Ms. Claire White, the author of “Effective Writing for the Workplace”, claims that there are writing mistakes that can negatively affect someone’s career. These errors include not knowing your audience, grammatical errors, and gender confusion.
Ms. White stated that the easiest way to lose one’s credibility in the workplace is grammatical errors, especially in a formal document. She explains that the author of the writing should always proofread, have someone else proofread, and then proofread with someone listening to mistakes that look correct on paper, but do not sound correct.
Knowing who you are sending your writing to is a key factor in a successful paper. It is important to know how formal or informal you should be. Secondly, you should always think about who you are writing to, and what message you are trying to get across. Being concise is very important, and being organized is even more important.
Lastly, and possibly the most obvious mistake that a writer can make, is gender confusion. How can someone expect to get a promotion, close a deal, or get anything of the sort accomplished if they address the recipient by the wrong gender? In addition, the use of “his or her” rather than just “his” has become necessary in today’s society. Years ago it was acceptable to refer to anyone as “he”, but times have changed.
Be aware of the common mistakes made in writing in the workplace. Consider whom you are writing to, what it is that you are trying to tell them, be conscious of their gender, and proofread endlessly.
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I got the post to copy and paste. Be sure and put the full citation using APA or MLA style. I have always had a problem with gender confusion in my business correspondence. It is a tough one to handle when the first name could be a male or a female. What advice does Claire White give to handle salutations in letters if the writer doesn't know if the reader is a male or a female?
ReplyDeleteJason,
ReplyDeleteGood job on the post with what you had to work with. I understand you had trouble getting the article in there and that is fine, just (as SBS stated) be sure to cite the source. Overall, well done paraphrasing the article and getting this done in the face of adversity.
Cite your source and/or provide the link to the article by Claire White that you summarized.
ReplyDeleteI found the issue of gender confusion most interesting because I have come across this problem myself. I found the best way to handle this dilemma is to omit Mr/Mrs and just use the last name.
ReplyDeleteI think these are very important points. Most importantly, I see why it would be important to avoid gender misclassification in a letter. It would be worth spending the extra time to be sure of the recipient's gender to avoid any problems, not to mention embarrasment in the workplace!
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