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13 Common Grammar Mistakes to Avoid in Business Blogging

22-Sep-2015 07:00:00 / by Stephen Rogan

Blogging: the cornerstone of any inbound marketing campaign. Without blogs you will severely limit your ability to be able to communicate with your potential customers and offer them interesting content. When you embark on writing a business blog there are numerous points you need to consider (target audience, content, message, purpose of blog etc.) but as an aside from this you need to make sure your grammar & spelling are matched perfect and spot on!

“Whoa, this is a blog I’m writing not a collection of Shakespearian sonnets” I hear you say and you’re absolutely right. However nothing, and I mean nothing, is more offensive than poorly written and poorly executed content where basic grammar and spelling aren’t met. One of my Top 13 common mistakes on social media interaction, it also rings true for your blogging efforts – if you have spelling or grammatical errors then those will stand out more to your reader than any points or messages you were trying to get across in your actual content. For businesses who blog it becomes even more critical because errors here severely damage your credibility: if I see a business that does not know a ‘site visit’ from a ‘sight visit’ or ‘their’ target audience from ‘they’re’ target audience, I consider it a failure from the start. How can they deliver a product or a service when they can’t get the basic grammar correct in the first place? Here are our 5 common grammar mistakes to avoid in business blogging:

1: Apathy to an Apostrophe Catastrophe


The cause of many a good writer to come undone, the use of apostrophes are predominantly to show ownership of something so use that as a good yardstick. Some good examples:

  • Derek’s house – Derek owns the house
  • The client’s website
  • The company’s carpark

There are two important exceptions to this:

Pronouns

Pronouns are the generic nouns such as him, her, him, her, it, me, you, etc. Possessive pronouns such as mine, yours, his, hers, its etc. never need an apostrophe. Some examples:

  • That is their’s - INCORRECT
  • That is theirs - CORRECT
  • Is that your’s? - INCORRECT
  • Is that yours? - CORRECT

It is versus It’s

‘It’ can be a tricky word for people to get their head around from a grammatical sense. Where “he” or “she” can change to “he’s” or “she’s” depending on the context, ‘it’ never does when it comes to possession:

  • The website will have it’s overhaul in the next few weeks - INCORRECT
  • The website will have its overhaul in the next few weeks - CORRECT

A simple tip is: Unless you are trying to say “it is” or “it has” then you shouldn’t be using an apostrophe.

2: You’re Unsure About Your Use of Your or You’re

A common mistake in everyday work and a really simple one to fix:

  • Your is used to demonstrate ownership – Your boat is the boat you own
  • You’re is used to combine you & are – You’re a great team to work with means you are a great team to work with

“Your a great team to work with” or “I like you’re boat” are as basic an error as you can make grammatically so pay attention to the different meanings – once you understand it you won’t make the mistake ever again.

3: i.e. vs. e.g.

Firstly, a lesson in Latin. i.e. is id est which translates to “that is”. e.g. means exempli gratia or “for example.” When using either, follow this line of thought:

i.e. – use this when you want to offer more information or where you want to paraphrase ideas in a clearer way (i.e. to make this as clear as possible)

e.g. – if you want to show a list of examples (social media, email, blogging etc.)

4: That versus Which

Deciding the one to choose which best works for you or deciding the one that best works for you? In this case it’s ‘that’. Why? As a general rule of thumb look at ‘that’ and ‘which’ in these terms:

That is used to complete one's thought or argument where crucial information is included using ‘that’ where if you didn’t have it, it would rule the phrase null and void.

  • You can use the phone that is in the quieter office
  • The special offer that was on their website expires tonight
  • He can park in the space that was reserved for the Sales Director who is out today

Remove ‘that’ from each of the three examples above and the entire meanings of each change.

Which should be viewed as a way of adding additional information to your statement but information that isn’t critical to the piece.

  • They decided on the first campaign, which was our strongest of the three
  • The meal, which cost a lot of money, was excellent
  • The new faster internet connection in the office, which I pushed strongly for, is having a really positive impact on the company

If you were to remove the ‘which’ parts of each statement above the overall crux of each would not change too much. Always remember that if you are using ‘which’ that you will need to put a comma before it – ALWAYS!

That/Which can also mean two entirely different things:

  • All of the cars, which were blue, were shipped yesterday (all of the cars were shipped yesterday and all of them were blue)
  • All of the cars that were blue were shipped yesterday (Only the cars that were blue were shipped yesterday, all of the other cars still remain)

5: The Effect of Using Affect Incorrectly

This is one of the most common grammatical errors you’ll see on a day to day basis and it’s actually a pretty easy one to figure out.

Effect/Affect both refer to a change of something but do so in two different ways – ‘effect’ refers to the actual change itself (the noun) whereas ‘affect’ refers to the act of changing (the verb)

  • The new inbound campaign had a great effect on our lead generation figures
  • The new inbound campaign affected the lead generation figures greatly

6: Who That You Referring To?

When you write you’ll make reference to people, places and things all the time. A tricky one that crops up again and again is the use of ‘Who’ or ‘That’ in different circumstances. For example “Gavin is a blogger who also loves penguins.” When you are referring to people you should use ‘who’ always. When you are referring to objects you should always use ‘that’ – “His blogs are the ones that always seem to talk about inbound marketing.”

