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Grammar: Some Good "Advice"

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.

Photo courtesy of Hiroaki Maeda

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4 Replies to “Grammar: Some Good "Advice"”

  2. 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.

    Reply

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John delivered a keynote address about the importance of public speaking to 80 senior members of Gore’s Medical Device Europe team at an important sales event. He was informative, engaging and inspirational. Everyone was motivated to improve their public speaking skills. Following his keynote, John has led public speaking workshops for Gore in Barcelona and Munich. He is an outstanding speaker who thinks carefully about the needs of his audience well before he steps on stage.

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CFO European Dairy Supply Chain & Operations, Danone

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