Business Writing:

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Business Writing

• General Guidelines for Effective Business Writing

Adapted and Presented
by Shirley Verrette
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• It is essential to understand that writing for a
  business context or audience can be distinctly
  different from writing in the humanities, social
  sciences, or other academic disciplines. Writing
  for business should be crisp and succinct. It
  should be to the point, specific and accurate.

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Higher Order Concerns

• Focus Purpose
• Audience
• Organization
• Development

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Focus Purpose

• Why are you writing?
• Is your purpose clear to your reader?
• Can you state the purpose of your document in one
  sentence?
• Is your main point stated clearly early in your
  document?

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Audience

• Is your audience clear in your mind? Can you
  describe them?
• What is their position? What is your relationship
  to them?
• How much do they already know about your topic?
• How will they feel about your document?
• Will they be able to understand the language you
  have used?
• Is your tone appropriate for your audience?

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Organization

• Is your document written in a logical and
  organized manner?
• Is each paragraph organized around one main idea?
• Can your reader identify the most important
  points quickly and easily?
• Is similar information kept together?

Tip Ask others to read your document and then
tell you what the most important points are.
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Development

• Is the order of your points effective?
• Did you include enough detail and example?
• Do you provide enough background information for
  your reader to understand your content?
• Do some paragraphs seem short and lacking in
  information?
• Is all of the information necessary?
• At the end of your document, is it clear what you
  want your reader to know or to do?

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Lower Order Concerns

• Clarity
• Formatting
• Grammar Mechanics

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Clarity

• Technical writing has earned the reputation of
  being dense, difficult to read, and at times,
  incoherent. Jargon is responsible for some of the
  difficulty that readers have, but difficulty in
  reading can also happen when writing does not
  conform to standard rules of grammar for written
  English and when sentences lack clarity.

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Sentence Clarity

• Old information new information
• Active Passive
• Parallel Construction
• Nominalization
• Action Verbs

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Old information new information

• Use old information to lead to new.
• Every semester after final exams are over, I'm
  faced with the problem of what to do with books
  of lecture notes (new information). They (old)
  might be useful some day, but they just keep
  piling up on my bookcase (new). Someday, it (old)
  will collapse under the weight of information I
  might never need. (Clear)
• Lately, most movies I've seen have been merely
  second-rate entertainment, but occasionally there
  are some with worthwhile themes. The rapid
  disappearance of the Indian culture (new) is the
  topic of a recent movie (old) I saw. (Unclear)

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Active Versus Passive Voice

• Avoid overuse of passive voice
• Clarity is the most important goal in business
  writing. Although the passive voice is sometimes
  necessary, often it not only makes your writing
  dull but also can be ambiguous, uninformative, or
  overly impersonal.
• Over one third of the applicants to the
  university failed the entrance exam. (Clear)
• The entrance exam was failed by over one third of
  the applicants to the university. (Unclear)

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Parallel Construction

• Put a series of words, phrases, or clauses, in
  parallel form (similar grammatical construction).
• In Florida, where the threat of hurricanes is an
  annual event, we learned that it is important (1)
  to become aware of the warning signs, (2) to know
  what precautions to take, and (3) to decide when
  to seek shelter. (Clear)
• In Florida, where the threat of hurricanes is an
  annual event, we learned that it is important (1)
  to become aware of the warning signs. (2) There
  are precautions to take, and (3) deciding when to
  take shelter is important. (Unclear)

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Avoid Nominalization

• Use verbs in place of noun forms known as
  "nominalizations.
• The implementation of the plan was successful.
  (Unclear)
• The plan was implemented successfully. (Clearer)
• We implemented the plan successfully. (Clearest)

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Action Verbs

• Use action verbs in place of to be verbs
• One difference between television news reporting
  and the coverage provided by newspapers is the
  time factor between the actual happening of an
  event and the time it takes to be reported. The
  problem is that instantaneous coverage is
  physically impossible for newspapers. (Overuse of
  to be verb)
• Television news reporting differs from that of
  newspapers in that television, unlike newspapers,
  can provide instantaneous coverage of events as
  they happen. (Stronger Clearer)

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Lower Order Concerns

• Formatting
• Are all parts included and in the correct order?
• Before your audience begins reading, what will
  the first impression of your document be?
• Does your document conform to standard business
  writing convention?

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Lower Order Concerns

• Grammar Mechanics
• Are there problems in your writing that
  frequently occur?
• Tips
• Keep a list of your trouble spots
  and check for those first.
• Read your document aloud to see
  and hear if there are problems.
• Use spell check.
• Get professional help for
  proofreading and editing.

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Grammar Basics

• Subject verb agreement
• http//owl.English.Purdue.edu/han
  douts/esl/eslsubverb.Html
• Active versus passive voice
• http//owl.English.Purdue.edu/han
  douts/grammar/g_actpass.Html
• Sentence fragments
• http//owl.English.Purdue.edu/han
  douts/grammar/g_frag.Html
• Transitional devices
• http//owl.English.Purdue.edu/hand
  outs/general/gl_transition.Html
• Independent dependent clauses
• http//owl.English.Purdue.edu/hand
  outs/grammar/g_clause.Html
• Pronouns
• http//owl.English.Purdue.edu/hando
  uts/grammar/g_pronuse.Html
• Commas
• http//owl.English.Purdue.edu/hando
  uts/grammar/g_commaproof.Html
• (Refer to Purdue OWL handouts)

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