Proper grammar usage is a crucial tool for any marketer, designer, or entrepreneurial— it helps convey your message and make your content easy to read.
In addition to readability, your audience will appreciate text that looks smart and professional. If you’re for looking tips on strong writing without constant check-ins from editors, read our guide below.
Recently, Stencil has written blog posts on how to create great images, use popular fonts, and tap into trending color palettes. To go along with this advice, we’d like to tell you about another useful tool for creating great content: Grammar.
Here are Stencil’s top 5 rules for essential grammar. Follow this guide when writing your text for social posts and visual content.
1. Capitalization
Nothing helps a reader understand your message more than proper capitalization. Always start a sentence with a capital letter. Doing so will not only grab your reader’s attention but also set the tone for your message. An organized statement conveys purpose and professionalism. Use capital letters at the beginning of each word to emphasize short messages or all caps to distinguish between two lines.
2. Commas
Once your sentence is off to a good start, use commas to maintain structure. Your audience will be distracted by sentences that don’t read well. This can be avoided by a simple comma. Also important is knowing when to avoid commas. Using too many can make a statement look too complicated. A general rule of thumb: read your sentence out loud. If you pause in the middle to separate ideas, put a comma there— if not, then keep the comma out.
3. Periods and exclamation
Exclamation points are the simplest way to convey the level of emotion that your post contains. Emphasize the importance of a call to action with an exclamation point. Put a period at the end of a sentence to convey a less intense, but direct but direct message.
4. Brevity
Get to the point as quickly and simply as possible. The image above refers to the lengthy process of bookmaking in just a few words. Looking for more examples? Try starting with a template in stencil. See if you can change the words in the template to fit your message without making the example sentence longer.
5. Word Choice
Avoid overly complex words when posting for news or business. Ernest Hemingway, author of For Whom The Bell Tolls, is famous for his brief and direct writing style. Scholar’s describe this approach as the “Tip of The Iceberg.” Writing with conciseness and brevity is not always easy. However, the ability to do so will draw readers in and help them easily connect with your product.
A Short Grammar Recap
Everyone from innovative image-makers to savvy businessmen can benefit from a strong command of grammar in the content. Use capitalization to distinguish the beginning of ideas and convey emotion. Craft strong sentences with commas. convey emotion with Periods and Exclamation. Maintain attention with brevity (the idea behind Twitter’s success). Lastly, use simple and efficient word choices.