Style guidelines for financial services firms
Style guidelines for financial services firms can help you to make your written communications more consistent and thus easier to read. Why create style guidelines for your financial services firm? It can be distracting if writing styles are inconsistent within and across documents published by your firm. For example, is it “counterparty” in the […]
MARCH NEWSLETTER: Curly versus straight
What kind of quotation marks do you use in your writing? Did you know that there are two kinds of quotation marks—straight and curly? Straight quotation marks don’t curve, whereas curly quotes seem to wriggle on the page (see image below). The actual appearance of the marks will vary depending on the font you use. […]
MISTAKE MONDAY for Feb. 24: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?
Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment. I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading. This mistake in The Wall Street Journal reminds me that everyone makes mistakes—even companies with professional proofreaders on staff. Don’t beat yourself up when mistakes slip through. […]
Hyphens matter
Hyphen, shmyphen, who cares whether you use hyphens? A Facebook ad drove home the lesson that hyphens’ role as connectors is important. “Imagine life pain free,” said the ad. This hyphenless sentence could be interpreted as “Imagine getting ‘life pain’ at no cost.” No, thanks, I’ll pass on that offer. The advertiser should have written, […]
FEB. NEWSLETTER: Format your numbers correctly
Formatting ordinal numbers It drives me crazy to see formatting like “10th” in people’s writing. I believe it happens because Microsoft wrongly makes superscript its default for ordinal numbers. But that’s wrong, at least according to Associated Press style, which shows the “th” suffix in regular font. I couldn’t find any well-known style guide that […]