxford, comma,” according to The New Yorker. Much like asking creative types if they put one space or two after a period, demanding...
The Grammar Queen’s Guide to Capitalization
Your Highness: I must confess a shortcoming. Sometimes I’m not sure when to capitalize words. OK, some words. The important ones, like my Boss’s Job Title (boss’s job title?). And the smaller ones in headlines. The more examples that come to mind, the more...
He, She, or They? Making Marketing Content Gender-Neutral
The public transition of Caitlyn Jenner and the popularity of the Amazon show “Transparent” have given words like “transgender” and “cisgender” a higher profile. At the same time, journalists and other content developers struggle with gender sensitivity in their...
The Grammar Queen’s Guide to the Apostrophe and Its Uses
Apostrophe angst? Ask the Grammar Queen for help. In this post, she offers four simple steps to help you remember how to place your apostrophes properly.
Five Tips from a PowerPoint Script Writer
PowerPoint slides provide visual support for the facts, figures, and messages that you want to impart to your target audience. But your script is what really helps to tell your story. Developing a compelling script for your PowerPoint presentation takes work and...
Newsletter Writing 101: Answering the Crucial Questions
So at the last staff meeting someone on your team—maybe your boss?—suggested putting out a newsletter. Great idea! Wait, um, you want me to manage it? Edit it? …Write it? [cue crickets chirping] Oh, sure. Of course I can. Yep. Can vs. Should: Three Questions Of course...
Unsuckit.com: Jargon Therapy at Your Fingertips
Ah, jargon. The business writer’s bane. (And, let’s be honest here, very occasionally the business writer’s savior. It’s late. You’re on deadline. You need to shoehorn a 50-word description into a 30-word elevator pitch. It happens. But we aspire to better things.) If...
The Anti-Dan Brown Primer: How Not to Write Like the Popular Author
The reviews are in for Inferno, the new thriller from The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, and everyone pretty much agrees that it’s a terribly written book, which is nevertheless a page-turner and will make bucketloads of cash. Rest assured that if you borrow ideas...
Serial Commas in Marketing Communications Provide Clarity, Without Contortions
In today’s post, the serial comma—also known as the Oxford comma. For those of us who may become rather focused on such things, the debate about “serial comma, yes or no?” can be serious business. Commas are wonderful tools. They convey changes of direction, clarify...
Check Your Jargon—Please
Your Highness: I’m clued in enough to laugh at those parodies of over-the-top business jargon that periodically make the rounds… but I’m also quite aware of the need to keep my job fit in by embracing the specialized language of my professional peers. What’s an...
Sorry, No, That’s Not What You Mean At All
Your Highness: I’m not much of a writer but, like so many of your loyal subjects, I have a job that often requires me to write. I want to be professional—and avoid embarrassing mistakes. I need an on-call editor. Or at least a cheat sheet. Please help! My dear...
Comma Commentary: To Splice or Not to Splice
If you want to set off a heated argument among a bunch of writers, buy them a round of drinks and say, “So, comma placement. What’s the big deal, anyway?” As Ben Yagoda, a professor of English at the University of Delaware, wrote in The New York Times earlier this...
Quotation Dos and Don’ts
Your Highness: I hold a job that requires I write articles, press releases, and similar pieces in which I quote others. You’d think I’d have such matters down by now, but I’ll come clean: I never really learned the rules for using quotation marks. To complicate...
Typos of Death
There are just some typos you can’t forget – even if you want to.
Never Fear the Semicolon
Your Highness: I have a confession to make: I live in fear of the semicolon. As phobias go, I know it could be worse. I could have an aversion to, say, spiders, or maybe conference calls or my BlackBerry. Which would really be unfortunate, since I work in marketing....
The Anti-Valentine: Seven Things Not to Say or Write on February 14
You’ve made it through 364 days without killing your relationship. Good for you! Now it’s Valentine’s Day – the day your Significant Other will scrutinize everything about you. Even your grammar. If you can just get through February 14 without committing a major...
Bring Local Flavor to Your Marketing Campaigns With Transcreation
How do you ensure that your campaign maintains the impact of the original without having to launch new creative in each market? This is where marketing “transcreation” comes into play. Transcreation is a freer form of translation, closer to copywriting. The result is a text that’s linguistically and culturally adapted for specific countries and/or regions, be it for Latin America, Africa, Europe or even local U.S. Hispanic markets.
Excuse Your Typos? No I Won’t, Actually.
As our fingers fly across our smartphones, we’ve developed a shorthand way to dash off messages without spending too much time on the finer points of spelling and grammar. “C U later” and “gr8” substitute for actual language when we’re communicating via the small...
What Does My Hyphenation Say About Me?
In which The Grammar Queen elucidates her subjects on the proper use of the hyphen. She clears up the subject. Clears-up? The cleared-up subject still a bit foggy? Read on.
What’s My Email Saying Behind My Back?
Your Highness:
Many of my business contacts and coworkers know me primarily through e-mail; the impression I make is almost entirely via the written word. What can I do to avoid embarrassing myself in writing? The Grammar Queen points the way.
Writing Titles That Hook the Reader
Those first six or seven words on the cover can be the hardest part of writing! To make sure readers keep reading, we need snappy, ultra-compelling titles and sub-headlines that are also relevant, informative, and comply with corporate branding guidelines. Stuck in a rut? Here are some tips for getting out. . .
The Very Best Style Guide Reference Books
If you’ve read the fabulous Grammar Queen’s post on creating a corporate style guide (and if you haven’t read it, do so right now), you know you must make some decisions about how your organization crosses the t’s and dots the i’s. However, you can’t possibly list...
Is My Writing Too Passive?
Your Highness: This letter is being written because I’ve been told that there is a problem with my writing. Specifically, a problem with the passive voice. But understanding this is difficult. I mean, my job is in marketing. I’m supposed to be good with words. And...
How Do I Use the Subjunctive?
Your Highness: As part of my job in a large corporation, I must communicate in writing with my colleagues and customers. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, holding as I do a degree from a fancy business school and all, but here goes: When it comes to grammar, I’ve...
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