Dobrian Business Writing Skills

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.Do not use commas following a decimal point (56,102.3888).Do not use a comma if you're expressing a year (1996).Days of the month require a comma if they're placed after the month (December 25, 1956) but not if they're placed before the month (9 July 1850).Either style is acceptable.However, do not use the all-numerical form (6/11/93), as nobody will know whether you've put the month or the day first! Use ordinal numbers (August 15th) only if the date doesn't include a year.Time of day is usually spelled out if it's a full, half, or quarter hour (Four o'clock in the afternoon; a quarter to noon), but written in numeral form otherwise (2:11 A.M.).Military time uses no punctuation (1800 hours, or simply 1800).Roman NumeralsYou'll seldom have to use or read Roman numerals in a business situation, except perhaps in writing outlines, but here's a quick course in how to translate Arabic to Roman:Page 36Arabic Roman Arabic Roman1 I 15 XV2 II 20 XX3 III 40 XL4 IV 50 L5 V 60 LX6 VI 90 XC7 VII8 VIII 100 C9 IX 500 D10 X 1000 MNote that you simply add Is, Vs or Xs, as appropriate, unless the number you're trying to express is one less, five less, or 10 less than a multiple of 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, or 1,000.In that case, place the difference between the number you're expressing and the greater multiple.For instance, 48 would be written XLVIII; 49 is IL.Eighty-three is LXXXIII; 84 is LXXXIV.The year 1998 would be written MXMVIII; the next year would be MIM.do vou wonder whv Roman numerals have hardlv been used for centuries?EXERCISESPunctuationI.Punctuate the following sentences:1.Ive had some tough times in the past two years but that was the toughest day of my life2.On the Senate floor one of the Republican partys major bills is in trouble The Democrats on the Appropriations Committee which must approve it seem intent on talking the bill to death3.We're talking about the right to know making sure people have access to the information they want in a timely manner and in a form they can understand4.Although it was thought to be broadly accurate Bede's history was written almost 300 years after the events it describes which is rather like us writing a history of Elizabethan England based on hearsayPage 375.Oddly McCormick never called for two of the most common shortenings tho and thru He just didnt like them which of course is all the reason that is necessary when its your newspaper6.Websters first work A Grammatical Institute of the English Language consisting of three books a grammar a reader and a speller appeared between 1783 and 1785 but he didnt capture the publics attention until the publication in 1788 of The American Spelling Book7.Outside the New College chapel Spooner rebuked a student by saying I thought you read the lesson badly today But Sir I didnt read the lesson protested the student Ah said Spooner I thought you didntII.Some of the following sentences could be punctuated better, and some are acceptable as they are.Find and correct the mistakes:1.Before the Windsors' honeymoon was half over, the Devil, in the plausible guise of Charles Bedaux, had devised a sorry piece of work for the brother whom George VI had unwisely left in idleness.2.The Duke did not care for Maxim's and the Tour d'Argent; they were the most celebrated restaurants but also the most expensive.3.Reporters temperamentally and traditionally are skeptical and perhaps justifiably so, whenever the personal honesty of a public official is questioned.4.At 6:45 (still 15 minutes before poll-closing time in the West) Eric Sevareid of CBS reported; ''We are pretty confident now of a Kennedy victory; all of the computing machines are now saying Kennedy."5.If you're watching a black and white movie, its actually better to have a black and white television.6."Do you think he's innocent," the lawyer asked?7.In the entire history of the case, both before the Committee on Un-American Activities and in Hiss's two trials for perjury, no one could be found who could remember George Crosleyexcept Patricia Hiss.Page 38Plurals, Possessives, Abbreviations, CapitalizationsSome of the following sentences contain mistakes.Identify and correct them:1.I'll be arriving on Fri., Aug 18, 1995.2."Keeping up with the Joneses'" is an old expression.3.Pres.Bush was once the head of the C.I.A.4.Woodrow Wilson was the only President of the United States to have a P.H.D.Degree.5.Phenomenon such as comets and eclipses happen rarely.6.One of my favorite reference books is the Reader's Encyclopedia.7.I was praying with my Brethren from the Universal Life Church.8.Mick Jagger is the Rolling Stones' most famous member.9.Many americans love comedy shows from overseas, such as Monty Python's Flying Circus.10.I spoke for several hours with Professor Einstein, who explained that his Theory of Relativity was just a wild guess.11.A Muslim may have as many as four wives.NumbersWrite out these numbers:36,61640626.656 7/81,086,924.5Page 393Getting to WorkEditing and ProofreadingBasic editing primarily involves checking a manuscript for organization, grammar, spelling, punctuation, stylistic consistency, and factual accuracy, and may involve extensive rewriting or "cutting and pasting." Proofreading involves working with material that's already typeset, checking it against the original manuscript.In other words, editing mainly involves working on the big picture; proofreading is the correction of tiny details.Editing, of course, involves the proofreading of a manuscript, and typeset copy often requires additional organizing or rewriting.Besides, nowadays, a lot of publishing gets done in-house, often with the same person handling the entire job.Therefore, editing and proofreading are really one ongoing, multistep process.Whether you're editing or proofreading, you'll need to know some standard proofreader's marksthat is, marks that tell the typesetter what corrections to make.The list in Exhibit 1 is not exhaustive, but it will get you through most situations.Exhibit 1.Proofreader's marks.Page 40Here's an example of how proofread copy might look:Proofreading and editing require tremendous precision and attention to detail.When you're proofreading, you'll have to read line-by-line, breaking each line up into individual words, and sometimes individual numbers and letters!Many good proofreaders will read a piece of copy several times.First, they'll glance over it quickly to see if any mistakes pop out at them.Second, they'll read it very closely, looking for the harder-to-find mistakes in spelling, punctuation, or grammar.(A good idea is to use a ruler or a bookmark to keep the eye focused on individual lines during this process.A proofreader should never take in a whole sentence or paragraph at a time, as you might do when reading for pleasure [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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