Have you ever wondered how introverted or extroverted your work style is? This short quiz will help you understand whether your writing personality tends toward introversion or extroversion.
What kind of writing personality do you have? What parts of writing are easy or challenging for you? Share your stories in the comments.
There are days when it all comes together for you, but this might not happen to be one of them.
Some days you’re able to just crank through one task after another. Your “sent” folder brims with solid work before noon, your contribution to the afternoon meeting is well received, and you even manage to wrap up with enough time and energy to hit the gym before dinner. If only someone could bottle up days like this, you muse.
Ah, the holidays! The winter festivities mean that many of us get to leave the stress of office life behind. If you’re taking an extended break, you may want to create a holiday out-of-office message to let your contacts know you’ll get back to them just as soon as the eggnog is out of your system and you’ve returned to your desk.
Within reason, it’s okay to have some fun with your out-of-office message.
Parentheses are punctuation marks that are used to set off information within a text or paragraph. Outside the realm of emoticons, parentheses always come in pairs. They can enclose a single word, a phrase, or even an entire sentence. Typically, the words inside the parentheses provide extra information about something else in the sentence.
Let’s use this example to understand what a simile is:
An infinitive is a simple verb combined with ‘to.’ For example: to sleep, to run, to fly, to hide
Remember this formula: Infinitive = to + verb
Infinitives can function as subjects, objects, adjectives, and adverbs. For example:
To wait for an answer seemed like a waste of time. (To wait is the subject of the sentence.)
I can’t stand it; I refuse to look. (To look is the direct object of the sentence.)
A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text (not at the bottom: that’s an underscore). It’s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. Dashes are used to separate groups of words, not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does. There are three forms of dashes: em, en, and the double hyphen.
The most common types of dashes are the en dash (–) and the em dash (—).
A contraction is a shortened form of a word (or group of words) that omits certain letters or sounds. In most contractions, an apostrophe represents the missing letters. The most common contractions are made up of verbs, auxiliaries, or modals attached to other words: He would=He’d. I have=I’ve. They are=They’re. You cannot=You can’t.
Contractions are common in speech—so common that we don’t always take the time to pronounce them precisely, which leads to a particular contraction mistake writers might make if they’re not paying attention.
Job searching is like dating: each side involved is trying to find the perfect fit. You’re sizing up an employer to see if they’ve got what it takes to make you happy. The employer is evaluating whether you can make their dreams come true as a productive, successful team member.
However, much like dating, there are some behaviors that can be a turn-off. No, we’re not talking about things like mansplaining at the dinner table or endlessly sharing stories about an ex.
In today’s competitive job market, how you communicate with potential employers can make your skills stand out. Making sure you effectively express yourself, accurately represent your abilities, and stay present throughout the process is what makes the difference in ultimately receiving a job offer.
Your first interaction with your desired company is likely to happen through writing.
Email has transformed the way we communicate. However, just because it’s easy and quick like many other kinds of digital communication doesn’t mean you should skip all forethought about how your message is received—literally and figuratively.
Email etiquette matters, especially as email increasingly becomes our more formal mode of communication. Take this quiz to find out whether you’re a master of email manners or you have some schooling left!
In ancient times (circa 1995), so-called “cell phones” were designed exclusively for making phone calls. But these days we spend a lot more time typing on our smartphones than talking.
We use our mobile devices for everything—texting, email, posting to social media, Slacking with coworkers, commenting on our favorite blogs, and flirting with our latest matches. There’s even a growing number of authors tapping out entire novels on their mobile devices.
“All you need to land an interview is a good set of skills.”
If only that were true! Besides possessing skills, you have to present them in a way that gets noticed and shows that you are right for the job. Which skills should you showcase? What are the best ways to show skills on your resume? Let’s find out now.
Would you say that you should list all your capabilities on your resume?
The passive voice is often maligned by grammazons as a bad writing habit. Or, to put it in the active voice, grammazons across the English-speaking world malign the passive voice as a bad writing habit.
In general, the active voice makes your writing stronger, more direct, and, you guessed it, more active. The subject is something, or it does the action of the verb in the sentence.
To share or not to share? That’s the twenty-first-century Hamlet’s dilemma. With good reason: if you post those pictures of the weekend’s booze cruise, will a potential employer pass you over?
Here’s the answer: set the privacy on those pics to friends-only. More and more employers are scoping candidates on social media, so the image you present could affect your prospects. To maintain a professional profile while job hunting, make sure you avoid these nine dangerous don’ts on social media.
