Transcript Grammar Training Power Point

The Proposition
There was a millionaire who collected live alligators. He kept them in the
pool in back of his mansion. The millionaire also had a beautiful daughter
who was single.
One day, the millionaire decided to throw a huge party, and during the party
he announced: "My dear guests, I have a proposition to every man here. I
will give one million dollars, or my daughter, to the man who can swim
across this pool full of alligators and emerge unharmed!"
As soon as he finished his last word, there was the sound of a large splash
in the pool. The guy in the pool was swimming with all his might, and the
crowd began to cheer him on. Finally, he made it to the other side of the
pool unharmed.
The millionaire was impressed. He said, "That was incredible! Fantastic! I
didn't think it could be done! Well, I must keep my end of the bargain. Do
you want my daughter or the one million dollars?"
After catching his breath, the guy said, "Listen, I don't want your money or
your daughter! I want the jerk who pushed me in the pool!"
Grammar for Business
Professionals
Misspelled
document
None of this was
caught by spellcheck
or grammar check!
Besides this slide, I misspelled one word in this presentation. Can you find it?
Objective
• Often in business your ideas are only as good
as your ability to present them. This program
of instruction is intended to highlight your
basic grammar skills in order to improve your
professional business communications.
• Good grammar makes your written
communication more accurate and more
easily understood. By improving your
grammar you take control of your message
and your image.
Ask yourself...
• Who gets my correspondence? What if it’s
forwarded or sent out incorrectly?
• How much time do I spend each week
writing commendations, evaluations,
occurrences, performance steps, & emails?
• If I were an hourly associate, what would I
think if I received one of these documents
with incorrect spelling or grammar?
The program is divided into three
key areas:
• Sentence and paragraph structure
• Punctuation
• Spelling and word usage
Sentence and Paragraph Structure
• All effective sentences have a SUBJECT,
VERB, and COMPLETER.
– We questioned Joe about his involvement.
Subject
Verb
The Completer
finishes the thought
• SUBJECT and VERB must agree.
• Incorrect:
– Each of the orderfillers are properly trained.
• Correct:
– Each of the orderfillers is properly trained.
Subject
Verb
The Completer
finishes the thought
Sentence and Paragraph Tips
• Maintain proper tense (present, past, or future) in
your complete thought.
• Look out for run-on sentences. Separate these by
separating complete thoughts for the reader, they
will make more sense.
• The opposite of a run-on sentence is a fragment,
which can be just as confusing to the reader.
Sentence and Paragraph Tips
• Active Voice is more effective than Passive Voice.
– Passive: The whiskey was drank by the men.
– (The subject is acted on by the verb)
– Active: The horses drank the beer!
– (The subject is the doer)
• Active voice is shorter, easier to understand, and
makes a stronger statement.
Sentence and Paragraph Tips
• Avoid writing slang because it can be easily
misunderstood, dawg.
• Avoid double negatives; e.g.,
– This class ain’t no fun.
Punctuation
• Commas, they separate chunks of a sentence.
– We need to order some pens, staplers, and brooms.
• Semicolons; they separate 2 shorter ideas that
have no and/but/or bridge word.
– We need to order some pens, staplers, and brooms; the order needs to
be filled today.
• Colons: they separate major sentence parts
and call attention to the reader, commonly
used for lists and introducing quotes.
– We need to fill the following order today: pens, staplers, and brooms.
Semicolon tips
• They separate two short ideas that could be
separate sentences; e.g.,
– We are having an opportunity with trailer
pullouts; I am implementing a new program to
improve driver awareness of our procedures.
• They are also used when you connect two
thoughts with words like:
• ; however,
• ; therefore,
Punctuation
• Quotation marks: used for quoting exact
wording.
– Periods & commas go inside the quotes
– colons and semicolons go outside the quotes
– ?! Go inside if related to the quote, outside if
related to the sentence; e.g.,
• Did you see “Robin Hood”?
• She jumped up and shouted “It was incredible!”
Punctuation
• Parentheses
– used to support your main ideas; e.g.,
• The training lesson (Grammar for Business
Professionals) was so good I gave the instructor a
Thanks-a-Million card.
Punctuation
• Apostrophes
– makes a noun possessive; e.g., Rusty’s evaluation
– Use how the word is pronounced to decide if you
should add just an apostrophe (‘) or put the
apostrophe S (‘s) in; e.g.,
•
•
•
•
lawyer’s briefing
boss’s approval
Mr. Hastings’ report
witnesses’ statements
Punctuation
• Here’s the exception that causes a lot of
trouble:
• It’s
ALWAYS means
it is
– It’s important to send the right message.
• Its is the possessive form
– I have the report on my desk, its contents are very
illuminating.
Spelling and Usage
• Spelling is terribly inconsistent throughout
the English language, so it is difficult to
even establish rules for spelling.
• There is often no logic to the way a word is
spelled and the way it is pronounced
(rough, through, bough, cough, dough) but
mispronunciation often leads to misspelling.
– momento vs memento….excetera vs etcetera
Spelling and Usage
• Common mistakes: misusing contractions
and possessives that sound alike (spellcheck
won’t fix these!):
– their…they’re….there
– you’re…your
– it’s…its
Tips
• “e.g.” means “for example”; e.g.,
– Let me know what you need to finish on time; e.g.,
more people, more assets, more equipment.
• “etc.” stands for “et cetera” and is often
misspelled as “ect.”
• “i.e.” means “that is”; (an explanation)
– Determine how many items we will purchase for
each area; i.e., check with each operations coach to
find out their needs.
A Reflexive pronoun is never
used as the subject
Incorrect • John & myself will attend the class.
Correct • John & I will attend the class.
Incorrect • Send an email to Bobby and myself.
Correct • Send an email to Bobby and me.
Incorrect • Call Tiffanie or myself with any questions.
Correct • Call Tiffanie or me with any questions.
Other tips
• There’s no such thing as:
–
–
–
–
more unique
most perfect
most empty
more complete
This is just the
most perfect day!
Numbers as Words
• Spell out numbers below 10
• Spell out numbers that begin a sentence
• Spell out indefinite numbers (a hundred
things to do)
• Do not spell out numbers for temperature
readings
Some tips for checking your
spelling:
• Read a printed copy of your work
backwards to keep from skimming
• Create a list of words you typically misspell
• Pay special attention to long words; people
often leave out a letter or two in the middle
• Use all of the tools available to you:
– Dictionary, Thesaurus, Spellcheck
• Get someone else to check it!
Also...
• There are 3 CBLs available to review this
material.
• Good grammar is a part of good
communication.
• You can set up your email to automatically
spellcheck before sending anything.
• Spellcheck misses a lot.
This presentation was brought to you by the
letter Q and the number 6099