Well, quite the opposite is true.

Bombarded with such in-your-face punctuation, the reader flinches and moves on to the next sentence – if you’re lucky.

Most single exclamation marks are unnecessary. More than one not only looks aggressive, but it also has an air of desperation about it. Please read me! Please!!!

Exclamation means words exclaimed or a sudden strong cry, according to my dictionary. So unless you’re writing a novel in which the heroine has just screamed, avoid exclamation marks at all costs.

Often, even if it finally makes it into print, the effort has all the hallmarks of an amateur production. But then a gem comes along, like the book Gunstige wind, eindeloos zicht (Favourable wind, endless horizons) by Saskia van der Sluis and Diana Venneman.

Self-publishing the right way

Saskia is cook and mate on a traditional Dutch sailing ship called Bør and Diana is the co-owner with her husband Hans. Together they have created a beautiful coffee table book containing 128 pages of photos of their travels up and down the Norwegian coast with Dutch tourists.

“I’ve always wanted to make a book but it wasn’t until Hans and Diana read an article I did about Bør in an online sailing magazine that they decided I should do it,” said Saskia.

She and Diana decided on layout and selected the photos that all three of them had taken, while Saskia learned InDesign – the Adobe graphic design program.

They took the first 20 spreads to a nautical publisher in March 2011 but discovered it was cheaper to publish it themselves.

Working full throttle for eight days, in between sailing and other jobs, after months of preparation, they finally had the drafts together and by November they had a book.

Hans and Diana made the investment and printed 1,000 copies in China.

The Netherlands’ biggest sailing magazine reviewed the book and it’s now available from the boat’s website www.borzeilreizen.nl or www.bol.com

Saskia’s now hooked on publishing and is practising her InDesign and working on photo books she can upload.

Related articles:

How self-publishing came of age

But it’s also gratifying when I stumble across an easy way to remember something that I can pass on to the reporters I mentor.

Take this tip on using there, their and they’re from How we write: A style guide for Regus writers:

Remember the phrase ‘They’re there in their office’, which of course means: ‘they are there in the office belonging to them’.

Or to recall the difference between principal and principle:

Principal has an A, which is the first – or principal – letter of the alphabet.

My favourite book on remembering grammar is the Excellent English chapter in Thirty days has September, which contains many helpful mnemonics such as:

What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?

A cat has claws at the end of its paws

A comma’s a pause at the end of a clause.

And an acronym (RAVEN) to remember affect vs effect:

Remember: Affect, Verb, Effect, Noun.

As a regular editor of internal communications (IC), I despair at seeing ‘Headline to come’ at the top of writers’ copy. It’s as if they’ve built a house of cards and are afraid the last ace will bring it all crashing down – so they simply avoid putting the roof on.

Sometimes they lose heart because there isn’t enough to go on in the copy. Shaky foundations result in shakier headlines. A persuasive story that draws the reader in will make it easier to top your story with an attention-grabbing head.

Repetitive fare makes this a challenge for anyone writing in internal comms. Old faithfuls like award ceremonies, the Three Peaks Challenge and other fundraising stories make it hard to stay fresh. But failure to find new angles stifles headline creativity and ends with writers resorting to headline clichés such as Wheely good and Smiles better that are sure to put readers off instead of arousing their curiosity like a good head should.

So when you’re writing the umpteenth awards story for your publication, spare a thought for the sub or the designer who writes your headlines – try to give it a different twist. You’ll be surprised by the creativity heaped on your head!

Sad to say, a plethora of conkers at every door and copious spraying of No More Spiders deterrent spray (ha!) has had zero effect on this year’s invaders, of which, according to The Guardian, there are even more this year.

The eight-legged blighters are definitely bigger. We’ve certainly had three of the largest arachnids I’ve seen since holidaying in France gave me heart failure every time I had to use the bathroom.

Our home’s spider-finding general (my husband) is now on strike over using the cup-and-card method of spider-evacuation. The sucker-upper I bought last year is too small to suck up the size of spider we’re getting.  The cat plays spider snooker when he sees one but refuses to take them outside.

As a lifelong arachnophobe, I’m left with no choice but to return to tried-and-tested methods! Now where’s that boot…

The only true spider repellent...

Related articles

• Good year for spiders sparks a surge of arachnophobia (guardian.co.uk)

The communications company prides itself on its fresh thinking and this time it really is ‘out of the box’.

Recognising that staff contracts need to be digestible to compel word-for-word reading, it sweetens the chore by adding a chocolate bar and tea bags in neatly designed packaging worthy of Apple. Maybe the comms team imagined new employees sitting comfortably on a sofa to digest their contract while munching a treat and sipping a brew.

Some may think this is a waste of resources. For my money, any company that thinks this hard about how its new staff will view its communications is doing something right.

But even experienced homeworkers can make mistakes. Mine was agreeing to house-sit and fish-sit for a neighbour who was acting koi about how easy it was to feed her carp while the family went on holiday.

A nightmare of time-consuming problems ensued during – inevitably – my busiest week ever.

Day one, the bolt to the door of the conservatory containing the fish food shot back in its slot and couldn’t be moved. I drove to the local aquarium for extra food and shimmied out of a window.

