BUSINESS DOCUMENTS RIFE with typos can undermine your professional reputation, as well as your company’s. That’s why administrators should have a good working knowledge of spelling, punctuation and grammar, as well as the ability to catch mistakes before someone else does. With a little practice, you can reduce your margin of error and ultimately help your company project an image of professionalism.

Know what to watch out for

Christopher Simmons, president of a leading news distribution service, has been proofreading copy for more than 23 years on a daily basis. The most common mistakes he finds in business releases include:

It’s vs. Its: “It’s” is short for “it is” or “it has” (“it’s raining”), whereas “its” is a possessive pronoun, as in “its coat.”

You’re vs. Your: “You’re” is short for “you are” (“you’re not going out like that”), whereas “your” is a possessive pronoun, as in “your coat.”

There vs. Their: “There” is a place (“let’s go there”), whereas “their” is a plural possessive pronoun, as in “their coats.”

Insure vs. Ensure: The term “insure” is related to insurance, whereas “ensure” means “to make sure.”

Punctuation and Quote Marks: Commas separating a direct quote from the rest of a sentence should be placed inside the quotation marks. The same is true for periods.

If the quote is a citation and immediately followed by a related parenthetical reference, the punctuation would follow the parentheses, but the end quote mark would stay with the actual quote. For example: “Sales in the Southeast will be favourable in the fourth quarter” (XYZ Report, pp. 67).

Ellipses (...) vs. Em Dashes (?): Ellipses indicate something was removed from the text and should not be used to separate a thought ? that’s a job for the em dash. Here, the em dash is used to set off text that defines the sentence’s subject: “My boss ? the one who asked me to give this presentation ? is here today.” In this sentence, the words “the one” were replaced by an ellipsis: “My boss who asked me to give this presentation is here today.”

Proof-read your work

Grammatical errors can be particularly difficult to catch, because spell-check might not flag them. That’s why experts stress that proof-reading is still the best antidote. Simmons offers these tips for checking your work:

View your document at 125 or 150 per cent in Word so you can better see what you’re reading and more easily spot errors. Switch your font to courier, to break the brain’s typical pattern recognition. This makes it easier to catch mistakes, because it forces you to pay closer attention to the text.

Don’t just skim. Take the time to really read what you’ve written. When possible, read your work out loud. Your sense of hearing will help you spot errors you might not see. Print your document. You can often catch mistakes on paper that you’d miss on the monitor.

Get another pair of eyes on your work

Kim Sharma, an administrative assistant for a securities firm, tries to wait a few hours before checking her work to read it with fresh eyes. She also has a friend or co-worker double-check what she’s written to make sure she hasn’t missed anything.

Consult references

Don’t go it alone. Good business writing resources should be staples on your bookshelf.