One of the surest ways to lose credibility with your audience is to pepper your PowerPoint slides with spelling and grammatical mistakes.
I am constantly amazed by presentations with such shortcomings, especially ones by native English speakers. If your own presentations are sloppy, why should I expect that you will handle my business any differently?
So today we start a new series about English grammar. From time to time, I will post short articles highlighting some of the common mistakes that I have seen on presentation slides, and how to avoid them. Today I have some good advise – I mean “advice” – for you.
Too often, people confuse the words “advise” and “advice”. The former is the verb; the latter is the noun. Yet I have often seen sentences like this:
- We provide timely and quality advise.
- Let us advice you.
The sentences should be written as follows:
- We provide timely and quality advice.
- Let us advise you.
We all make spelling mistakes and typographical errors from time to time. That’s why it is important to double check and triple check your slides before the day of the presentation. Every mistake that you catch and fix is just a bit more polish on your presentation.
Remember this tip and leave your audiences impressed with your advice.
Another big problem is affect and effect.
People must understand that the effect of poor grammar in a PowerPoint will affect the decisions others make about you.
Absolutely right, Pat. Those two words are on my list for a future post. John
I am thrilled, finally someone says it out loud. Yes, please, let me hear more about grammar. I am looking forward to reading more about it.
Thanks, Gaby. And thanks for spotting that typo in the post. I should take my own “advice”!