Writing for Business

Chris Shelvin

Part 1. The Method: Planning and Writing

(1) About You

 Discover your characteristics as a writer:

 Make a List of your strengths and weaknesses, and the words you overuse.
 Learn to vary your reading speed:
 Reading speeds and styles differ from person to person.
 Varying your reading speed allows you to understand how other people
will read your writing.
 If you habitually skim, then learning to slow down will help you to
structure your points and tell a story.
 If you read very slowly, then learning to speed up will help you to move at
the same pace as your readers – as well as being a valuable skill in itself.
 Improve your writing by reading:
 Read good non-fiction.
 Read something well-written just before you write – it will help to remind
you of the unwritten rules that underlie the pact between readers and
writers.

(2) Your Readers

 Write for the benefit of the people who will actually read your document.
 Identify different audiences by asking:
 What do readers want from this document?
 How important are those readers to you?
 For each audience, ask:
 What unites this audience?
 How are they different from or similar to you?
 What things do you deal with every day that your
 Why would they read this?
 Do you know them personally?
 Do they know more or less about the subject than you?

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(3) Your Goal and Your Message

 Have a clear, written goal for each piece of writing you do.
 For each audience, ask:
 What do you want them to do or think?
 What would make them do or think that?
 Use this to make a list of between one and three messages for each audience.
 Your document must deliver these messages clearly and consistently – everything
in the document must support these messages.

(4) Structure

 There are two basic things that any structure has to do:
 Deliver all your main messages.
 Link different topics and information in a natural way.
 There are four main ways of structuring a piece of writing:
 Find an overarching theme (e.g. responsibility to clients, shareholders etc).
 Relate things in chronological order, as a narrative or story.
 Build an argument. (e.g. There are 3 fundamentals for a good business: A,
B & C. These 3 things could form the sections of the report, etc.)
 Break things down into categories based on similarities and differences.
 Remember to tell your readers what structure you are using, and how the different
parts of your document are linked.
 You can develop your structure either before or after you write your first draft.
 To fix the structure of a piece of writing, list the topics covered in each paragraph
and then arrange them so that each topic appears only once.

(5) The Way You Work

 Take on different roles when you write.

 Identify readers, goals and messages before you write.
 Work up a structure and fill it in, or splurge out everything you want to say and
then use that to develop a structure.
 Edit for sense and structure before worrying about grammar or punctuation.
 Use square brackets to identify things to sort out later.
 Keep a copy of every draft, and keep a scrapbook of material that you've cut.
 Edit and write with paper and pen as well as on your computer.
 Minimize distractions by closing your email program.
 Try to get someone else to look at your work, or at least talk to someone about it.
 Leave your writing for as long as possible before the final edit.

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(6) Working in Teams

 Always save different drafts separately:

 Give them different draft numbers
 Add the initials of the last person to work on it
 Agree the basics before you start:
 Who your audience is
 What your goal is
 What your messages are
 What tone you want
 Which style guide and dictionary you'll use
 Who is going to check the document at the end
 Keep criticism of other people's work constructive and specific.
 On larger projects, agree clear roles:
 Main writer
 Leader
 Project manager
 Contributors
 Reviewers

Part 2. Your Writing: Making It Clear and Easy to Read

(1) Who: Making Your Subject Clear

 Each sentence should have a single, clear subject – the person or thing taking
action.
 Reduce and clarify the number of subjects in your writing by asking ‘Who is
taking action here?’ Try to put that at the beginning of the sentence.
 Take people as your subjects wherever possible. Failing that, make your subjects
things that your readers can imagine and identify with, such as groups,
organizations, or everyday things that can be seen and touched.

 Always introduce and explain things when you first mention them. Look out for
people, offices, departments and products.
 Read through your writing and ask, every step of the way, 'Does this word mean
the same thing to my readers as it does to me?’
 Don't introduce something new without explaining how it relates to what went
before.

