So excited about Anne Trubek’s article, the rebuttal from Wired Magazine‘s Copydesk and her Twitter dialogue with Grammar Girl, that I just had to post this!
Here’s the original article about why it’s ok for the English language to be altered and abbreviated as texting and 140-character communication becomes more mainstream.
Here’s the editor’s rebuttal.
Here’s Anne Trubek.
And here’s Trubek and Grammar Girl’s conversation on Twitter.
Post to the article to give your two cents on the issue!
BBC News reports that spelling mistakes in professional business communications (especially websites) can be extremely costly.
As a freelance copywriter, articles like this are near and dear to my heart. (Thank you, Mike, for sharing this.)
Read the amazing article here.
We’ve all done it.
Whether we meant to or not (most likely not), we’ve offended someone with our words.
This can be pretty awful in general, but when you write for a living, it can be even worse. So let me tell you what happened.
I’m on the email list of this organization in Portland that does a lot of good work around promoting businesses and jobseekers in the Portland Metro-SW Washington area.
They sponsor events, post jobs and are a general, all-around excellent resource. The organization has one employee and I’ve met her a few times. I’d say we have a casual, professional relationship…or so I thought.
After receiving the latest installment of their e-newsletter, I caught a few typos. It’s my job to notice these things and correct them, after all.
So I email this woman that I already have a good relationship with, and say something vague like, “After reading the newsletter, I see some places where I can make a contribution to your organization.”
Ok. Sounds non-threatening, right?
She responds with, “Interesting. How so?”
This says to me that she’s not interested in subtleties (did I mention that she’s a one-woman show?) and wants me to get right to the point. Great! Totally respect that. So I say,
“I found a few typos in the newsletter and I was wondering what kind of editing/proofreading support you have because I would love to volunteer my time to help with that.”
I think I sent that email on a Thursday. I didn’t hear back from her later that day…or Friday…or Monday…or Tuesday…and her organization was sponsoring an event on Wednesday.
At first I thought she was probably just busy organizing the event, but then I got to thinking that she may have taken offense to my email. Hmm…
After the event on Wednesday, I approached her, gave her a hug, and immediately apologized in case she was offended (which I had every faith she wouldn’t be).
She was.
She said my email sounded condescending and implied that she was incompetent.
Wow.
I tried to apologize again, but she interrupted me by thanking me for bringing it up (hinting at her lack of response to my email?) and that she would prefer to talk about it later because she wanted to go talk with other people.
Um…ok.
Upon arriving home, I sent her an apologetic email and said what a great big misunderstanding this has all been. I sent that email last Wednesday. Today is Monday and I have yet to receive a response.
There probably was a way to work with her and this organization, but it seems to me that she takes great pride in being the only person doing all the hundreds of things she has to do, and is not interested in unsolicited assistance.
That’s just how some people roll.
To be honest, I’m glad this little miscommunication occurred. If it hadn’t, I could have been working with someone who, just below the surface, was not someone I wanted to be working with.
No matter how well we craft our messages, no matter how much time it takes us to write something that we think all will enjoy and none will take the “wrong way,” someone will always get offended.
So what do you do?
Curl up in a ball and apologize over and over again to deaf ears?
Spend the rest of your professional career in agony of meeting that wronged person who acts as a mirror reminding you of all your inadequacies, snobberies and mistakes?
I suppose you could.
That’s not what I would do, but you could do that.
I blogged about it instead. And I learned from it.
I learned that some people prefer to take offense than a helping hand; that one person wants never to hear from you again while someone else, reading the exact same message, is grateful to you for sending it because it’s a breath of fresh air in their month. (A colleague on my email list actually said this to me.)
Prior to this event, I happened to find a typo on a very popular freelancer website and I mentioned it in an email to them as a postscript.
The result?
They thanked me for catching the mistake and changed it right away! And they offered to refer me work when compatible projects came up. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to people who live their lives curled up in a ball.
So what I can offer you today is this:
Learn from those who are offended, and focus on how to communicate better with those who are grateful. They’re the ones you’ll want to work with.
I’ve heard three mentions in two days about having resumes and cover letters professionally written. In the first reference, I was asked if I do that. The answer is yes. And oddly enough, I’ve been doing more of it than usual.
No idea why.
For those of you contemplating a facelift for your professional promotional materials, here’s what you can expect to pay for a resume and cover letter (total):
Low: $200
Average: $350
High: $500
For a resume tweak: $100
Is even the low price high?
Depends.
If a professionally written resume and cover letter help you land a job with a 5 or 6-figure income, where your current resume and cover letter landed you nada, did you get a good return on your investment?
The question is yours to answer.
You’ll notice that there’s no price for writing cover letters specifically. That’s because there isn’t one. Not one that I could find anyway.
Oh, give us a break! It’s not like there’s a Freelance Copywriter Headquarters where all these things are decided.
But fear not!
As a professional in my field, I will create a rate. To have a cover letter written will cost you:
Low: $100
Average: $200
High: $350
There. Questions? Comments? Concerns?
