Riting correctly – Elizabeth Cruickshank and Penny Cooper

Please read the following two sentences

As a trenee your all to focussed on geting facts write. U can easly think thats enuff w/out bothering abowt how u prezent urself.

As a trainee you’re all too focused on getting the facts right. You can easily think that’s enough without bothering about how you present yourself in print.

Now ask yourself:

- Which of the two sentences above was the easier to read? And why?

- Which one took you longer to read?

- Did the first one confuse or irritate you?

- Did you feel that the first one was inappropriate for an article with a serious purpose?

- What impression did you have of the writer of that first sentence?

Consider your readers

As a piece of perfect prose the second sentence is not a shining example, but at least you can get to the meaning without querying the presentation. If you are a texting aficionado, you may have found the first sentence easier to read than we did to write it, but this rather makes our point. The partners in the firms that you are applying to as well as most of your potential clients did not grow up communicating by textspeak.