Tips and Tales
Before You Click the Send Button...
Hold your horses! A few minutes of review can prevent a great deal of potential confusion and embarrassment. Rather than beat you about the head and shoulders with the usual edicts regarding grammar, spelling, and punctuation, here are some practical tips for how to review those e-mails and memos before you send them:
Read your message aloud. We tend to communicate more effectively when we speak than when we write. This is because we often write in a stilted, unnatural, and wordy way. Reading written text aloud allows you to hear how your words sound in a conversational context. As you read aloud, ask yourself if you would you say it this way if you were actually speaking to the people to whom you are sending the message.
We at KB Comm encourage you to write like you talk!
Print a hard copy of your message and read it. It's often easier to pick out typographical, spelling, and punctuation errors in a hard copy than on a computer screen. Also, excessively long blocks of text are more apparent on paper than on screen.
Read your message again later. If you have time, give your message and your brain a rest, even if only for a few minutes. When you read your message later, it will be like seeing it with a fresh pair of eyes, and you will probably want to make some changes.
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