Anna Malczyk | The language guru

By Kate Blake

When writing an article or an email, a simple comma can change the emphasis of what you say; put in the wrong place it can even make you say the wrong thing! This is what Anna Malczyk has taught us.

Well, that and so much more. Anna joined the GetSmarter team this year in the new role of Communications Executive. She studied Media, Law and French, then completed her Masters in Media Studies, both at the University of Cape Town.

Anna writes a number of articles for GetSmarter: she has an amazing ability to turn information that may be tricky to understand into an article that anyone can read and understand. Anna’s articles have proved to be popular with a wide variety of audiences; with her flair for the written word, we are not surprised at all. We love giving Anna work, which is fine by her – she is a stickler for deadlines: one of her favourite things is crossing off finished tasks.

The powers that be decided that Anna should improve our English skills with weekly English lessons, thus “Pimp my English” started. These have been so helpful to the team that we decided to share them with our GetSmarter readers. Each month we publish one of our favourite lessons in the SmartyPants Newsletter.

Those that teach must also learn. Anna says that the most important lesson that she has learned so far is to “try new things! The best results usually come out of testing out crazy new ideas and making the one-in-a-million projects work.”

Anna is a bona fide geek, spending her spare time reading, gaming (she owns a PC and two gaming consoles) and browsing the web. She loves going out to restaurants and listening to some of the quirky, cool bands in Cape Town. She has also just started playing the flute!

A huge gadget fan, Anna has a house filled with all sorts of weird devices. “The next one I’m eyeing is the Kindle ebook reader” (The marketing team were happy to hear this; they were wondering how to bribe Anna to proof all their work).

Back to SmartyPants Newsletter - August 2010 Edition
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license.