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 grammar and vocabulary.  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.

Of course, the sentences should be written as follows:

• We provide timely and quality advice.
• Let us advise you.

Remember this tip and leave your audiences impressed with your advice.

Photo courtesy of Hiroaki Maeda