Writing that means business

It's not just embarrassing when business writing is confusing, boring and infuriating. Poor written material also wastes valuable time, sends inaccurate messages and projects a negative impression of both the writer and the organisation.

Clear, succinct and compelling reports and letters are essential for effective communication, and being able to create them is a vital business skill. Fortunately, effective writing is not a gift that is granted to the elite few who happen to find it easy, but a competence that can be learned like any other.

Five tips for effective business writing

Do you spend a long time composing and rewriting your business messages?
Are you concerned about the accuracy and quality of what you write?
Does your team leader or manager often edit what you write?
Do readers sometimes have difficulty understanding what you are trying to say?

Whether you answer yes or no to most of these questions, our one-day Effective Writing courses will make your business communications easy to read, easy to understand - and hard to ignore.

Word Smiths' next Effective Writing course is in Bristol on 7 June, so sign up today. The participant fee of £250 (ex VAT) includes all course materials, lunch and refreshments. Contact us for discounts on group bookings.

Here are five basic principles that will help to communicate your message and create a strong and positive image for your organisation.

1. Create a strong beginning

The most important part of any document is the beginning. If this is well written, your readers will be more likely to engage with your document straight away. But if the beginning is dull or hard to get through, the reader may decide to leave it until later - which often means that it may never get read at all.

2. Use clear, crisp, lively verbs

A verb indicates doing, having or being. It does valu5able work in a sentence because it is the motor that drives our ideas. English is rich in verbs, and good writers use them to give their documents energy and momentum. Learn to choose appropriate action verbs to express what you want to say.

Here are some examples of the many verbs that are available to you in English:

Adjust
Assemble
Agree
Behave
Bind
Cause
Carry out
Convert

Define
Differentiate
Discuss
Describe
Explain
Extract
Find
Follow

Hold
Identify
Illustrate
Locate
Make Obtain
Operate
Perform
Prepare

Prove
Recognise
Remove
Select
Specify
Take
Test

3. Use paragraphs and headings

Paragraphs are an important part of structure. They contribute to the readability of any piece of writing by:

Breaking a large piece of text down into manageable proportions
Grouping together a number of sentences that are related to the same topic
Making the page less cluttered because they introduce some white space
Giving the reader a break
Making it clear that you are moving on from the last topic.

Start each paragraph with a topic sentence. All the content in the paragraph should support that topic - answering the questions why? what? how? etc. If the paragraph contains material that doesn't support the topic, either remove it or start a new paragraph.

In any document that consists of more than a few paragraphs, headings are essential for guiding readers through the text. They make it easier to refer to particular sections and will help to ensure that your readers do not lose track of the message you are trying to communicate.

It is important that your headings are consistent:

Each heading level should always look the same
Subheadings should be less prominent than main headings
Subheadings follow a clear pattern.

Word and other word processing applications contain built-in styles for the various levels of headings. Using these will give you access to useful features such as automatically generated tables of contents and document outlining.

4. Make your writing flow

Start new sentences and paragraphs with a link to previous text by showing the connection between the old and the new thoughts. These links move the text along briskly and keep the reader engaged. You can repeat words from the end of the previous sentence, point back to the earlier thought by restating (this; that; these; those), or start the sentence with a signal word or phrase.

For example:

First
For example
In addition
But
However

Because
By contrast
Moreover
Nevertheless
Given that

Similarly
On the other hand
Likewise
Furthermore
In the first place

Secondly
As a result
By comparison
Alternatively
Therefore

5. Talk to your reader

Readers will be more interested in what you have to say if you talk directly to them. It is possible to call your readers 'you' without being over-familiar - and the resulting tone will be warm and sincere, rather than rather cold and impersonal.

Don't say 'Once this decision is made'; try instead 'Once you have made this decision'. Similarly, 'The point that must be borne in mind is this …', is better expressed as 'You should remember that …'.

Saying 'you' makes readers feel that you are thinking of them as human beings. At the same time, it is a good idea to show that both you and your organisation are human too. You can do this by using the personal pronouns 'I', 'me', 'we' and 'us' where they are appropriate.

Write, for example:

'I received your letter' instead of 'Your letter was received'
'We will make a decision next week' instead of 'A decision will be made next week'.

Finally, remember that you are writing for your reader, not for yourself. It's all too easy - but a fatal error - to assume your audience has the same understanding of the subject, the same objectives and the same interests or priorities as you.

You need to:

Recognise what readers already know (so that you are not wasting their time)
Use terms they are familiar with (so that you are not using jargon or abbreviations that they will not understand)
Pitch the style of the language you use at a level that they will find neither patronising nor overly complex.