Revising and Proofreading Business Messages

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Revising and Proofreading Business Messages

• By Andrew Herman

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Understanding the Process of Revision

• Techniques of writing
• Techniques of reading
• Knowing where mistakes are
• Understanding punctuation marks

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Concise wording

• Flabby

• Concise

• At a later date
• At this point in time
• Afford an opportunity
• Are of the opinion
• The present time
• Due to the fact that
• During the time
• Feel free to
• For the period of

• Later
• Now
• Allow
• Believe, think that
• Now, presently
• Because
• While
• Please
• for

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Wordy Preposition Phrases
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Long lead-Ins

• Long lead-ins have to much information that is
  useless
• Ex..
• Wordy- this email message is being sent to all of
  you to let you know that new parking permits will
  be issued January 1.
• Concise- new parking permits will be
• issued January 1.

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Outdated Expresion

• Outdated Expression

• Modern phrases

• ARE IN RECEIPT OF
• AS PER YOUR REQUEST
• ATTACH HERETO
• ENCLOSED PLEASE FIND
• PURSUANT TO YOUR REQUEST
• THANK YOU IN ADVANCED
• I TRUST THAT
• UNDER SEPARATE COVER

• HAVE RECEIVED
• AT YOUR REQUEST
• ATTACHED
• ENCLOSED IS/ARE
• AT YOUR REQUEST
• THANK YOU
• I THINK, I BELIEVE
• SEPARATELY

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Needless Adverbs

• If these adverbs are taken away you sound more
  business like and more credible.
• Wordy- we actually didnt give his proposal a
  very fair trial.
• Concise- we did not give his proposal a fair
  trial.

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Fillers

• Fatten sentence
• Begin an Idea with there is
• Take up space
• Fillers are some what unnecessary in certain
  places

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Repetitious Words

• Words to avoid
• Shortens a message
• Improves readability
• Substituting pronouns
• Replace words used to much

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Redundant Words

• More than is needed, desired, or required

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Jargon

• Can be seen as professional
• Traced to be 14th century old French
• Meaning twittering
• An outlandish, technical language of a particular
  profession, group, or trade

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Slang

• Slang is compsed of language that go out of style
  right away
• No longer appealing
• Out of fashion

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clichés

• Clichés are the old coins of language phrases
  that once made a striking impression but have
  since been rubbed smooth by repeated handling.

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Precise Verbs

• Gives a precise definition
• In stead of saying contact you you say I will
  telephone, fax, e-mail, visit

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Buried Verbs

• Needlessly
• Converted to wordy nouns
• Check page 86

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Vivid Adjectives

• Highly descriptive
• Dynamic
• Dont over use these
• More concrete
• Dont use to many

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Understanding the Process of Proofreading

• what to what for proof reading
• Spelling
• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Names and numbers
• Format

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Proofreading Routine

• Read carefully
• Double words
• Spell checker
• Find errors and the tones
• Read every line twice
• standard proofreading marks

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Proofreading Complex Documents

• Print a copy double spaced
• Time to proofread adequately
• Be prepared to find more than usual errors
• Read document at least 2 times
• Reduce your reading speed
• Have someone to read the document outloud

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Sources

• writingforward.com
• english.udel.edu
• stf.lea.org
• iowapages.org. Includes vivid verbs
• www.grammarly.com
• scottbush.net
• thesebastards.blogspot.com