Eona

“A good style will have to show no signs of effort.

What is written ought to seem a happy accident.”

W. Somerset Maugham

The key point of this quote is the word ‘seem’ which means that those ‘happy accidents’ are exhaustively prepared. Inaccurate spelling here, a missed punctuation mark there – and things may turn into a ‘serious’ or even ‘fatal’ accident for your copy. I’m not going to say that WHAT you write is less essential than HOW you do it, but repeated stylistic faults may divert all of your prospects, unless they are totally illiterate themselves or blind (the latest survey showed they weren’t).

Tame your style before it starts ‘biting’ your income. Enhance your copy in 10 easy steps:

1. Ampersand (&)

Though ‘and’ and ‘&’ stand for the same thing, you shouldn’t abuse the latter. Follow the rule: the ampersand sign is employed for trade names and radio station frequencies.

* Dolce & Gabanna

* JSM Radio 93.2 & 108.1 FM, 1005 & 1284 AM

* Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger

2. Contact Details

Be precise. Such introductions as “Bond. James Bond” went out of fashion with regards to thirty years ago. Scrupulous web users want to recognise where incisively they may find your astounding products, services or whatsoever you offer them. So, disclose all these step by step:

* Name;

* Postal address (addressee’s name, company, building name, number and street name, town, country and postcode). Separate it by starting a new line or by putting a comma;

* Telephone number (dialing codes are given in one block, without brackets);

* Fax number;

* Email;

* Website (give the shortest URL possible and make sure it works by loading it in a web browser. Omit ‘www’ in unclickable URLs but use it in links)

3. Foreign Words and Characters

If a word or phrase aren’t in general accepted in the language, you will have to use italics. ‘Generally accepted’ means they have become a percentage of English. Consult with the dictionary, if necessary. Make sure alien symbols are identified correctly: readers are improbable to guess that ‘aa,ii eona oi?ioi’ stands for:

* clientele (this French word is now a share of the English language)

* si vales bene est ego valeo (a Latin phrase)

4. Italics

Apart from alien words, italics are employed for titles of TV and radio programs, books, albums or songs, plays, paintings, newspapers, magazines etc (yes, that is etc, not etc). Italicize ‘the’ when it is on the masthead:

* The Economist

* Monet’s Poppies Blooming

* Eminem’s Encore

5. Lists

The most critical thing with lists is to keep parallelism. Don’t jump from one grammatic structure to another, for example, don’t write like this

To make finger-licking cookies we need:

* 2 tbs cinnamon

* 0.5 kg sugar

* 1 cup flour

* to add 4 eggs

* to heat the oven

* kneading dough

Even if your grandma had known of this delicious meal from Queen of England, that’s a fat prospect your prospects be grateful for the recipe: it looks utterly illiterate.

* Instead, write:

To make finger-licking cookies we need:

* 2 tbs cinnamon

* 0.5 kg sugar

* 1 cup flour

* 4 eggs

* a well-heated oven

* kneaded dough

Or just list all ingredients and after that describe the cooking process: “Heat the oven well. Knead the dough.”

6. Money

Write the names of currencies in lower case, adding two digits after the symbol if it isn’t round:

* 300.75 pounds

* 50 dollars

Hold down Ctrl+Alt+E to insert the euro symbol in Word. If you mention sums of million and billion allround the text, it is better to abbreviate them, without leaving a space:

* $34 billion – $34bn

7. Numbers

Basically numbers from one to nine are written in words, as well as any numbers put at the beginning of a sentence and approximate ones. Don’t forget with regards to the comma in numbers from 1,000 upwards:

* Three Men in a Boat was published in 1889.

* Today the company’s turnover equals to $500,000 yearly.

* Usually we eat little for dessert – when it comes to four or five chocolate bars and coffee with cream.

8. Time

If you use the 12-hour clock, the hour and minutes are separated by a full stop. As ‘am’ and ‘pm’ refer to ‘before noon’ and ‘afternoon’, it is useless to write ’12am’. Have the 24-hour clock? Separate the hours and minutes by a colon:

* 22:45

* 7am

* 12midnight, or just midnight

* amid 8am and 14pm.

9. Titles and Honors

When a widely valued person is noted for the introductory time, you must give his/her title in full. Starting from the second time in text, you may write only a shortened version:

* His Majesty King Lear – The King

10. Weight and Measures

Make sure you chose the proper – upper or lower – case:

* MHz (megahertz)

* MB (megabyte)

* km (kilometer)

Don’t overuse imperial measurements, giving more preference to standardized metric or at least giving the equivalent in brackets:

* 22kg (48.502 pounds)

Summing up all the above… You know, now and then the divergence amidst literacy and tedium is very subtle, so whatsoever you have just read in this guideline, undertake to keep it within your own style.

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Eona Photo

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Eona Photo