Get your FREE 30-day trial.
Please complete all fields.
Grammar. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see the word? An unforgiving English teacher forcing you not to end your sentence with a preposition? Not knowing when to use who or whom (and therefore always using whom to sound smarter)? Hoping spell-check will save the day? Well, yes, but it’s much more than that. Grammar holds the English language — and society — together (it separates us from the cavemen, in other words). Editors and proofreaders promote good grammar. They “clean up” the language and help writers sound good.
And editors, like anyone else, can always brush up on their career skills. You can never be too good at your job or know everything about the field. Therefore, classes can be your best friend. Luckily, Salesforce provides its employees the resources to grow.
As an editor and proofreader on the Creative team at Salesforce, my workday consists of seeing a variety of materials with words on them — including the website, e-books, event signage, and other marketing pieces — and making sure the words are all used correctly and in a way that’s consistently on brand and sounds like English. Across such a big company, there are often lively debates on everything from capitalization to syntax. It’s important that I am a well-versed editor to succeed in the role and make a compelling, accurate case for good grammar.
I first joined Salesforce as a contractor, and became familiar with the company benefits I would gain access to when officially hired. One that I was most excited about was the education reimbursement policy: Salesforce provides $5,250 per year for each employee to use on tuition, books, and student fees for courses that relate to his or her job.
After being hired at the beginning of 2016, I immediately signed up for online classes at UC Berkeley Extension. The first course I took was “Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage for Editors.” As the title might suggest, we dove into the basics of grammar for this class (it’s more fun than it might sound). Common assignments: noting if a phrase was being used as an adjective or adverb and diagramming sentences. We had online class discussions about subjects like whether to always hyphenate compound adjectives (“he’s a problem-solver”), if we agreed with a rule from The Chicago Manual of Style (lowercasing web but capitalizing Internet was controversial), and our favorite grammar websites and books (a favorite is Grammar Girl).
My second course was “Introduction to Copyediting,” where we focused on editing longer pieces. We paid attention to whether the pieces were logical and factual, if a sentence or paragraph could have stronger writing, and how to tactfully question the author using the comment feature in a document.
I have always loved taking classes and learning, but fell out of the habit a few years after graduating college. With school and homework no longer part of my normal routine, I wondered how they’d fit into my life on top of a full-time job.
After a long day of work, coming home to grammar assignments and reading The Chicago Manual of Style wasn’t my first choice for relaxing after-work activities. However, the fact that I enjoyed the assignments, the readings (Woe Is I — a great book), and the class discussion forums made it engaging and fun.
The two classes I completed apply toward a professional certificate in editing. And now that I’m halfway to getting that certificate, I feel even more motivated to continue taking classes, and they’ve helped me develop a better sense of the areas I want to focus on. I also just signed up for a writing class and am now taking on writing assignments in my department. I’d highly recommend the classes I’ve taken, by the way, and not only to writers, but anyone interested in the English language. Working for a company that invests in its employees and encourages self-discovery, growth, and development is a special opportunity. The education reimbursement policy is a tremendous benefit I would encourage everyone to take advantage of.
