10 Words Often Misspelled in Business Correspondence

10 Words Often Misspelled in Business Correspondence 10 Words Often Misspelled in Business Correspondence 10 Words Often Misspelled in Business Correspondence By Maeve Maddox Most word processing programs have a built-in spell checker, but business correspondence still goes out with misspelled words that a checker would have caught. I’m not talking about words like bare and bear, which are both English words acceptable to an automatic spelling program, but words like definite and separate, which have no homophones, and typos like standarad for standard (one of my own recent embarrassments). Writers need to keep two things in mind about spell checkers: 1. They cannot catch any misspellings if a writer doesn’t let the application run. 2. They cannot be entirely trusted to catch every spelling error. For whatever reasonoverconfidence or sloththe same misspellings continue to appear in business emails, advertising copy, resumes, and on blog sites. The writer’s best defense is to take a good look at the most frequent misspellings and zero in on every letter in the word. Mastering a few at a time is a better way to approach the task than scanning long lists. Here are ten of the most frequent misspellings, their correct forms, and tips that may help you remember the differences. 1. Misspelled: seperate Correct: separate Tip: There’s a rat in sep-a-rate. 2. Misspelled: definate Correct: definite Tip: Take a close look at the final syllable: nite. 3. Misspelled: calender Correct: calendar Tip: You probably pronounce the last syllable as [er], so you have to think [ar] as you write it: cal-en-dar. 4. Misspelled: mispell Correct: misspell Tip: You know how to spell spell; add the prefix mis- to it: mis-spell. 5. Misspelled: privlege Correct: privilege Tip: You may pronounce this three-syllable word with only two syllables. Notice the second i: priv-i-lege. Another common misspelling is privilige. Note the e in the final syllable: priv-i-lege. 6. Misspelled: arguement Correct: argument Tip: The verb argue ends in e, but you must drop the e for ar-gu-ment. 7. Misspelled: concensus Correct: consensus Tip: The sensus in consensus has nothing to do with the word census. Our word census comes from Latin censare, â€Å"to rate, assess.† Consensus comes from Latin consensus, â€Å"agreement, accord, sympathy, common feeling.† Think SSS: Con-Sen-SuS. 8. Misspelled: pronounciation Correct: pronunciation Tip: There’s no â€Å"ounce† in pronunciation, but there is a â€Å"nun.† The verb is pronounce; the noun is pro-nun-ci-a-tion. 9. Misspelled: accomodate Correct: accommodate Tip: Two sets of double letters, cc and mm: accommodate 10. Misspelled: dependant Correct: dependent Tip: People who misspell this one may be thinking of defendant, which does end in –ant (although the –ant in defendant is also pronounced [ent].) Note the final syllable in dependent: de-pen-dENT. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Has vs. HadFor Sale vs. On Sale10 Functions of the Comma

