We haven't talked about women and work email in a while — and it occurred to me that we really haven't discussed all the other forms of written and online communication in the working world. So, what are your thoughts on work communication etiquette in 2023? What rules have you established to make your work communication reflect your personal brand (e.g., tone? grammar?), and what rules have you established for purposes of work-life boundaries?

So, some questions for everyone:

• In work email, what is your preferred signoff? When do you use last names and honorifics vs. first names? Do you have rules about when to CC vs. BCC someone? How do you pay attention to tone in your emails, if at all? (Do you have personal rules for when you check emails, or which emails you get notifications for on your screen or phone?)
• In messages on MS Teams, Slack, or other dedicated messaging apps, how proper is your grammar, capitalization, and spelling? Are you a fan of emojis or gifs? Do you feel like there's an etiquette around @-ing someone to bring them into the conversation, or about silencing your notifications in a way that is obvious to your coworkers? In general, do you prefer to be “always available” via messaging apps, or do you have set times each day when you check to see new conversations and weigh in on older ones?
• Text messages and work-related communications: Do you do it, and if so how often? (Does it matter if you have a dedicated phone for work-related communiques?) How proper is your grammar, etc., in texting? Group texts: yea or nay?
• (related: in Zooms and video communications, do you always have your camera on? How proper is your grammar, etc., in private DMs with coworkers as well as when asking a written question or giving a general statement?)

(And for all of this: Do you notice any sort of divide among your coworkers, bosses, and subordinates, whether generational or otherwise?)

My Rules around Work Communications

For my own $.02, I feel like a lot of these work communications come down to boundaries — but also office culture!

For emails, I keep seeing the meme (and relating to it hard) about how “I have said something serious, so I am putting a period. But we're friendly so I'm going to follow it with an exclamation! Signing off in the friendliest possible way, xx.” So I still do feel weird about tone, but maybe that's me. (My go-to signoff is generally “Best,” but a lot of times work-related emails are without greetings or signoffs these days.)

We at Corporette use Slack, and I don't have too many rules around it — I use proper grammar sometimes but I frequently just use lowercase thoughts. I do like emojis for tone (and yes, I totally overuse the sideways laughing emoji face), but I'll only use a gif if I'm thinking of something very specific and can find it quickly.

For text messages, I've always held that at the farthest distance from me for work-life boundaries — I have texted with coworkers, even back in my lawyer days, but for work-related things I prefer to keep communications relatively minimal. I also feel like text messages should have a measure of urgency (but obviously not as much as an actual phone call).

For Zooms, if I'm one of many people on a call, then I'll usually turn my camera off if possible — if and when I write anything in the chat, it tends to be more on the casual side.

Readers, how about you? What are your thoughts on the etiquette around work communication these days? What rules have you established to make your work communication reflect your personal brand (e.g., tone? grammar?), and what rules have you established for purposes of work-life boundaries?

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If you want to be taken seriously as a professional, good grammar matters! Particularly for lawyers, where you get major points for knowing your Bluebook and local style conventions, there can be some serious grammar nerds around — and they will judge you if you use “none” as a plural or confuse further and farther.

Even those of us not working with grammar nerds need to get at least SOME grammar rules straight, though!

This is my list of the five grammar rules you must know if you want to be taken seriously:

1. Your/You're
2. They're/Their/There
3. Its/It's — and other general apostrophe problems.
4. Proper use of commas. This a huge topic, but it's one worth knowing well because so many things can go wrong with commas. Whether it's an error like “eats, shoots & leaves” or an error like “I'm coming to eat Grandfather,” they drive me batty. This Grammarly page looks like a good overview.
5. Word choice — specifically as it applies to your industry. This is a pretty open ended suggestion, but in some ways it matters the most! For example, you wouldn't want to work with a First Amendment lawyer who used “slander” and “libel” interchangeably… or a wedding planner who misspelled “stationery.” You should be absolutely sure you understand the meaning and proper usage of any words you use often at work, as well as any terms of art.

Ladies, what does your list of “must know” grammar rules include? Which grammar mistakes bug you the most? (Here's our last discussion on grammar annoyances.)  

Further Reading:

• Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss [$11.93 at Amazon]
• Top Ten Grammar Myths [Grammar Girl]
• Language Myths [Grammarphobia]
• Sorry, grammar nerds. The singular ‘they' has been declared Word of the Year. [Wonkblog, Washington Post]

Pictured: Pedantry FAIL, originally uploaded to Flickr by Tom Beard. 

The post Five Grammar Rules You Absolutely, Seriously Have to Know appeared first on Corporette.com.

Update: We still stand by the advice below, but do check out our latest discussion of grammar rules you absolutely, seriously must know.

I've seen a lot of fun grammar roundups lately, such as The Oatmeal's breakdown of who versus whom, and this Buzzfeed roundup of grammar jokes. So I thought we'd have a little discussion: what are your biggest pet peeves when it comes to grammar (particularly with coworkers)? What are your best tips?  (Pictured: I own this shirt! Good grammar costs nothing, $16 at Glarkware.)

For my $.02 — as a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern (my undergrad degree), I sat through so many lessons in copyediting that I still remember the different meanings of ordinance and ordnance, and the proper spelling of ophthalmologist. (Ha, I kid, WordPress's spellcheck just changed my A to an O. Fine.)

  This came in handy during my Bluebook years (I went on to become executive editor of Georgetown's law review). Accordingly, I'm always, hugely, deeply embarrassed whenever I make a mistake! I definitely used grammar as a gauge with coworkers (particularly subordinates). I even remember holding my breath the first time my husband emailed me, hoping against hope that this Guy I Really Liked would not totally ruin that impression with poor spellings or some frat-brat colloquialisms (yo yo yo dawg!). I even spent some time in my mid-20s (? the thought of having this much free time boggles my mind) making up little JPGs with lessons from When Words Collide, my favorite grammar book, which I used for my Windows screensaver for a time. Such as this one, on the difference between bad and badly:

I guess the grammar lessons that I use the most are these:

• It's = It Is (otherwise, its)
• Stationery/stationary – E is for eraser, A is for action
• That/Which — If the phrase that you want to use is an essential part of the sentence, use that. If it could be a sentence of its own, use which.

I'll admit that I Google a lot too, when in doubt (particularly with word choice) — but I think being a bit of a grammar nerd and knowing that, say, there's a difference between compliment/complement, elicit/illicit, discreet/discrete, etc, is half the battle.

Readers, what are your best tips with grammar? What gaffes drive you up the wall when you see coworkers, friends, or dates make them? Which are your favorite books or blogs to brush up your grammar skills?

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