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EFFECTIVE BUSINESS WRITING
- September 6, 2020
- Posted by: mealone
- Category: Business Entrepreneurship Leadership
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Business writing involves professional communication tool which is sometimes called business communication, corporations and other professional entities use to communicate with either an internal or external audience. Communication through memorandums, reports, proposals, emails, and a variety of other business-related written materials are all forms of business writing.
Furthermore, business writing is a type of writing that seeks to elicit a business response. And It is always a purposeful piece of writing that provides relevant information to help a reader know something or do something. Must always be substantive, clear, correct, and easy to scan.
TIPS TO EFFECTIVE BUSINESS WRITING
- MAIN POINT FIRST. You must state exactly why you’re writing the correspondence upfront. And one exception to this rule is for sales letters. Also reminding the recipient of a past meeting or a common connection you share is an acceptable way to open as it may influence the recipient to be more amenable to your intended aims.
- USE COMMON WORDS. Making use of words such as “about” rather than “concerning,” “expect” rather than “anticipate,” and “part” instead of “component” will make your writing less stilted.
- KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. Except it is aimed at an industry-specific audience, don’t fill your writing with lots of technical jargon (specifics can be attached separately.) Carefully adjust your tone to suit your intended reader. For example, a letter of complaint would have a far different tone than a letter of reference.
- Make Use contractions when possible. Recently business writing has undergone a shift from formal to a more accessible style, so using”we’re” not “we are,” and “we’ve” not “we have” is the way to go. Even so, you don’t always have to use a contraction. And a good rule of thumb is that if a contraction improves the sentence flow, use it; However, if the sentence is more persuasive without it, use two words.
- Employ active rather than passive verbs. Mostly active verbs allow the reader to comprehend quickly and understand more completely. For instance, “The decision has implemented to suspend production,” leaves the interpretation of who made the decision to call it quits open.in another context, the meaning of, “We’ve decided to suspend production,” is clear.
- BE CONVERSANT WITH WRITING RULES This is a scenario of knowing your audience. However, If your aim is to make your writing conversational, it’s fine to end a sentence with a preposition now and then, especially to improve flow and avoid awkward construction. Having said that, while many businesses have their own in-house style guides, elementary rules for style and grammar must be observed for your writing and you would be considered professional. However sloppy writing, poor word choice, or an unearned overly familiar attitude can come back to haunt you.
- USE SIMPLE FONT. Endeavour you stick to a nice, clean type style such as Helvetica or Times New Roman and limit the number of fonts you use in correspondence. This is because your goal is to write something legible and easy to read.
- MEDERATELY USE VISUALS. Usually, visuals should be used at a minimum and they should not exceed 25% of your document, memo, email, report, etc. This is because Too many graphics become confusing and often detract from the message you want to convey. And a few powerful, well-placed graphics will accomplish more to get your point across than something that looks like a bad attempt at scrapbooking.