How to Identify a Target Audience for Your Book in 3 Steps

How to Identify a Target Audience for Your Book in 3 Steps How to Identify a Target Audience for Your Book in 3 Steps Don’t you feel like your book could be a massive hit, if only the right people knew about it? If there were only some way of finding your target audience, you'd be able to reach out and get your novel into their hands or e-readers.This post will lay out a method on how to identify a target audience. You will find the ‘right people’ for your book, learn to see things from their perspective, and discover the most effective channels for reaching them.If you're a self-published author, you probably don't have the resources to market to everyone. The only sensible approach is to appeal to people who are actively seeking books just like yours.   If those people love your book, word of mouth will quickly spread, and you will start to build a loyal following that eagerly awaits your next publication.  So let’s get to it! How to identify a target audience: see things from your readers' perspective Step 1 - How to identify a target audienceHow do you go about figuring out who your book is meant for? While you may have a vague idea, it’s best to be as specific as you can.That’s because when you have an exact description of one ideal reader (this includes key demographics like age, sex, hobbies, interests, location, marital status, etc.), it becomes a lot easier to find similar people and expand your target audience.To understand this better, let’s borrow a concept from the business world: the idea of a ‘proto-persona.' This is basically an imaginary person who shares many traits with your most likely customer. How is this useful for authors? Let’s find out.Creating a proto-persona for your book Facebook Advertising for Authors, by Mark Dawson: Part 2 Read post Step 3 - Hone in on your real audienceYou can only go so far with assumptions of who your readers are, what they like, where they hang out and how they behave. Once you have these assumptions, you need to test them. How exactly do you go about doing that?Testing assumptions with Facebook AdvertisingTo be a successful author you have to start thinking like an entrepreneur. How do you find out whether your book will appeal more to fans of Lee Child or James Patterson? Create two Facebook ads with the same image and a similar copy ("fans of X will love this!") and target them at these two respective target audiences. For example, if fans of Lee Child respond better to your ad (higher click-through rate), then you have your answer.You can run a similar test on your image, or on the tone and length of the text you’re using. A/B test your Facebook ads to see which performs better If you have tons of questions swimming in your head at this point, that’s understandable! Check out this insightful interview with author Mark Dawson on the Reedsy blog,  for  a fun and easy introduction to Facebook advertising for authors.What’s your niche?Use forums like Goodreads to reach people who fit the description of your proto-persona, and expand your network to start conversations and get valuable feedback from real readers. Promotional activities are mutually beneficial if you reach the right communities. In exchange for a free copy, you can ask your newly found readers to review your book.The next steps†¦Most authors and book marketers recommend choosing one or two platforms and focusing your marketing efforts on them. This is a very good idea if you’re just starting out and don’t have the bandwidth to execute a massive marketing plan.You have to hold the attention of your fans by consistently provide them with value, whether that's by releasing free short stories, or engaging them on social media.  The importance of thinking from your reader’s perspective cannot be stressed enough, only because most authors ignore it completely.A loyal following will give you real-time feedback and insights into what your fans enjoy. You’ll be surprised at the amount of traction your book gets just through word of mouth.So don’t waste any more time on directionless marketing, find out where your audience is hanging out right now!Do you have any unique methods of how to identify a target audience? How important is it to have a clear strategy for finding your audience? Leave your thoughts, comments and questions below.

Are there fundamental differences between western mathematics and Essay

Are there fundamental differences between western mathematics and tranditional chinese mathematics - Essay Example Instead back then they utilized alphabets so as to represent numbers. This reflects that mathematical terminologies are in use since the ancient times. However, in the present days rapid development has been witnessed in the field of mathematics. Mathematics originated simultaneously with other human production activities of the older times. The Ancient Chinese call mathematics as one of the six arts and it has been also treated as the preliminary point of philosophy by the Ancient Greeks. After thousands of years of developmental phase, mathematics has undergone various theoretical and practical changes. In the present times it is defined as the branch of science which deals with skillful operations. The rules and concepts of Mathematics are primarily developed for the purpose of conducting dexterous procedures. The basic emphasis of the subject has always been upon the development of new concepts. The concepts of basic mathematics, especially elementary geometry, were designed in order to define the units which are directly used in the real world (Wigner 1960). Chinese civilization is as ancient as Babylonian and Egyptian civilization. Somewhere in 1200 BC, during the times of Shang Dynasty, Chinese used to do mathematical calculations with the help of markings on tortoise shells and animal bones. This reflects that they were more inclined towards the numeric calculations rather than inventing new mathematical concepts. Similarly the ancient Chinese mathematics books have a vast collection of practical problems, giving the problems first and followed by their solutions. In this modern age Chinese still use the same pattern for teaching purposes. However, contrary to the Chinese mechanical algorithm, western mathematics focuses on the proof and derivation so as to develop new concepts in the field of mathematics (Boyer and Merzbach 2011, p. 7). The basic purpose of Chinese mathematics is to utilize the mathematical concepts in