Can Do Writing™: The Proven Ten-Step System for Fast and Effective Business Writing

Conclusion

Congratulations!

You finished analyzing, writing, and editing your document for information and style. You still need to check for word choice, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics. Although Can Do Writing ends with editing, we leave you with a few helpful hints.

Because of your systematic editing, you have a head start on correctness. When writing your draft, you used who does what and what does what sentences. Therefore, your sentences are grammatically simple and less likely to have punctuation errors. Your edit for coherence already improved your document's consistency and mechanics. Your edits for clarity and economy solved many word choice and grammar errors.

You need a couple of resources to help you check for correctness. Buy a new dictionary every ten years. Words change—annoying perhaps, but true. Everyone in your office needs to work from the same dictionary.

Use a style manual appropriate to your work. Style manuals get into fine details, such as when to capitalize words. You have free access to the Government Printing Office Style Guide on the Internet. No style guide can answer every question. Therefore, if you create many documents, you need to supplement your chosen style guide with a style sheet. When you write for publication, ask for the publisher's style sheet, and use the publisher's chosen style manual.

Use your software tools, but don't trust them. Grammar checkers make mistakes. Autocorrect features cause embarrassments.

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