Ethics, Ethics Everywhere You Turn

I often wonder if there are any industries out there in which ethics DON'T play a part. Running a small proofreading and writing agency, I am often amazed at how many times I run into ethical delimmas each week. A PhD candidate that wants someone to write their thesis for them. A high school student that wants to ensure an "A" on their history paper.

These are the questions that face those of us in the proofreading and writing world these days. What would you do?

The Three Deadly Sins of Business Communications

We see it in business communications every day. It could be in a marketing piece. Or in a letter you received from your realtor/broker/banker. Or even on your television set. In our era of “fast” everything – fast lanes, fast coffee and fast food, business communications quite often catch the brunt of our fast-paced world. And the results can, for some companies and individuals, be disastrous.

Did Fox News loose viewership over last night’s gaffe where it ran a bar at the bottom of the screen talking about all the witnesses that new (sic) something about the victim of yet another crime? Probably not. But did they look pretty stupid? Yup. I mean, this is the media for goodness sake. A bunch of journalism majors. Supposedly the gatekeepers of the English language.

It’s really just another example what I like to call the Three Deadly Sins of Business Communications. As a professional proofreader and editor, day in and day out I see blatant examples of overlooked and bypassed errors and mistakes. The sad part is, had the author taken the single extra step to hire a professional proofreading service, the embarrassment could have been avoided.

What are these Three Deadly Sins, you might be asking? Well, let’s get right to the crux of the matter.

• There/their/they’re, it’s/its, to/too or your/you’re, etc.
• Take it from a professional proofreader, while it’s important to check for the standard proofreading errors (spelling, punctuation, grammar), proper word usage is faction of proofreading that is overlooked all the time. I recommend authors, if they are proofing their own work, read through a second time, checking just for proper word usage. It can make the difference between looking like a third grader or the business professional you truly are. I can tell you that local Fox affiliate in Atlanta sure had egg on their face last night and it’s all I’ve heard about from colleagues and friends today.

• The over use of the comma.
• Commas are a great thing. They tell us when to take a breath, when we’re being spoken to directly and can separate long lists of items. However, as a society we tend to over-comma. A lot. There are numerous online resources that can help a writer decide if a comma is appropriate or not. One of my favorite comma stories and a great proofreading exercise is as follows: Give your editor/proofreader five dollars for each comma you use in an essay. Your editor/proofreader will return five dollars for each comma used correctly. You should come out even. This technique for cutting down on unwanted commas has been heartily endorsed by every editor/proofreader who has tried it.

• Simple spelling errors
• In the day and age of spell-check, the following advice should be a no-brainer: Use it! Even if you’re constructing a document in something other than your word processor of choice, copy what you’ve written, dump it into Word (or whatever word processor you use) and hit the spell-check button. In today’s world, spelling errors are just inexcusable. I’ve seen egregious mistakes in online dating profiles (needless to say, I won’t be dating those guys), small and large business websites and even in a church’s online bulletin. I know we’re all in a hurry, but come on folks – we have the technology. Don’t let it go to waste! You have a built-in spelling editor, which is almost as good as a proofreader on retainer.

We all know that the economy sucks right now and competition in business, no matter what kind of business we’re talking about, is tough. Set yourself apart from all of the other wah-hoos out there and make sure to clean up your letters, web copy, marketing materials, thesis statements and even your online dating profiles. Use the tools you have (spell-check, reading your copy backwards, having a friend look it over) or better yet, for a few extra dollars, hire a professional freelance proofreader to do the dirty work for you. After all, no one wants to look like a silly Fox.