Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips

Tip # 451: 12-step program for e-mail addicts

These FREE weekly business writing tips
will help you improve your business writing.

Tip #451:  Here is a 12-step program for e-mail addicts from Marsha Egan of Egan E-Mail Solutions in Reading, PA.:
  1. Admit you have an issue in managing your e-mail.
  2. Turn off automatic send and receive.
  3. Commit  to leaving your inbox empty every time you go into it.
  4. Create folders where you can file inbox material.
  5. Title folders with broad subjects.
  6. Deal immediately with e-mails that take two minutes or less.
  7. Establish a schedule to check e-mail daily.
  8. Don’t use e-mail if a phone call can solve a problem.
  9. Choose a date to clear the inbox in hour-long increments.
  10. Use one subject for each e-mail.
  11. Tell others you won’t be checking your e-mail every five minutes, and don’t expect an answer in five minutes.
  12. Celebrate incremental e-mail improvements.

Weekly Exercise:

We receive over 200 emails per day.  We encourage you to answer our weekly tips, but please, if you are answering this weekly tip exercise,  identify the tip number in the subject line of your email.

This week’s quiz:

Shorten the following phrases to one word:

  1. at this point in time

  2. with regard to

  3. on a local basis

  4. for the purpose of
Comments:

Roger Groce commented about Tip #450:  Thanks, Ms. Pincu, but syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick, author of The Writer's Art (among numerous other works) and former editor of the Richmond News-Leader disagrees.  He is likely not the only authority to do so.  I am traveling and do not have ready access to Fowler's Modern English Usage, but I suspect this authoritative reference would also specify persons in this instance.  Let us not be too hasty in bowing to popular convention.

Alain Richard asked:  I know some differences between American and British English. Do you know if there are a lot between Canadian and American English?

My answer: 

Please see this web site for the answer to your question:  http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm

Quote of the week:

“Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.”  (Unknown)

Answer to this week's exercise:

  1. at this point in time---Now

  2. with regard to---About

  3. on a local basis ---Locally

  4. for the purpose of---To

To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review,  copy the questions,  paste  them into an email, answer them,  and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.

 

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10 Easy Guides for Getting to Your Writing Target
By Gloria Pincu, M.A. , President of Basic Learning Systems, Inc.
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Here are some books on business writing that I recommend.

Bull's Eye Business Writing is also available from Amazon.com.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, author, Lynne Truss The Everything Resume Book by Steven Graber
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , by William Knowlton Zinsser  The Gregg Reference Manual, by William A. Sabin 
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, White, E. B. White  How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing, by Robert Gunning, Richard A. Kallan (Contributor) 

More books on business writing and other business subjects  (available from Amazon.com). 

Contact Gloria Pincu at Basic Learning Systems, Inc.

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