Day two, armed with pliers, I manage to force the bolt back and access the fish food.

Day three, arrive to find the fish barely covered by water. Panic! The pump is on but there’s no water flowing. I try the hosepipe. Nada. Thankfully, there’s water coming from a tap on the other side of the house.

An hour later I’d poured 12 buckets of water into the pond. I call the aquarium – no good, running water is needed for oxygenation.

The clock ticking on a deadline, I drive to a mutual friend who gets the hose to work and the pump begins again. What a relief! It was almost ‘carp die-m’.

Fear not, relatives from Wales are taking over on Friday, I’m emailed from Cuba. Leaving my workload pending, I walk over to the house only to find the aunt had arrived on Thursday night. My patience running fin, I hurry back to the house and work like mad until the day’s end.

This big girl didn’t koi, but it came close! Lesson of the day: when it comes to your time be shellfish.

So what’s the first word that you’d associate with a popular hair product that has this on its packaging:

Our unique formula, blended with Australian Wild Peach extract, gently cleanse to help protect coloured hair.  The indigenous Australian’s use to grind Wild Peach kernels up to use as a form of hair conditioning oil.

Spotted the errors? Cleanse instead of cleanses. Wrong use of an apostrophe. Use rather than used to. I won’t go on.

This awful paragraph does nothing to sell the brand to me.  It simply shows the importance of a good sub editor!

Crafting the right words in the right tone of voice without spelling or grammatical errors is a must for a professional writer but a style guide is invaluable. It helps you write consistent, professional copy, which in turn enables companies to create a good impression and reinforce their brand.

The corporate has sent me a perfect-bound colour guide with practical advice on tone of voice and how to describe what it does to various audiences. Its 60 pages are packed with great advice on its business, writing styles and sector-specific words and jargon.

The guide is beautifully written and packaged and totally tailored to its business. But the public sector organisation has shown that you don’t need huge amounts of money to achieve the same aim.

Its corporate communications director has written a Word document outlining the importance of style, with an alphabetical guide and commonly used terms within his sector. While this anchors the style to his organisation, he then refers the writer to two excellent books – The Economist Style Guide and Guardian Style – for all the nitty-gritty on grammar.

Two worthy additions to the writer's reference library

Each approach has its advantages. The corporate’s guide leaves the writer in no doubt about its look and feel. It’s longer-lasting and puts everything in one handy document but it is expensive to update and costly to distribute. The organisation’s method means it can update the Word document easily and send it by email but relies on the writer to buy the books – a worthwhile investment.

From a writer’s viewpoint, whichever option an organisation chooses, either way is better than no guide at all.

It was a massive task to update all the descriptions and make them consistent – too big for one writer. So I leveraged the power of my network to pull together a pool of writing talent under my editorial control, producing copy with ultimate client approval.

Alison, third from left, with five members of the Word Factory: Mary, Ray, Fran, Vicky and James

Given its size and scope, the project could have easily derailed but following these steps made sure it kept on track.

Step one: Outline the parameters of the project. Write a set of guidelines detailing the project’s context, aims and strategy, and make sure the client approves them.

Step two: Make sure the client is kept informed. Continual engagement is essential throughout. Create a weekly update detailing each step of the project from agreeing the guidelines to keeping tabs on writers’ progress and invoices.

Step three: Choose your writers carefully. If you admire a writers’ style and have worked with them, bring them on board. If you need more writers, put out feelers to professional groups on LinkedIn or use your contacts in bodies such as the Institute of Internal Communication or Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Step four: Ensure your writers understand what’s expected. A big project means writers will have to self-regulate their own writing, so make sure their style is right from the outset. Ask each writer, whether you know their work or not, to complete a test run. Also make sure they can use any application the client wants the copy written in, eg Word, Excel or a workflow system.

Step five: Manage the client’s expectations. Don’t promise to deliver too much too soon but let the client know when they can expect copy. Keep tabs on the amount of copy being written and send out reminders to writers if it looks as if they’re running late. Deliver copy to the client in manageable batches.

Step six: Have a back-up plan: If a writer is ill or a computer virus causes them to lose all their work, what will you do? Be prepared to step in and take over writing their copy. Be honest with the client and tell them what’s gone wrong and what you’re doing to put it right.

Step seven: Check the client likes what they’re reading. It’s easier to edit hundreds of words as they’re written than 250,000 words after the fact. So periodically check with the client that they’re happy with the content. Tell writers where their work needs changing before they go too far.

Step eight: To ensure consistency, one editor has overall responsibility. As project manager, you might not be able to write as much as the others. Keep some time free to edit what they’ve written and rewrite if necessary. Be on hand as an emergency editorial service if anything goes awry.

Step nine: A thorough read will ensure consistency. As project manager, give the copy a final proofread and edit anything that is inconsistent and not in keeping with the guidelines.

Step ten: Listen to client feedback. Maintain communication with the client throughout the project and listen to their feedback, especially once they begin verifying the copy in-house (a vital part of the writing process). Be flexible in your response and be prepared to change direction accordingly.