c3PR - Mar Junge

With WordPress Websites becoming more popular, many clients are writing and posting their own content. Most of us rely on spellcheckers. But beware – “Satcom” can become “sitcom” in the blink of an eye. Besides spelling errors, there are other spellchecker quirks just waiting to trip you up. Why should you care about misspelled words, typos and bad grammar? Because if your website content has errors, what does that say about the rest of your services?

You don’t have to be an English major to write good content. In fact, marketing and web content should reflect the way you talk. You can use of incomplete sentences. And sentences that start with “and” or “but”. But even though your grammar doesn’t need to be perfect, there’s no excuse for grammatical mistakes in your web content. Here are ten of the most common errors:

1. Handy Hyphens
E-mail or email? Your spellchecker may think it knows what’s right, but rules change. New words start off hyphenated to make them easier to understand. Once the term is commonly used, the hyphen disappears. If you’re not sure whether to drop the hyphen, do an online search for the two words, look for the most common usage, and go with the flow. Data sheets with lots of product adjectives often go hyphen-hysterical: low-cost, high-power, high-quality, small-footprint widgets. Rule of thumb is to use a hyphen when needed for clarity. Here’s a classic example from a church bulletin: “Our parishioners have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the church basement Saturday.” Now that would be something to see! Better to say: “Our parishioners have donated cast-off clothing of every kind.”

2. Compound Wordiness
Website or web site? New concepts often start out as two words. Then someone bumps them together and eventually we all follow suit. To decide whether or not to compound, consider how the words are used. If it’s a verb, it’s usually two words (Set up the system so that we can check up on the data) but if a noun, compound. (He realized that this was a setup to get him to do another checkup.)

3. Capitalization Calamities
Web or web? Capitalization depends on how you’re using the term. If you’re writing about web pages, web content, etc., use lower case. If you’re referring to the Worldwide Web, it’s a proper noun. Another common mistake is the capitalization of titles. If the title precedes the name, it’s caps (Acme Tools President John Smith) but after the name, it’s lower case (John Jones, president of Acme Tools).

4. Grammar Goblins
A commonly misused word is “affect” (always a verb) vs. “effect” (sometimes a verb, sometimes a noun). “Good grammar will affect the readability of my website. It will have a positive effect.” There’s a less common use of effect as a verb, as in, “You should effect the grammar rules immediately.” Personally, I’ve never used effect as a verb.

5. Amazing Apostrophes
You know a possessive form of a word needs a comma. (Bertha’s computer.) But, because “it’s” is a contraction for “it is,” the possessive form has no apostrophe. Same goes for “who’s” (a contraction for who is) and “whose” (as in “Whose website is this?). Got to love those exceptions!

6. Interesting Italics
The names of newspapers and magazine articles should be italicized, as should other words you want to emphasize. But beware, putting a word or phrase “in italics” (or putting quotation marks around it) can give the impression the phrase isn’t accurate or true, but simply the thoughts of someone other than the writer.

7. Which Hunts
You probably know the difference between “witch” (think pointed hats and broomsticks) and which (as in “which one”). But knowing when to use “which” or “that” isn’t as obvious. If the phrase sounds better with commas, or if you can substitute the two-word phrase “that which,” then use “which.” If you’re unsure, use “that.”

8. Comma, comma and comma
In a string of things, do you need a comma after the word “and”? Not unless it enhances readability. For example, you have a list of rules, a list of groceries, a list of your favorite restaurants and many things to do today.

9. Qiviut Quotations for Qintars and Qophs
This isn’t about words where “Q” is not followed by a “U.” It’s demonstrating how the period should always be placed INSIDE the quotation marks. This rule dates back to the days of moveable lead type, when a little lead period often fell off the end of the letter tray. (For all of you Scrabble fans, Qiviut is an Eskimo word for muskox wool, qintar is Albanian money and qoph is the 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.)

10. Abbreviations and Acronyms
Remember to spell out numbers less than 10 (one, two, three, etc.) and use numerals for numbers great than 10 (i.e., 30, not thirty). As for acronyms, most companies invent their own. If you do, be sure to spell out the first mention, except for company names (IBM is rarely International Business Machines). Want to check on an acronym? Acronym Finder contains more than four million acronyms and abbreviations.

About the author:
Mar Junge has helped scores of Silicon Valley companies with their marketing and public relations campaigns since founding c3PR in 1982. A prolific writer and thought leader, her original and ghostwritten articles have been published in more than 50 industry publications. To contact Mar, email her or call 408-730-8506.