We understand that being able to write in a clear and professional style is important to your business. That is why we have developed the Business Writing Institute and the Effective Business Writing class. This practice-driven business writing class will significantly improve your ability to write in English, so that your readers will receive a clear, concise, effective message. Most professionals spend at least 15-20% of their time writing for business; emails, memos, business letters, reports and other business correspondence. Our customized approach guarantees an improvement in business communication skills that will increase your productivity, success and job satisfaction.
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Benefits of business writing training classes:
- learn how to write a business letter
- discover the skills of writing a business letter
- learn to create clear business correspondence
- understand the difference of writing for business
- improve overall business communication
Business Writing Training: Business Writing Classes - Tips on Look & Feel
1. Think KISS!
George Bernard Shaw once apologised for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to make it shorter. Simplifying, synthesising and editing do take time and effort. But your challenge is to make what you are writing about as easily understood as possible for the reader.
There are some techniques you can use here:
Uses short words - multi-syllable words are more difficult to read and absorb;
Vary the length of sentences but aim for no more than fifteen words;
Avoid capitals - believe it or not they are harder to read!
Start a new paragraph as often as it is logically possible;
Make sure your paragraph is not just one sentence;
Avoid jargon - always explain a TLA (three letter acronym) before you use it;
If it's a particularly technical paper, consider a glossary of terms;
If there's some necessary but extensive information or data such as research findings, then consider putting them in a series of appendices.
Use the active tense, for example:
Active: The Board will review all budget submissions in early November.
Passive: In early November, all budget submissions will be reviewed by the Board.
KISS doesn't necessarily mean short - it just means being sufficiently informative and complete given the communications task that needs to be achieved.
2. Make it easy on the eye
Unless it's a legal document it doesn't have to look like one!
Spend some time formatting your content. When you read a newspaper, for example, (apart from starting at the Sports Page!) you probably scan the page looking for items of interest before you start reading a particular article word for word.
To help your reader, consider using:
Different fonts and sizes:These help highlight passages of text but should be used both sparingly and consistently;
Colour: This helps lift text off the page also and can be especially effective if it reflects your brand/house colours;
Pictures and diagrams; People absorb information in different ways. Some are more responsive to visual stimuli such as pictures, cartoons, models and diagrams (see below);
Bullets and lists:Bullets are symbols (numbers, boxes, circles, asterisks, dashes) that draw attention to a particular piece of text. These are excellent, for example, for lists and outlining the steps in a process;
Tables:these are an economical way too of presenting information and discipline you to keep it simple;
Subheads:Use mini-headlines to break up the copy in memos and letters and direct the reader through your writing.
3. Get the technicals right
Proof Reading
Spell check doesn't help you if you use the wrong word but spell it correctly i.e. there/their, complement/compliment, practice/practise, stationary/stationery - so you need to eyeball (proof read) what you have written.
This is actually quite demanding and it's too easy to see what you thought you'd written rather than what is actually written. If somebody on your team has eye for this kind of detail then use them!
It won't help you either if in the excitement of mastering 'cut and paste' you end up duplicating something.
Version control
A good discipline is to exercise some version control as you develop your material - it's so easy to mistakenly use a version that you had junked earlier.
Grammar
Purists might object to beginning a sentence with 'And, So, But'.
No matter - it's the spontaneity and flow that is more important. Some may feel the same way about the niceties of grammar - semi colons, colons, past participles but I'm not sure it's worth loosing any sleep over (personal view only!)
Factual information
Using precise information generates confidence - which important to business writing because it tells the reader that the writer really knows what he is talking about. This confidence can, however, be easily shattered if there are glaring factual mistakes.
3.5 Be old fashioned - print it off!
It's really useful to print off a copy of what you have written. What you see on your screen is not necessarily what it comes out like when you print it. Pagination and alignment may be out of sync - does it line up properly?
As you review the document it may cause you to think that it's not so logically presented as you imagined.
Source: Chris Farrance link
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