So much of success in business depends on writing well. From résumés to reports, proposals to presentations,Writing Well for Business Success will help you communicate your ideas clearly, quickly and effectively.
It will help you:
-Distill your message into a well-targeted statement
-Ace the elements of style
-Write what you want to say in emails, business plans and more
-Master the tricks of editing yourself
Presented in author Sandra Lambs lighthearted and easy accessible style, this little book is an essential desk reference guide for the modern working world.
So much of success in business depends on writing well. From résumés to reports, proposals to presentations,Writing Well for Business Success will help you communicate your ideas clearly, quickly and effectively.
It will help you:
-Distill your message into a well-targeted statement
-Ace the elements of style
-Write what you want to say in emails, business plans and more
-Master the tricks of editing yourself
Presented in author Sandra Lambs lighthearted and easy accessible style, this little book is an essential desk reference guide for the modern working world.
Writing Well for Business Success: A Complete Guide to Style, Grammar, and Usage at Work
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Writing Well for Business Success: A Complete Guide to Style, Grammar, and Usage at Work
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Overview
So much of success in business depends on writing well. From résumés to reports, proposals to presentations,Writing Well for Business Success will help you communicate your ideas clearly, quickly and effectively.
It will help you:
-Distill your message into a well-targeted statement
-Ace the elements of style
-Write what you want to say in emails, business plans and more
-Master the tricks of editing yourself
Presented in author Sandra Lambs lighthearted and easy accessible style, this little book is an essential desk reference guide for the modern working world.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466890411 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 09/04/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 274 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Sandra E. Lamb is the award-winning author of How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write. A former columnist for The Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News, she has written relationship/psychology articles for national women's magazines such as Family Circle and Woman's Day. She lives in Denver, Colorado.
Read an Excerpt
Writing Well for Business Success
A Complete Guide to Style, Grammar, and Usage at Work
By Sandra E. Lamb
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2015 Sandra E. LambAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-9041-1
CHAPTER 1
Before You Write
William Zinsser, in his classic book On Writing Well, points out that business writing needs to "convey the rhythms of human speech," using words that "have air around them." I'd say that means to write like you speak — in as few words as possible — and use action verbs to carry water. This will invite the reader to read; it will draw a straight line from what you want to convey to the reader's reaction to your words. And in the process, it will save everyone time and effort.
That doesn't mean you don't need to give forethought and planning to what you'll write. Look over the seven steps listed under "First Things First." Yes, even in the heat of workplace pressures that compel you to respond to that email instantly and to complete that report almost as quickly, these steps will help you create an effective, successful business communication.
Practicing these steps will help you make effective writing a habit. As you continue to use them, you'll begin to change your thinking patterns until the steps become automatic.
Conversely, if you don't do these steps of initial hard thinking, you may be like the driver in a foreign country without a GPS, a map, or a guide. Your message will wander, get lost, and never get the result you want. And not taking these steps will announce to your audience that you lack the writing skill that is essential for you to succeed in business.
ADD VALUE
Adding value to a group email thread comes down to having something new and beneficial to say. Far too many business emails fail here. There is always the temptation to add a "me too" message, which usually takes the form of "I agree with Tim on this." Resist the temptation. Unless consensus is being sought or a vote is being taken, don't fill your colleagues' inboxes with chaff. If you originate a group email, you can help eliminate unnecessary emails by directing your colleagues to weigh in only if they disagree or have new information to add.
FOCUS ON YOUR READER
When you know what you want to communicate, ask yourself: Who is my audience, and what does he know about the subject? This will give you the correct framework to start developing your message. Who is where you should begin; even picture him (them) in your mind, if possible. Once you can name him, ask the next question: What does he know about the subject? If you are writing a progress report on the organization's research and development (R & D) program, for example, what you include in the report that is aimed at the team doing the work will be very different from the report you write for your board of directors. Right?
Let's compare the audiences for these two reports:
Report to the research team. After thinking about your research team members, you may conclude that what you need to do is inform each of them about the status of other team members' experiments, the precise findings to date, and the next step to be taken. You may also need to talk about the budget — how much has been used and how much remains. You'll probably want to include precise details of your findings and progress on the new product, the next experiments and tests to be completed, what you want to determine, and a time schedule for each team.
Report to the board of directors. Picture each board member and assess what he knows about the organization's R & D program. Maybe there are board members who have no background in your industry and know nothing about the R & D process. What they may be most interested in knowing is how much money has been spent and how close you are to having a competitive product ready for market. They may also want to know what the profit potential is. Use this information to write the kind of report that will be on target and can be easily understood. It may even be instrumental in getting funding approval for the next R & D phase.
The answers to who your audience is and what he knows about the subject will help you begin to organize your message into the details you need to communicate: what, why, where, when, who, and how much ...
To guide you, make notes about your audience. You may have to do some research on your audience members in order to properly aim your report.
Remember, the audience dictates both your approach and the content of your report.
