Proper grammar is akin to the proper arrangement of a musical composition, with words as the individual notes or chords and the grammar itself as the rules that glue them into a nice tune. In music, simply playing nice-sounding notes does not result in a harmonious melody—it requires a skillful arrangement of the sounds to really please the ear. Likewise, proper grammar takes mere words and punctuation and transforms them into clear phrases that communicate the intended message in a powerful way.

In business applications, using correct grammar can deliver your marketing ideas with greater impact than poorly arranged writing. The increase of grammatically incorrect writing, thanks to informal avenues for expression such as e-mail, social networking and text messaging, has had a demonstrably adverse effect on written communication in general. This can be observed by reading the many mistakes in text all over the Internet that appear with run-on sentences, the overuse of commas, improper substitutions of words such as “loose” for “lose,” and others.

Checking your grammar should not require an advanced English degree. Fortunately there are many online tools that not only teach correct grammar rules but also automatically check your text and suggest revisions. Grammar correction has thus progressed from the tedious memorization of sometimes trivial rules to simply uploading text electronically or typing right into a browser to get the results in seconds. While quick electronic communication has given many a pretext for sloppy grammar, in reality the ability to quickly correct it using similar technology nullifies any excuse for sloppiness.