Mechanics

People often forget about mechanics when writing. Some questions that arise when writing a letter or report are whether a number should be written as a word or figure, how acronyms should be used, whether a date should be stated day-month-year or month-day-year, and many others. I will explain the five mechanical issues that seem to give the most trouble.

The first is proper nouns. Proper nouns name a specific person, place, thing, or concept, qualities, and ARE capitalized. Examples are Mike Jones, France, Microsoft, and Writing That Works.

The second is common nouns. Common nouns name general classes or categories of people, place, things, concepts, or qualities rather than specific ones. These are NOT capitalized. Examples are business writing, company, person, and country.

The third mechanical issue is numbers. Numbers are generally written from zero to ten, and then shown as figures after ten. Examples would be five, ten, 15, and 2.

The fourth is time and date. When expressing hours and minutes use a.m. or p.m. (7:30 a.m., 7:30 p.m.). When time is not followed by a.m. or p.m., spell out the word. (Seven o’clock, twelve o’clock.) Dates written in the United States are in a month-day-year sequence. (April 10, 1989). Never use numerical form for dates (04/10/89).

The fifth is words, letters, and figures. When words, letters, and figures are being discussed they are italicized. Examples, The word they is always misused. The r, t, v, e, and q keys on my keyboard do not work. It’s basically highlighting what you want your reader to focus on.