WRITING PURPOSE
Just like you need to know who your audience is, you must know why you are writing. You must have a clear purpose. This step is often missing from the business writer's initial thinking process, and the result is an email that is very fuzzy and unfocused, or that has no perceivable purpose, and thus adds no value.
To avoid this, ask yourself: What do I want the audience to do after reading my report? Is my purpose to inform my reader, entertain him (unlikely), persuade or convince him to accept my point of view, motivate or inspire him, or instruct him? Determining this will help you properly form your message.
MESSAGE STATEMENT
Begin to build your message on the framework of the audience you've identified and the purpose of your communication. Think through what you want to communicate until you can concisely state your complete message in a single sentence — a message statement. The simpler and shorter, the better. While distilling what you want to say is hard work, it's well worth the effort. It will save you lots of time in the end. See chapter 3 for more help.
Think through your message objectives until you can write a single sentence that distills:
* Who your reader is
* Why you need to write
* What you need to communicate
* The action you want the reader(s) to take after reading your communication
Here are a couple of examples of message statements for what will become fairly complex R & D reports. The first report will be written to inform the research team about new deadlines; the second report will be written to motivate the board of directors to approve more R & D funds.
Message statement for report to research team: We need to correct errors, curb costs, and meet the deadlines of September 15 and October 30 in phase 3 to stay on schedule.
Message statement for report to board of directors: Our new product line can make $7.2 million in new profits each year with $2 million in additional funding.
The message statement doesn't give the details of the what, when, why, who, where, or how much, but it makes you, the writer, do the hard work of thinking through your message from beginning to end and of focusing your thoughts. This will result in speeding up your writing process and delivering a much better communication — one that is focused, organized, clear, understandable, and well documented and supported.
ORGANIZE
Once you have your message statement firmly in mind, or even while you're thinking through what you want to write and forming your message statement, start the next step of further organizing your thoughts. Make a few notes under the major points of your message; begin to scratch out a rough outline (the next steps of outlining are covered in detail in chapter 2). Here are a couple of examples from our R & D report.
NOTES FOR RESEARCH TEAM REPORT
* Experiments status: 67 percent complete
* Findings: tolerances too high
* Next step: reduce tolerances and error rates
* Budget remaining: 33 percent
* Scheduling: deadlines for test completion, September 15 and October 30
NOTES FOR BOARD OF DIRECTORS REPORT
* New product development status
* Profit potential the first year: $7.2 million
* Ready for market projections
* Budget spent: 67 percent
* Additional funding needed: $2 million
YOUR WRITING VOICE
"Be yourself when you write," William Zinsser admonishes at the end of his chapter on business writing. To make your writing easy to understand and approachable, write the way you talk — in a conversational tone.
When you're done, use this simple test to check your writing: read aloud what you've written. Hearing it is valuable. Does it sound conversational, like you'd speak to your colleagues if you were talking face-to-face?
If not, rewrite it. Remove the language that sounds stuffy or distances you from your reader. Now read it again, aloud. Much improved? Can you hear the difference?
CLEAR, SIMPLE, AND ACTIVE WORDS
Use clear and simple words and an active voice — where the subject acts — to make your message easily understood. There's always the temptation to flaunt bigger, fancier, and plumper words that send readers scurrying for their dictionaries. Resist it. And resist the tendency to fill your message with jargon, unless it's needed because it's germane to your subject and audience. Use concise and clear words that can't be misunderstood. This will draw your reader into your message, and it will engage him.
Once your message statements are complete and the points of what you will include in your message written down in a rough outline, flesh out your outline.
Next, write your lead or topic sentence for your first paragraph. The important thing to remember here is that you are making a deal with your reader with your topic sentence. You're telling him: "This is my contract with you: I'm going to 'pay off' on what I promise in this topic sentence and deliver the complete thought with what follows in the paragraph."
Topic Sentence for the First Paragraph of the Research Team Report
Don't start with this kind of passive, inert, and bloated construction: Implementation of the feasibility criteria was begun on April 15 with utilization testing calibrated to optimize operational performance objectives and to determine profitability of a prototype on a projected developmental budget of $3 million.
Instead, use an active voice with simple, clear words — like people talk: With a budget of $3 million, we began testing the prototype on April 15 to see how it would perform in a real laboratory.
Compare the two statements. Which one is clearer and gives you real information you can relate to? Try reading them aloud. How do they sound?
Now, how would you write that first sentence in a report to the board of directors?
Topic Sentence for the First Paragraph of the Board of Directors Report
Eliminate passive, foggy sentences that are stuffed with flabby nouns and vague adjectives: The allocated investment for the feasibility phase of implementation testing that commenced on April 15 has been reduced by two-thirds as of this date, with an additional infusion of another $2 million anticipated to be required in order to determine whether utilization of the present design will realize the profitability factor originally targeted.
