I was a PR major at the University of Georgia, and writing was a big part of what we were taught and on what we were judged. While a large chunk of PR people were journalism/communication/PR majors, many were not. People I know in the industry were finance, history, sports marketing - you name it. So, a lot of us were never really judged on our writing skills since that wasn't a focus in our program.

Carey was actually asked to overnight press materials to an editor recently - pretty random since they had been communicating via email and it would make much more sense to simply email the info. It got me thinking just how much we rely on email for communication, forcing weak writers into a sticky situation. This is true across many industries, not just PR - but it's more expected that people in PR be strong writers. While we try to make sure that pitches and press releases see a few pairs of eyes before going out, we shoot emails to clients, editors and vendors all day using our own judgment. Perhaps the most difficult part of email is conveying tone - I receive so many emails that seem rude and condescending, but then I have to remind myself that this is an email, and that I can't take it for face value. Sometimes an exclamation point can make all the difference!

Unfortunately, our writing is judged based on ALL correspondence, which is why I've become the office writing freak. I get easily irritated by common mistakes, but I need to keep it in perspective. There are people at BLAST that could smoke me in small biz or financial speak - I just happen to be the resident writing nerd. Regardless, I urge everyone to read and re-read emails, because spell check doesn't catch everything. Trust me, I recently sent an email to an editor and wrote "shave" instead of "have" - the sentence took on a whole new (and embarrassing) context! I've also written an email to an editor named "Doug" and, unfortunately, "Dung" made it through spell check. Lucky for me, old Dung had a good sense of humor and we have a great relationship now. If you want a few good tips, check out this recent NY Times story.

What's your worst email typo?