Spelling and other mistakes to avoid

From Lauraibm

Revision as of 13:35, 1 November 2007

In our article summaries ...

Attitude

• We need to be slightly pro-IBM, anti-competitors and unbiased about other third parties.
  • We need to acknowledge sources, but we're not here to advertise for anyone else, so there's no need to say 'Exclusive research by CBR has found...' . In this sentence, just remove the 'exclusive'.

Style

• We need to be concise and non-academic. We should display slightly more certainty than an academic author would. Therefore
  • Avoid phrases like 'it appears that' or 'it seems that'.
  • Some journals will put inverted commas around terms such as "green" to indicate that this is a new expression with which some readers may be unfamiliar. But we know that our readers will be familiar with this particular term, so we shouldn't use the inverted commas.
  • Use the shortest familiar rendering of each company name -- e.g. Sun, rather than Sun Microsystems Corporation.
  • In '... with total CO₂ emissions in the UK actually increasing between the years 2000 and 2005' , it is obvious to everyone that 2000 and 2005 are referring to years, so delete the superfluous 'the years' .
• Copying word-for-word can be OK.
  • If the original sentence makes good sense and meets all the other guidelines mentioned here, just copy it. For an internal newsltter, plagiarism is fine. Don't waste time and mental effort trying to concoct a different way of saying the same thing.

Spelling

• Correct use of the possessive apostrophe:

Incorrect

'Consumers’ have a growing desire to go green'

Correct, because it's a plural, not a genitive.

'Consumers have a growing desire to go green'

• Be aware of
  • 'its' meaning 'of it', versus
  • 'it's' meaning 'it is'.

• over time vs. overtime.

This is incorrect: 'overtime this group has expanded...'

UK English, rather than American English

• Use hyphens to connect nouns in adjectival phrases, where possible.
  • Americans might say 'board level pressures are making a difference' .
  • In the UK, it is better to say 'board-level pressures ...'
    • because this makes it clear that pressures (and not board) is the subject of the sentence.
• An exception to this rule occurs in abbreviations, for example:

If 'AIM' stands for Application Interface Marketing, neither the UK nor the USA puts hyphens between the nouns.

Sentence construction

• Avoid joining two sentences with a comma.

For example, this is incorrect:

Within the UK, IT accounts for 4% of total greenhouse gas emissions, it is vital for CIOs to act now in order to reduce these emissions.

It should be expressed either separately as:

Within the UK, IT accounts for 4% of total greenhouse gas emissions. It is vital for CIOs to act now in order to reduce these emissions.,

or with the use of an appropriate conjunction such as:

Within the UK, IT accounts for 4% of total greenhouse gas emissions, so it is vital for CIOs to act now in order to reduce these emissions.

• Use commas liberally, if they assist understanding.
  • Imagine that the reader has to read the passage out loud to an audience, without having read it before. So if you intend a natural pause, and there could be any doubt, insert a comma (at least).

Arguably, the first-time reader may miss the pause in this sentence:

'Despite concerns government pressures are making a difference.'

Whereas this leaves nothing to chance:

'Despite concerns, government pressures are making a difference.'