Top Business Writing Tips
Tuesday, 24th February 2009
When writing any kind of business-related letters, emails, reports, copy for brochures or websites or other material, it’s important to write clearly and concisely. You also need to adjust your writing to suit the intended audience.
Organisation
A good piece of business writing presents the reader with the relevant information in a clear, well-organised way. It helps if you ask yourself what the reader needs to know, and try to anticipate and answer any questions they might have. You can use headings and bullet points to highlight important parts of the text.
Be positive
If you make your business writing focus on the positive, you are more likely to receive positive responses. For example, say what to do rather than what not to do, and say what is possible rather than what is not impossible.
Passive voice
A lot of business writing uses the passive voice to exess. In certain cases it can be used, for example when you don’t know or it doesn’t matter who has performed an action, or when you want to avoid blaming someone or to minimize the force of a request or order. Elsewhere you should probably think carefully before using it.
Conciseness
A lot of business writing uses long phrases where short ones would be better. Some examples of this include for the purpose of instead of for; on a daily basis instead of daily, and the majority of instead of most. If you keep your sentences relatively short as well, your readers will find it easier to read you text. This is particularly important if you are writing in a foreign language and are not entirely confident about writing long, complex sentences.
Jargon and buzzwords
A lot of the material written in the world of business is heavily laden with jargon and buzzwords which often serve to obscure rather than clarify the meaning. Writing intended for an audience familiar with the relevant field can afford to use technical terms and other jargon, but not more than necessary.
Assumptions
Unless you know your intended audience well, you probably shouldn’t assume that they share the same knowledge as you.
Checking
It’s a good idea to check your writing carefully before sending it to make sure you have provided all the relevant details, and to correct any lexical or grammatical errors. For very important documents, it might be a good idea to ask a colleague to check them as well.
Tags: technical, vocabulary, business, language, tailor-made
Posted by Laura Lippert 2009-02 under Vocabulary,
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