Would You Like to Guarantee the Correctness
of Your Writing Before You Hit Send?
"Hi everyone I am D----- e-----, I am interested in promoting my social media skills to companies on linked in. I can do status updates, write blogs and post updates on pictures, I can do a lot of work for your company in social media"
Deepest apologies to Mr. E-----, but the rules of academic writing dictate that I cite my sources. Mr. E----- placed this status update on LinkedIn, and it appeared in my feed--in exactly the nick of time. I was desperate for a way to introduce this new blog featuring my copyediting services.
My question: Would you hire this person? If you answered yes, I doubt you will reach the pinnacle of success in your business. If you do, I guarantee that there are minor holes and empty spaces in your business that are costing you money.
Why am I so certain? Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. If you overlook the multiplicity of primary-grade level errors in this snippet of writing from Mr. E-----, you will overlook other major aspects of business operations.
My panties are in a knot for nothing, you say; surely no one cares about correctness in writing anymore. Well, wake up and smell the coffee; some of us do. Let's go through Mr. E-----'s errors one by one so that you understand the seriousness of posting this publicly on a social media site geared toward professionals.
First of all, the quotation marks are mine. I wanted to make it clear that I was quoting someone. Punctuation matters as you will soon see.
Okay: no period after "everyone." He doesn't capitalize his own last name. He doesn't capitalize LinkedIn nor does he make it one word; a convention that everyone who uses LinkedIn knows the world over. He follows "pictures" with a comma when that is the end of a sentence, requiring a period. No period at all at the end of his status update; "social media" is just left hanging out there, no closure available to those of us reading with fond memories of Strunk and White occupying our consciousness.
Will Mr, E----- find a job? Given this status update, I worry about his resume. What errors await the human resource bot scanner there? In fact, I'd like to offer Mr. E----- a free resume review because my purpose is not just to point out errors, but to help, to advise, to give wise counsel.
I confess; I am a lover of good literature. Gone Girl didn't pass muster with me as good literature; I read the first page and a half and put the book down, disappointed. It just wasn't T.S. Eliot, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, or John Edgar Wideman.
Yet the creativity and drive of entrepreneurship, successful entrepreneurship, in my mind requires dotting all of your "i's" and crossing all of your "t's." So I ask: do you worry about proofreading before you hit send? Are you concerned about first impressions when the initial contact that a prospect receives is a social media message or an email?
Worry no more; Dr. Ni is here!!! My copyediting is specifically for you. I will proofread and edit what you send to me as an email attachment, and make your words shine, I love that: making you look stellar on paper. It is one of the many ways I give back, and I charge because the landlord doesn't accept tickets. Information is power, no?
So hop on over to my services page and send me that letter of introduction to that influencer whom you hope, through joint venture, will take your product to the next level. For no matter what they taught you in business school, college, or vocational school, first impressions really do matter and they are lasting.
To good words!!!
