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Does Word Count Matter?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- December 14, 2023
No CommentsRarely a week goes by when a nervous financial professional doesn’t reach to me for help with a last-minute guest column for the business media. With a deadline bearing down, the thrill of being a guest contributor has been replaced by the anxiety of “what am I going to write about and how will I/we
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When to Use i.e. Instead of e.g.
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- November 18, 2023
Sometimes I regret that I didn’t take Latin in high school. But there was only one Latin teacher to choose from in our small school. Supposedly he was a monster, i.e., he was a brutal grader, with a bad temper and breath to match. Still, it would have been good to know the derivation of
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Where vs. In Which?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- October 18, 2023
A well-known financial professional seemed to be hedging her bets in a recent piece she sent to us for review. Right off the bat, three sentences rubbed me the wrong way (but apparently not her Marcom team): It’s a win-win situation where the firm can provide higher-quality services, and the clients achieve better financial outcomes.
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That or Which?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- September 29, 2023
A well-known financial advisor recently asked us to update the manuscript for a book she published a few years ago. In the opening acknowledgements, three sentences using the word “which” didn’t seem right to me: “There are still a myriad of products which simply must be purchased through traditional selling methods.” “We can only sell
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Are You Getting These Common Words Wrong?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- August 18, 2023
Not to embarrass anyone on this distribution list, but I came across this in a client’s guest column the other day. He was a big proponent of AI, Grammarly and SpellChecker, by the way: “In principal, the judge’s decision should not effect the outcome.” Affect vs. Effect: These homophones confuse many, especially when writing quickly.
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Do You Struggle With ‘For Example’ When Writing or Presenting?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- June 12, 2023
Smart people often have difficulty explaining things simply. They may have a deep understanding of the subject matter and find it difficult to distill that knowledge into layman’s terms. They may be so familiar with the problem that they assume others understand it as well, and fail to realize that they need to explain it
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You Don’t Have Writer’s Block
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- May 29, 2023
Over the past week, I’ve had several conversations with clients about why they haven’t been able to get the ball rolling on their next content piece. I get it. You’re busy closing out the month. You’re trying to get some R&R over the Holiday weekend. Just don’t tell me you have “writer’s block.” Most of
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Baseball: The National Past (It’s) Time
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- April 21, 2023
With all the problems in the world today, the last thing we need are billionaire team owners squabbling with millionaire ballplayers over money. With Opening Day and the first week of the Major League Baseball season canceled, fans and viewers may not return if and when the owner-player dispute is settled. With a “minimum
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What March Madness Teaches Us About Investing Bias
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- March 16, 2023
Hard to believe, but the annual NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament is upon us. The national championship of college basketball (aka “March Madness”) is the ultimate three-week long reality show. Where else can little known universities (aka small cap growth stocks) such as St. Peters, Loyola of Chicago, Murray State, Weber State and Florida
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What If We Forgot to Have the Recession?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- January 12, 2023
Ain’t nobody got time for that! Experts have been warning us about a recession for over a year, but maybe we’re too busy to notice. As Kimberly “Sweet Brown” Wilkins of viral YouTube fame would say: “Ain’t nobody got time for that.” The unemployment rate of about 3.7% was at or near a 50-year low.
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