 When you first use an acronym or abbreviation, spell it out in brackets after the
word.
 If you have more than two or three acronyms and abbreviations on a page, then
try to replace them with everyday descriptions.

 Try not to begin a sentence with a list.

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  Try not to have more than three, or four items in a list.
 Keep each list item simple. Put longer or more complex items at the end of the
list.

 Be direct. Don't write words or expressions that you wouldn't use in conversation.
 Never use a word just to make yourself feel important.
 Write about what people will actually see and experience. Instead of delivering
enhanced levels of convenience to your readers, make their lives easier.

 Avoid passive sentences, such as Research was carried out. Instead, say who did
what Scientists carried out research.
 Only use a passive for a very good reason:
 To keep the focus of the sentence on the person or thing to whom the
action is happening
 To imply that something has 'just happened' without anyone intending it to
 To avoid saying who did something, either because you don't know or
because it would be rude to say

(2) What: Clear Actions

 The action should come immediately after the subject. It must be strong, specific
and direct.
 Don't make readers wait till the end of the sentence for the action: don't effect the
undertaking of writing, just write.
 Never use a noun when you can verb.
 Don't use a word unless you are absolutely sure what it means.
 Use a dictionary to check words you're not absolutely sure of.

 Choose simple words that everyone understands.

 Before you use a word ending in 'ize', ask yourself whether its meaning is
generally understood. Better still, ask someone from outside your company and
industry.
 If you're not sure whether something is a buzzword, buy a copy of The Economist
and try to find it in there. If you can, it's not a buzzword.
 Avoid unspecific and overused words like drive and deliver.
 Never put a well-known expression in quotation marks – it just draws attention to
the lack of originality,
 If you're not sure whether something is a cliché, check it at www.clichesite.com

(3) Getting the Tone Right

 Don't try to sell with an exclamation mark.

 Don't say things that neither you nor your reader believes.

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  Simply say what has happened in the most direct, factual and straightforward way
you can.
 If you (or your company) have done anything wrong, say what it is and apologize
for it right at the beginning of the letter.
 When apologizing, be direct: say I'm sorry or I apologize, not it is to be regretted
or we are apologetic.
 Go through your work, carefully looking for qualifying terms such as could,
would, potentially, might, may, up to, arguably, probably, possibly, in my
opinion, it is thought that, it is estimated that. Ask yourself whether you need
each one.
 Qualify as straightforwardly as possible. Wherever possible, you should explain
why what you say is not certain.
 It is often obvious that what you write is your own opinion, evaluation or
estimate, so you do not need to emphasis this fact. Check wherever you say I
think, I believe, it seems to me, and so on.

 If, before writing, you read something that has the tone you want, it will help you
to achieve that in your own writing. For general business purposes, the Financial
Times and The Economist are excellent.

(4) Getting the Length Right

 There’s more scope for confusion and mistakes in long sentences, so if a sentence
is much over 30 words, it will almost certainly need attention.
 To break up long sentences, look for the action. Give each main action its own
sentence.
 An average sentence length of 20 to 25 words is comfortable – to read and write.
 Don’t keep packing extra words into sentences you have: form new sentences.
 Always ask yourself:
 Is this sentence trying to do too much?
 Can I break this sentence up?
 Look at words like that, which, for, and, but, of, because, by and if. They often
show detail that can be moved into separate sentences.
 When using sentences that rely heavily on structure, keep each part simple. In a
sentence like ‘Despite this and this, this happened’ or ‘If this, then this’, each this
should be as short and simple as possible.
 Try to avoid having lots of very short sentences (eight words or fewer) one after
another.
 Make sure you are writing in full sentences Each one needs a verb, and words
such as this, our, the, a and some are valuable, not optional.
 Add comment and context by using words, such as later, however, unfortunately,
despite, after and because of.

 Use bullet-points to highlight two to four things that your reader just has to know.
 To turn bullet-points into text, group them and then describe those groups.

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 Keep every bullet in a list consistent. Make sure every one of them agrees with
the sentence that introduces them.