Regardless of an individual’s religious affiliation, Pope Francis’ visit to the United States had to resonate on some level with just about everyone with even half a soul. His inclusive words and actions — whether speaking to a divided U.S. Congress, meeting with the homeless or making an unscheduled stop to bless a boy in a wheelchair — transcend Catholicism and reflect how all of humanity can join together to make the world a better place. […]
business
Why do we dread reading medical records and legal notifications? Because we don’t understand them, that’s why. Who knows what kind of crucial information we’re missing out on simply because of overused jargon, poor grammar, misspellings and a stupefying abundance of words. But now, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, the increasing number of patients with direct access to their electronic health records is forcing some radiologists to reassess their writing […]
By now, most school districts around the country have begun another academic year. Many students complete their writing assignments on computers, but such technological wonders as a spell checker, formatting tools and a pop-up dictionary/thesaurus don’t seem to be helping high school graduates succeed at writing. Consider this recent news item from The Huffington Post: In 2012, high school graduates attained an average score of 488 on the writing portion of the SAT. This is […]
Do you get frustrated when other people misuse apostrophes, or are you a misuser yourself? Do you agree that “reading is the gateway to whatever we want to do” and that “nothing leaves a bad first impression like a poorly written or poorly punctuated email”? And do you simply enjoy words because they’re words? If you answered “yes” to any of the previous questions, you’ll probably enjoy what you’ll see on the Two Lakes Media […]
LinkedIn recently published its top 10 overused profile buzzwords for 2013. This is something the company began doing four years ago, and “responsible” tops the latest list. In fact, it was overused twice as much as any other word, including such overused holdovers from 2012 as “creative,” “effective” and “analytical.” (“Experimental,” “motivated,” “multinational” and “specialized” didn’t make the list this year.) Here are the top 10, in descending order: responsible strategic creative effective patient expert organizational driven innovative […]
I interact with small-business owners every day, and most of them understand that one significant way to boost customer loyalty is with a blog. But when I ask if they have one, many of them shake their heads, citing lack of resources, time or money. They know they should have a blog, but they don’t. Despite other bloggers reporting that blogging is dead — um, so why are you blogging? — blogging for businesses is […]