While we may not give it much thought when sending someone a message online, grammar still plays an important role in our digital communication. Outside of informal communications like these, grammar helps us shape positive first impressions, ensures clarity and understanding, and plays a key role in business and branding. It impacts how others perceive us, which makes it important for both individuals and businesses who want to portray a professional, polished, and trustworthy persona. Let’s take a closer look at the impact grammar can have, even in the digital world.
Grammar Shapes First Impressions
People are quick to form their opinions about others. These impressions form in less than a minute when meeting someone, and they’re hard to change once they’ve been formed. When we’re making a first impression on someone with written communication, such as in a cover letter or resume, people are building first impressions based on what we write. Typos and grammar mistakes can lead people to make instant negative judgments about our intelligence, professionalism, and attention to detail. Even if these judgements aren’t correct, they’re already impacting someone’s opinion—which can be detrimental in situations like job searching.
On the other hand, good grammar can build a positive first impression that makes people feel more positively about us and our intelligence and competency. It can demonstrate that we pay attention to details, are committed to quality, and take pride in our work. Good grammar instils a sense of professionalism and credibility about the writer, making people feel more confident in and more likely to trust what is said.
Grammar Ensures Clarity and Understanding
If we’re trying to communicate an idea with others, ensuring we follow grammar rules can help us do so effectively. Grammar rules inform the structure of sentences, including the order of words and the placement of punctuation. These allow written work to be understood, minimizing confusion and miscommunication. As the classic schoolteacher go-to demonstrates, it’s the key difference between the phrase “let’s eat Grandma” and “let’s eat, Grandma.” In other words, these rules ensure clarity and understanding for the reader.
Grammar allows us to inform, persuade, and entertain readers with our writing. This means grammar is essential in a range of contexts, whether we’re writing an informative blog post, requesting specific information from a service provider, trying to persuade our boss to try a new approach at work, or sharing a social media post.
Grammar in Business and Branding
These effects of grammar don’t just have influence at the individual level; they also significantly influence businesses and their branding. For businesses to be perceived as credible and trustworthy, they must earn that trust.
Just as we make first impressions of people through their writing, we also make first impressions of the businesses and brands we encounter online through their writing. This means grammar matters for businesses. When a business takes the time to craft grammatically correct writing, it can signal that they are professional, polished, and, most importantly, trustworthy. This doesn’t just apply to a business’s blog. It applies anywhere it shares written content, including its website, emails, ads, and social media posts.
For businesses, grammar can play a key role in marketing efforts, though it is more critical in some industries than others. For instance, Ben & Jerry’s is more likely to be forgiven for spelling mistakes in an email to customers than a lawyer emailing a potential client.
Industries Where Grammar Is Critical
Beyond legal professions, grammar is also critical in industries such as finance, healthcare, and iGaming. Each of these industries relies on trust from its clients and players to be successful. When our sensitive information—like our financial and health data—is being actively used, we want to be sure that the service provider is taking this seriously. We want to feel reassured that they’re competent and professional, and one way we assess that is by evaluating the quality of their communications. If we easily spot glaring typos or grammatical errors, we’ll likely find ourselves wondering what else they might let slip through the cracks.
Grammar also plays a role in our user experience within these industries. From reading financial statements from an online banking service to understanding deposit terms and conditions at one of the gambling sites reviewed on Casinos.com, grammar is a vital tool. It ensures that we understand the information they’re giving us to make informed decisions about our next steps.
Practical Tips for High-Quality Writing Online
As recognizing the impact that grammar has might make us wonder how to improve our online writing, here are a few practical tips we can implement:
Review Grammar Basics
For many of us, our last grammar lesson was in high school, so brushing up on the rules is likely a good idea. Taking the time to get back to the basics can help us be more aware as we craft sentences and paragraphs, helping us be more effective communicators.
Read Other People’s Writing
Reading well-written content—whether on LinkedIn, in news articles, or in blogs—can sharpen your own writing skills. Look at how the writing is structured, take note of its flow, and what makes it engaging and interesting. Doing this will help inform your writing later on.
Proofread and Edit
Before you send an email or publish a blog post, take the time to review what you’ve written. Ideally, step away from your writing before doing this, as it allows you to return with a fresh perspective. You might also consider using editing tools like spelling and grammar checkers.
Get Feedback
Getting feedback on our work from another person, whether it’s a friend or coworker, can be highly valuable in improving our writing. Often, a fresh set of eyes can improve minor issues that we can easily miss when reviewing our work.
Final Thoughts
It’s easy to dismiss grammar in a digital-first world, but it is still an essential tool in communication that shouldn’t be forgotten. While emojis and acronyms can convey meaning, grammar ensures clarity and understanding—and isn’t that what communicating is all about?
Oliver Smith is an experienced blogger at Grammar Globe, Oliver Smith, an expert in English grammar and a master of wit, brings language to life with his playful take on puns. Through his works, he weaves humor into the rules of grammar, making learning fun and engaging for readers of all ages. Discover language with a smile!”
