Carpenter Document Consulting

In today’s competitive job market, having a strong resume is more important than ever. Here are three easy ways to make your resume more marketable to potential employers:

3) Choose your verbs wisely.

The use of strong action verbs offers potential employers an instant understanding of your skills. Verbs like managed, designed, wrote, and created vividly illustrate your job tasks and allow potential employers to envision your past tasks and how those tasks fit within their organization.

2) Add numbers.

Figures help quantify your accomplishments. Read through your resume, and circle any job task that can be quantified. If you managed multiple accounts to boost sales, specify how many accounts you managed and how sales improved.

3) Maximize white space.

Ensure that your resume offers a good balance between text and white space. Use bulleted lists, headings, or bold text to draw the reader’s eye to important items, and avoid paragraph-style blocks of text.

In honor of National Punctuation Day (September 24), let’s take a look at four easy punctuation rules that will instantly improve your writing.

1) Commas between independent clauses.

Independent clauses can stand alone as complete sentences. If you have two independent clauses in a sentence, joined by a conjunction, include a comma before the conjunction.

2) Misplaced apostrophes.

Apostrophes are generally used for two purposes: to show possession or to replace omitted words (in the case of contractions). Do not use apostrophes to pluralize a noun.

3) Comma splices.

As mentioned in our first rule, commas are included when two independent clauses are linked by a conjunction. However, if two independent clauses exist in a sentence without a conjunction, use a semicolon to separate the clauses. Using a comma in place of a semicolon creates the dreaded comma splice.

4) Hyphens versus dashes.

A hyphen is used to make a compound word (e.g., the well-behaved child). Dashes come in two forms, an en dash and an em dash. En dashes are usually used to join two numbers. Em dashes indicate a pause or shift in thought. If your word-processing software does not include en and em dashes, use a double hyphen instead.

When used properly, modifiers can add helpful details to your document. However, misplaced modifiers can cause confusion and occasionally add unintentional hilarity to a sentence. Use caution when including modifiers, or your sentence can have an unintended meaning:

Incorrect: Falling from the tree, Joe watched the leaves.

Was Joe falling from the tree, or were the leaves? The structure of this sentence implies that Joe was falling from the tree.

Correct: Joe watched the leaves, which were falling from the tree.

Incorrect: Jane was so hungry that she almost ate the whole pizza.

Did Jane almost eat but not actually eat the pizza? This sentence implies that Jane only came close to eating.

Correct: Jane was so hungry that she ate almost the whole pizza.

Tip: Place a modifying word or phrase as close to the word it is describing as possible.

Your first draft is complete, but you’re concerned that your paper still needs work. Even if you aren’t a skilled proofreader, you can still make the most of the revision process. Here are three common writer pitfalls that you can focus on as you revise:

1) Identify passive voice.

Passive voice is not only less direct than active voice; it also can create unnecessarily wordy (and, therefore, confusing) sentences. Make note of all passive sentences in your paper, and revise them to an active construction. (Last week’s blog explained how to identify passive sentences in Microsoft Word.) This revision will instantly create a more engaging, reader-friendly paper.

2) Eliminate ambiguity.

Ambiguous pronouns can confuse readers. As you read through your draft, check for pronouns like “it” and “this.” Even though you understand what these pronouns represent, your readers might not. Replace these pronouns with more distinct nouns, or qualify them. The ambiguous “this” can become “this report,” thereby improving reader comprehension.

3) Look at the big picture.

When you’re composing your first draft, you are focused on getting all of your thoughts on paper. At times, this focus can lead to unnecessary additions that drift away from the main point. During the revision process, look at each sentence with a critical eye to determine whether it supports your purpose. If it doesn’t, consider revising the sentence or removing it altogether.

Today starts a new feature on the blog: the Grammar Tip of the Week. Every Monday, we’ll post an easy-to-remember grammar rule based on common errors we see.

You’re vs. Your

• You’re is a contraction meaning “you are.”  Your is the possessive form of “you.”
• You’re going to fail the class if you do not complete your assignment.
• In this sentence, “You’re” serves as the subject/verb of the sentence (You are), and “your” expresses that the assignment belongs to you.

Tip: If you aren’t sure which form to use, insert “you are” in place of “you’re/your,” and see if it makes sense. If “you are” is correct, use “you’re;” if it isn’t, use “your.”

As the word processor of choice, Microsoft Word is used across academic disciplines and industries to develop a range of documentation. If you work in Word regularly, you probably use its Spelling and Grammar tool to correct any errors. Although this tool can catch obvious typos and misspellings, it has its limitations. For instance, Word cannot distinguish between commonly confused words, like “it’s” versus “its” or “their” versus “there.” Moreover, the Spelling and Grammar tool does not catch omissions of letters that create unintended words and, ultimately, alter meaning. So, if you miss a keystroke, your “friend” can become a “fiend,” and Word won’t catch it.

Despite these limitations, Word’s Grammar tool offers some unique features that can be customized based on your style guidelines. Here are some quick tips for taking advantage of these features:

• On the toolbar, select Tools > Options.
• Select the Spelling & Grammar tab.
• Under Grammar, select Grammar & Style as the writing style, and select Settings.

Here, you can adjust the settings based on your needs. You can ask Word to check for the serial comma, you can choose whether you want punctuation inside or outside quotation marks, and you can indicate how many spaces there should be between sentences. Plus, you can select specific grammar rules that you want Word to check. Once you’ve identified your standards, Word’s Grammar tool with indicate deviations from these standards with that all-too-familiar green underline.

Use Word’s features to your advantage, and you can produce a cleaner copy of your document. Even though you can’t rely on Word as your only resource, you can maximize its capabilities with these tips.