1) The Vistage Chief Executive Program creates a unique environment that provides each member with the individual insight, coaching, strategies and leadership skills needed to achieve better decisions and results for their company.
Remember the issue about noun-pronoun agreement. Here we have “each member” as our singular noun, but the writer used the plural pronoun “their.” Either write “his or her company,” or “all members.” Right now, though, this is incorrect.
2) Program Features Include: [What’s wrong with this heading?]
Never put a colon after “including,” “includes,” or “include.”
3) Get feedback on your toughest decisions from the chief CEO’s most effective sounding board — fellow executives who have met and overcome the same challenges.
Here’s someone sticking a dash in where a colon is needed. It’s the “namely” rule of colons, and the easiest (in my opinion) rule to remember in conjunction with a colon. Look back at the sentence and read it like this: Get feedback on your toughest decisions from the chief CEO’s most effective sounding board [namely] fellow executives….
Hey. Lemme ask you a question: why is “chief” in that sentence? Take it o-u-t.
4) Leigh served as Chief Operations Officer for MHI Global, leading all of the key operating areas of the business including: independent distribution channels, global operations, sales and client operations, public sales and lead generations teams.
Ooops. Here’s another incorrect use of a colon. Two ways to correct this. You could stick your colon after “business” and remove “including,” or you could put a comma after “business” and remove the colon. The way it stands now, though, it’s wrong.
5) From 2005 to 2006, he served as Group President of The NPD Group, Inc., a global provider of consumer and retail information, where he led all of their entertainment and technology related businesses.
A company is an “it,” and is singular, so this should read “its entertainment….”
6) Your Vistage private advisory board will serve as way of developing a trusted network of business relationships and give you access to over 50 years of practical, focused knowledge that can prepare you to better anticipate the needs of your clients and be ready with proven solutions.
Gee, this is a hell of a long sentence. However, here’s the issue: should “private advisory board” be capitalized? Looking at Sentence #1, it would seem that it is a special something that these Vistage people believe is part of what makes them so wonderful, so there could be a case for “Vistage Private Advisory Board.” You have to decide that style issue and be consistent.
7) Our chapter typically meets the second Saturday of August, September,October, November, January, March, May, and June for half day meetings in the Ft. Lauderdale/Broward County area Throughout the year, we hold additional events of value to speakers and to those who utilize professional speakers.
Need a space between the comma and October. Spellcheck picked that up. Rule: Always put your writing into Word or another word- processing program with a spellcheck function before you hit “publish.”
8) Her extensive training and credentialing is comprised of classes and workshops at Harvard, post-surgery therapy with a concentration in extremity conditions, especially hand injuries, kinesiotaping, and various soft tissue modalities.
No, no, no! Larger things are composed of smaller things: a jury is composed of jurors, a forest is composed of trees, but small things comprise larger things.
Plus, what in the world is “kinesiotaping”? And, to be brutally frank, I hate the phrase “various soft tissue modalities.”
9) So many Black and Brown lives; Black and Brown love; and Black and Brown families are in muddled in the mayhem of incarceration.
“Black” capitalized in this context is incorrect because it is not a proper noun. (Neither is “brown,” “white,” “red,” or “yellow.”) And what’s with the sentence fragment with semicolons? Yikes.
10) It’s the kind of publicity every author dreams of: In the heat of the 2016 primaries, a leading candidate for president mentions your new book in a nationally-televised debate.
Look at that colon and read “namely.” That’s correct. However, I would not have capitalized “In” because, well, two reasons. First, what follows the colon is not a principle or rule. Second, it’s not a full sentence. The real, bona fide, no discussion mistake here, however, is hyphenating the —ly adverb in “nationally-televised.”
11) Her comprehensive post-graduate training was conducted by medical specialist masters including: Mona Lisa Schultz, M.D., Ph.d., Christine Northrup, M.D., and Carolyn Myss, PhD.
Wow, people, be consistent in your style, especially when you’re throwing around advanced degrees in the same sentence. You cannot write “Ph.d.” and “PhD.” in the same essay/article/book/whatever, much less in the same sentence, because it makes you look stupid—always especially unfortunate when you’re writing about advanced educational degrees.
But this sentence also features the mistake of placing the colon after “including,” which we’ve discussed, and comes with the added bonus of being the winner of this week’s mushy phrase award (and there was intense competition!): “medical specialist masters.” What’s a “medical specialist master”?
