Distinguish between commonly confused words

Here are a few words that are commonly confused, especially in business writing:

among vs between

Between introduces two items; among more than two: “The host divided the pie between Don and Phil.” vs “The host divided the pie among Peter, Paul, John, George and Mary.” Also note the correct use of “between ... and …” in this sentence: “I had a choice between sugar and sweetener”. There’s no such thing as “between ... or …”

can vs may

Can refers to the ability to do something, and may refers to authorisation, permission and sometimes possibility; e.g. “They can finish the project by March.”; “May I have an extra week to finish the project?” May is almost always the correct word in a question.

like vs such as

Use such as to denote categories. Use like to give specific examples of members of a group; e.g. “The Clean Water Act could harm marsh inhabitants such as fish, waterfowl and amphibians.” and “The Clean Water Act could harm marsh inhabitants like the great heron, the kingfisher and the giant toad.”

will vs shall

The old rule dictated that we use shall for the first person (I shall leave when I am ready) and will for second and third (Both you and he will want to know what happened). But in modern English, shall is outdated and pretentious. Use will across the board.

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Master Microsoft's 'Readability Statistics'

‘Readability’ is the term used to describe how easy or difficult something is to read. It might surprise you that an appropriate level for most corporate writing is Grade 10 (Standard 8); i.e. age 15-16. Did you know that most major newspapers, locally and internationally, are written at a Grade 6 level, while the Wall Street Journal is written at a Grade 12 level?

How can you improve the readability of your writing? Simplify, simplify, simplify. But luckily, you don’t have to monitor your own readability, because Microsoft Word does it for you. Here’s how to activate it:

1. Click on ‘Tools’.
2. Click on ‘Spelling and Grammar’.
3. Under ‘Options’, activate the text box that says ‘Show readability statistics’.
   
   (If you need to know how to do this using Microsoft 2007, drop me a line.)
   

Each time you run a spell check, the stats should be displayed and you can tailor the level of your text to suit your audience. The ‘readability statistics’ facility includes:

1. Counts: number of words, characters, paragraphs, sentences in the document
2. Averages: average sentences / paragraph, words / sentence, characters / word
3. Readability statistics: % of passive sentences, Reading Ease, Grade Level

When...

• the Passive Sentences percentage is higher than 15%, or
• the Flesch Reading Ease score is lower than 60%, or
• the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score is greater than 5-6 (for younger readers), 6-9 (for general readers) or 9-12 (for industry or technical readers),

… you need to look at your document again, with fresh eyes.

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Learn to beat 'writers' block'

Free-writing is one of the easiest and quickest ways to warm up your writing brain and beat ‘writers’ block’. Put pen to paper and let your ideas flow. Don’t worry about the quality of your thoughts, or about clarity or idea organisation. Pay no attention to spelling, grammar or punctuation. Just write as quickly you can, by hand, and don’t stop. Do this for five minutes.

Free-writing helps you to access the big picture, without being sidetracked by details. It’s a non-linear activity, using the side of the brain (right) that deals in concepts and abstractions. As soon as you begin to organise or edit your ideas, you’ve moved to the left side, where linear thinking happens. And that’s where thoughts can get blocked. Good luck.

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