Grammar matters

In an increasingly informal world where much written communication takes the form of texts and tweets, WSJ reports managers are becoming increasingly concerned with the writing skills of employees.  This becomes a business problem when communications become unclear, customers or suppliers are offended, or internal processes are improperly documented. 

Think you are up on your grammar?  Then look at these sentences from the article, decide which ones are correct and identify the error in the other sentences:

• The fire at XY Corp. damaged three buildings and all the building's records were lost
• Chocolate has a positive affect on his mood
• There was a heated discussion between the three engineers
• The principle strategy she offered was about gathering data

Surprise -- all four sentences contain mistakes: replace building's with buildings', affect with effect, between with among, and principle with principal.  

Good news for incoming NC State MBA students -- we are going to help you with your writing this year at orientation and MBA 500.