Watch out, language offenders

Continuing on with writing advice...

I found this Media Orchard guest post on 10 dumb things that smart communicators do very helpful. We all make mistakes, right? Yes, all of us. Even the trained professionals.

Honestly, I've been a repeat offender of at least half of these, including:

Using unnecessary business jargon

It's easy to slip into the "corporate speak," even when your purpose is to be easily understood.

Capitalizing names of industries and non-proper nouns

I think more people commit this faux-pas than not! I didn't even know this was a common communicator mistake. Do we often confuse key words with proper nouns? I often find myself capitalizing titles or professions merely because they feel "important."

Putting more than four bullet points on a PowerPoint slide!

This one's big. As communicators, we want to be informative. So informative that we sometimes give too much information, especially when the medium focus is aesthetic, like a presentation slide.

Here are a few more common communication gaffes:

Use an incorrect homonym

The differences between there/their/they're and your/you're have been drilled into our heads since grade school, but I still see university journalism students (smart communicators) commit this sin.

Referring to a company by a plural pronoun

Example: The XYZ Company is based in Eugene, Ore. They specialize in...

I still catch myself on this one sometimes. A company (a single entity) should always be "it."


What mistakes do you see smart communicators make?