12) Renowned for it’s eclectic collection of decorative items for your home or yacht, Spring Fever carefully selects items from vendors in America, Asia, Europe and South Africa. Its exquisite array of lamps, mirrors, prints and pillows is complimented by a large assortment of useful and unique ornaments that fit perfectly into just about any locale.
Here’s another example of the importance of putting your writing into some sort of spellcheck function before you print: it’s its, not it’s, eclectic collection. That’s the most common mistake ever, but it’s showing up as needing attention by my spellcheck.
What spellcheck didn’t catch, however, was the misspelled word in this group of sentences. Look at the last sentence again. I’m not going to belabor the serial comma issue, but in this situation “compliment” is misspelled. It should be “complement.”
13) Gary Bailey is a former soccer star for Manchester United, (biggest sports club in the world) and Michelle is his glamorous wife and former Miss Universe (1992) and they are both Experts in not only surviving Pressure, but Thriving under it!
Very bad writing. The comma before the parenthesis is huge (it should be after), and don’t assume your readers know—before you brag about size—where “Manchester United” is. I know, in a vague sort of way, that it’s in Britain somewhere, but that’s it.
Then you’ve got the run-on sentence, with the clause about him, the clause about her, and then the third clause about how wonderful they are, and no commas to help along the way.
And what’s with all the capitalization? I hate when people brag and go on and on about how great they are and capitalize the least little thing. Makes ‘em look like idiots.
14) Professor Rakesh and I wrote the book after many discussions on how pressure affects sportsman and woman, and what business people could learn from sport.
What? “Sportsman and woman”? No! The singular is incorrect in a big way, and you’ve got to use the suspended hyphen rule. This should read “sportsmen and -women.”
And I don’t have “discussions on,” I have “discussions about.” But that’s just me.
15) Five years demonstrated ability to effectively lead, supervise, train, and develop staff and manage conflict resolution.
You see this mistake all the time, so be careful if you find yourself writing about someone’s experience. If you don’t follow “years” with “of,” you’ve got to write “years” as a plural possessive: “years’.”
16) (Please clearly mark the packages you send to jurors “FLORIDA BOOK AWARD ENTRY”.
When you call for submissions for a book awards, it’s sort of important to get your writing right, don’t you think? Multiple, basic, and glaring mistakes in this one sentence. First off, where’s the second parenthesis? Secondly, quotation marks are ALWAYS placed OUTSIDE periods and commas. And these people are going to be judging my editing book Before You Even Open Your Mouth: Business Writing for Professional Speakers? Wow.
17) Send four copies of your book for each category entered for the first category and three copies for each additional category. (e.g. one book entered in three categories = 10 copies of the book).
E.G. and I.E. are always followed by a comma.
18) Seven years experience in higher education, development, fund raising or equivalent experience in a non-profit institution.
Hey, it takes careful writing to make three mistakes in one sentence!
We just learned the rule about “years” and the plural possessive. Since “years” is not followed by “of,” then this should read “years’.” (Spellcheck picked that up.) “Fundraising” is one word. And nonprofit isn’t hyphenated.
19) The Vistage Inside program offers a configurable talent development approach that fully engages your team, equips them with the skills and sensibilities to manage collaboratively and helps them achieve higher levels of performance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Modern mush-talk. What’s a “configurable talent development approach”? But my real problem is noun-pronoun agreement. We’ve got the collective noun “team,” which is treated as a singular noun, and so takes a singular pronoun, which should be “it.” If you think it sounds cold to characterize a group of people as an “it,” then you’ve got plenty of possible work-arounds: team members, teammates, staff members, staffers, audience members, and so on.
Plus, if you go back the Sentence #1 in this group, notice that “Program” is capitalized there but not here. Continuity is a huge issue in writing. I’d want to decide on the style of the issue: for this company, when is “program” capitalized and when is it not capitalized? Once the style is established, then I’d want to review this entire website to ensure continuity. Page after page, document after document, you have to be consistent. It’s easier to deal with style first, and pass around the style sheet to all your writers.
20) These full-day sessions will align your team on issues and opportunities, empower them with a common language and shared goals, inspire collaboration, and break down functional silos.
Call me stupid, but I have no idea what a “functional silo” is or why it should be “broken down.” My big problem (again) is referring to a “team” as “them.” Can’t do it, folks. I also hate these trendy words like “align,” and “empower,” and, well, I guess I’ll give “collaboration” a pass, but with all these other mushy words jammed in it’s easy to throw out the baby with the bath water.
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