Thursday, January 5, 2017

Commonly Confused Word Pairs

By Laura Wallis for The Stir by CafeMom

Words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings are called homophones, and especially for kids who are just learning to spell, they can cause trouble every time. There are some rules to help budding writers remember the trickiest homophones, but in many cases it’s just a matter of memory. There, their . . . they’ll get them in time.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Yes, Branding Yourself Is More Important Than Ever

You’re awesome. You know it. People close to you know it. But does your professional community know it?

When you think about it, your personal brand is already out there in the world. You’re reminded of that every time you Google yourself. (C’mon. You know you do it.) At a minimum, you’re likely to see your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles prominently featured. That’s a start.

But developing a killer personal brand is an important tool for fine-tuning your professional image.

How to Best Introduce Yourself at a Job Interview

You’re sitting in a reception area, dressed in a carefully chosen outfit. You’re showered and polished. Your hair is perfect. Your hands are manicured. Now, if only your palms would stop sweating!

Few things are quite as unnerving as job interviews. You approach them knowing that unless you match the employer’s expectations you’re not going to land that sweet gig. Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do to ensure you’ll make a good impression when the stakes are high.

Monday, December 26, 2016

5 Business Email Format Tips That Will Help You Succeed

The average business email user receives over ninety emails per day. That means your message has some serious competition for the recipient’s attention. Clear, effective communication begins with using the proper business email format.

What’s so hard about that? you’re thinking. I type out what I have to say, hit Send, and away it goes!

Slow your roll there, champ! How you format your business email makes a difference.

Friday, December 23, 2016

9 Tips for Effective Communication in the Workplace

Workplace communication shouldn’t be this difficult.

Your team is mere days out from releasing the project you’ve all been agonizing over for weeks. There have been flurries of emails and messages, presentations, a legal review, and an afternoon of confusing discussions leading to charts drawn on whiteboards with markers that turned out not to be dry-erase. Oops.

Above all, there have been meetings—so many meetings.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

President Obama and Comedians Dominate Top 5 for Grammar on Twitter, Grammarly Research Finds

Thinking about the quality of writing in social media is usually enough to make English teachers the world over weep. But, it’s not all bad and it’s about time to celebrate some of the more grammar-conscious writers on social networks. This year, in honor of National Grammar Day on March 4, we decided to find social media’s celebrity grammar hero.

After analyzing the tweets of the top fifty celebrities by size of follower base, Conan O’Brien comes out on top as our #GrammarDay champion.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

5 Things That Will Make You Better at Content Writing

Writers around the world publish millions of articles to the Internet every day. Does yours stand out? If you’re a content creator, making a few simple changes will help you become the kind of writer whose posts are readable, relatable, and shareable. Here are five things that will make you better at content writing and help your posts shine like a beacon in a sea of words.

1Studying other writers.