Simple!

7: A lot or alot……

….wait a minute. There is no word in the English dictionary called ‘alot’! Put plainly and simply ‘alot’ should NEVER appear in your blog unless you are referring to an imaginary creature created by Allie over at Hyperbole and a Half.

You may also be attempting to use ‘alott’ from ‘allotted’ but you cannot deviate from this either. If the allotted time to complete the campaign is 5 days, it does not mean you have a lot of time to complete the campaign – they are entirely different meanings. Simply put: it's a lot or nothing else!

8: Than or Then?

I’ve never understood the reason people get these two mixed up but for purposes of clarity let me attempt this. ‘Than’ is a conjunction that is used to make comparisons whereas ‘Then’ is an adverb that generally refers to actions over time periods:

  • The new outbound campaign is much more effective then our last one - INCORRECT
  • The new outbound campaign is much more effective than our last one - CORRECT

 

  • We AB tested the new landing pages and than we launched the new offer - INCORRECT
  • We AB tested the new landing pages and then we launched the new offer - CORRECT

9: Colons/Semicolons

Colons (:) and semicolons (;) are used to link two separate elements of information but do so in very different ways. A colon acts as a pause to introduce further related information whereas a semicolon is used to link two independent statements that could stand on their own without it.

A colon can be used to introduce a list or a definition of a statement.

  • In our campaign the focus will be: social media, email marketing and lead generation
  • Our focus is inbound marketing: creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be

A semicolon can be used to link two distinct statements together:

Allow me to get back to you tomorrow. I should have an answer for you then.

Both are fine on their own however from a style point of you it would look better combined so:

Allow me to get back to you tomorrow; I should have an answer for you then.

If you can use a conjunction such as ‘and’,’or’ or ‘but’ then you can also use a comma here

Allow me to get back to you tomorrow, I should have an answer for you then.

Easy!

10: I Before Me?

The majority of us will understand the difference between the two having learned it as children in school. However, when you go to use them in a sentence you may need to rethink what you know:

When the AB test is complete can you send the results to Stephen and I?

As a vocal statement this is correct, however when I commit it to text it’s actually wrong. How come? Let’s take Stephen out of the equation for the moment and reread:

When the AB test is complete can you send the results to I?

Way off isn’t it! That’s because the ‘I’ in the sentence is the object of the sentence and ‘I’ should never be the object of a sentence, it should always be 'me':

When the AB test is complete can you send the results to Stephen and me?

Much better!

11: The Comma Conundrum

There is a whole raft of rules and regulations when it comes to the use of commas so I’ll keep this top line.

Separate an introductory word or phrase

When blogging, many of us will use opening statements or phrases that will need a comma to link them into the rest of the sentence. Introductory words such as ‘After’, ‘Although’, ‘However’, ‘When’ & ‘While’ are great introductory words but they will need commas to bring the separate elements together.

In the beginning, there was no blogging.

However, then came blogging.

Separate different elements of a series

If you have multiple elements in a sentence you will need commas to separate each:

Our inbound marketing campaign consisted of blog content, social media platforms, email marketing and a white paper offering.

You may also choose to use a comma for the last element of the list (the famous Oxford Comma), however it's use is entirely up to the writer’s own style guide.

Separate independent clauses

An independent clause is a statement that can stand up on its own. If you have two that both make sense on their own but also joined together if you introduce an ‘and’, a ‘but’, an ‘or’, a ‘nor’, a ‘so’ or a ‘yet’ then use a comma to link them also.

The relationship with the client is excellent, and we look forward to many more years of fruitful partnership together.

For more comma tips why not check out 10 Functions of the Comma by Daily Blog Tips

12: Should I go Into or In To?

Another common mistake by writer: ‘into’ refers to actual movement while ‘in to’ is actually used to modify other words in the sentence. When deciding on which to use, ask yourself firstly if the ‘in’ or the ‘to’ will have an effect on the words in the same sentence. If not, would it indicate movement? If it’s the former use ‘in to’, if the later use ‘into’

Gavin gets in to drive the carCORRECT as the ‘to’ is linked to the actual driving of the car

Gavin gets into the car CORRECT as Gavin is showing movement as he gets into the car

13: Dangling Participles

A participle is a phrase that contains an ‘ing’ at the beginning of the sentence and it should apply to the word that follows it. However where it starts to come unstuck for many writers is where they modify the wrong noun in the sentence which can end up confusing matters:

Walking down the street, the trees were beautiful in the sunlight.

This does not make sense, it suggests that the trees were walking down the street in the sunlight even though the person who was actually walking down the street thought the trees looked beautiful in the sunlight. The person has been left dangling as they’re not actually explicitly referred to in the statement. Therefore we need to tweak the layout of the sentence.

Walking down the street, she thought the trees looked beautiful in the sunlight.

 

Finally, let’s quickly see if you can identify the five mistakes in the following sentence:

When writing a blog its so important to understand how poor grammar spelling and incorrect use of words can effect your overall message. By prioritising the basics and paying attention to the 13 mistakes highlighted in this blog you can make sure you’re content is perfect removing alot of the little bugbears that your target audience love to hate!

Feel free to drop us a comment with the mistakes above or to let us know any other mistakes or errors you hate to see written in blogs, we'd love to hear from you!

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Stephen Rogan

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