Business Writing Training: 10 Business Writing Course Tips

Writing is a fascinating exploration into the human mind - the right words can move you to tears, make you want to buy, or turn your insides to warm and gooey as caramel custard. But the wrong words can turn you off a person or a company, send you into a rage, or laugh hysterically.

Everybody has days when their brain works faster than their fingers. Words are completely missed, typos occur and mistakes are made. The problem is that these mistakes can cost you business. So here are my top 10 tips to improve your writing:

1. Work out what you are trying to say first. Each piece of writing should have at least one clear message in it. Work out what that message is before you start writing.

2. What action do you want them to take? Make the actions you want people to take after reading your document crystal clear. This is not a time to go all shy - loudly shout the actions you want.

3. Spell check EVERYTHING. Every email, every document, every piece of correspondence. Set your systems to automatically run spell check before sending or exiting.

4. Read it out loud. By reading it out loud if you run out of breath before you run out of sentence, your sentence is too long and you need to take the pruning shears to it.

5. Cut the fluff. When you read your words back, have you said exactly the same thing only different ways? In business communication, once is generally enough.

6. Delete jargon and acronyms. Each industry is known for its jargon and those little letters that represent words. Psychologically it is a way to show belonging and keep out strangers. Do you really want to shore up your ramparts and repel invading armies? If not, then do a jargon busting scan through your business documents before hitting the print or send button.

7. Keep it simple. Using complex language in documents is tiring to read and creates a brain fog, which means you are losing readers and understanding. Keep your reading level to a late primary school student level. If you aren't sure if you are hitting the right level, find a tame kid and ask them to read it. Do they understand what you are trying to say? If there are no kids available, you can also run a scan on the Flesch-Kincaid readability of your document.

8. Get active. Write in an active involved way, not a passive couch potato style. "The selection panel reviews all applications" is better than "Once received, applications for positions are reviewed by the selection panel".

9. Get up close and personal. Put the "you" back into your writing rather than third person impersonal language. It's more interesting to read and people will respond better to your writing.

10. Watch your words. If you can't define out loud to someone what a word means - don't use it. If in doubt, use a dictionary to double check a words meaning.

The bottom line is you want to avoid the most glaring problems in your writing. Someone once said you want to write to express not to impress. What this means is you want people to "get" what you are saying more than for them to marvel at your use of perfect prose.

The best writing is the writing where people are not even aware that they are reading your words, they are so focussed on your message. If someone trips over long sentences, stuffy words or padded language then they lose the focus on what you are trying to tell them.

Source: Ingrid Cliff link

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Business Writing Training: 10 Business Writing Course Tips