If you want to impress the boss by looking professional, smart and educated clean up your e-mail. According to a study by WhiteSmoke, developers of English writing software, 60% of all business communications contain one or more grammar or spelling errors. The most common error is missing words, especially verbs. In addition, 28 percent of mistakes on business correspondence relate to punctuation.
According to grammar expert Lewena Bayer, the four worst e-mail errors you can make are:
1. Using the word “it” but never defining what “it” is or refers to is confusing.
2. While sentence fragments are faster to write than complete sentences with a subject, verb and proper punctuation in each one, they portray incomplete thoughts.
3. When you mix up singular and plural pronouns, your lack of basic grammar skills is glaringly obvious. Here is an example: Incorrect: Everyone in the marketing department should bring their laptop computer to the off-site meeting. Correct: Everyone in the marketing department should bring his or her laptop computer to the off-site meeting.
4. Using all caps for words that do not need to be capitalized is incorrect and makes it appear as if you are shouting at the recipient.
Source: www.whitesmoke.com