If you were a member of the board of directors, you might respond, "What?" Oh, sure, you'd get it after rereading and pondering the sentence. But would you want to do that? Would you want to take the time? Did you get the point that the R & D team is requesting another $2 million? Or is the following statement, which uses a strong, active voice with understandable, simple words, clearer?
Since April 15, we've spent two-thirds of our $3 million R & D budget developing an analyzer prototype, and we'll need another $2 million to deliver a profitable product.
WRITE, WRITE, WRITE
Let yourself go and write. Take your idea by the horns and release yourself to the task of writing from beginning to end, using the outline you created. This will usually produce the best and most comprehensive draft. It will allow you to write in the flow.
EDIT, EDIT, EDIT
It's easy to become very attached to what you've written and feel like you don't want to eliminate a single word. William Strunk, in The Elements of Style, is almost rabid on the point: "Omit needless words." This is true, times two, in today's blizzard of business communications. The reality is that most business writing benefits from ruthless editing. The best way to attack this is to let what you've written sit for a while to give it, and yourself, breathing time, objectivity. Walking away, even briefly, allows you to become more dispassionate about what you wrote, much more objective, and it lets you become constructively critical. You'll see it with fresh and clearer eyes, and thus be able to identify where you can eliminate a superfluous word, or several; substitute a stilted word with a simple, clear one; and eliminate those extra words that fog your meaning. You may even need to eliminate complete paragraphs or reorganize the entire document. (See chapter 2 for more help on this.)
Use the reading-aloud technique again here to test how your message sounds. If you can, have someone else whose opinion you respect read it to see if the message is crystal clear.
Yes, this process takes a little bit of time and some extra effort, but the payoff is a clear message that says very good things about your future as a business writer.
The following chapters will further unpack these steps to help you hone each skill that goes into making a successful business writer.
CHAPTER 2Create a Road Map
Now, with your message statement clearly written, you can start creating a more detailed plan.
ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHTS
Once you've established the need for your communication, know who your audience is, and have established what of value you have to say, you're ready to begin the next step.
Ask yourself: What do I want the reader to do after reading my communication? This does three things: (1) it makes you focus on the purpose of your communication; (2) it helps you start to think about the logical order or structure your communication needs to take; and (3) it helps you decide if your writing will need to inform, argue, explain, advise, instruct, describe, persuade, inspire, or motivate. Or some combination of these. Think back to the department progress report. It will inform employees within your department about R & D progress and the deadlines. But our report to the board of directors will both inform and (hopefully) persuade the members to approve further funding.
Now ask yourself: What is my reader's attitude about what I need to communicate? Will your reader resist what you'll write? Will he be receptive? Eager? Hostile? This will further inform you about the approach and tone your writing needs to take.
Again, recount what your reader already knows about this subject. This will help you start your communication at the right place.
Looking over your notes, write down the main points you want to make and put them in logical order. For the short and simple communication, you're now ready to start writing. But be sure you narrow your focus to keep your communication on target. Here are a couple of examples:
TOO BROAD
How can we institute better departmental reporting?
How can we reduce carbon emissions?
PROPERLY FOCUSED
Will the weekly Form A produce more accurate departmental reporting?
Which catalytic afterburner, model D or E, will reduce carbon emissions better?
If you are writing a progress report, you'll undoubtedly just chronologically state what progress, if any, has been made since your last report. For a conference report, you will record the things discussed, decisions made, and expenditures authorized. You may also state future actions required and the people responsible for them, as well as the due dates. Minutes of a board meeting will cover the same items.
The long report or communication needs some road signs to be organized for easy reader understanding. Most readers of business communications will find that the skeletal order should be the following:
1. Purpose / Objective / Executive Summary / Summary
This will offer the reader a synopsis of what you will present.
2. Discussion/Findings
This will detail the facts.
3. Conclusions
This will tell the reader how you arrived at your deductions or opinions.
4. Recommendations
This may include the next steps to take, costs, projections, timing, or additional problems to be solved.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Writing Well for Business Success by Sandra E. Lamb. Copyright © 2015 Sandra E. Lamb. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Acknowledgments,
Preface,
Introduction,
PART ONE FIRST THINGS FIRST,
1 Before You Write,
2 Create a Road Map,
3 What's Your Point? ... and Other Principles,
4 Write, Write, Write,
5 Revise, Revise, Revise,
6 Edit, Edit, Edit,
PART TWO PERFECT WHAT YOU'VE WRITTEN,
7 Write with Style, Voice, and Tone,
8 Punctuation Slam Dunks,
9 Caution: Yield to Grammar and Usage—or Not!,
10 Misused, Confused, and Abused Words,
11 Business Writing Etiquette,
PART THREE THE SHAPES OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS,
12 The Email Animal (and All Its Electronic Relatives),
13 Memos That Make the Point,
14 Letters That Hit the Mark,
15 The Business Plan That Gets Action,
16 The Report That Changes Things,
17 Proposals and Grant Applications That Get Approved,
18 The Presentation That Gets the Contract,
19 The Speech That Gets Applause,
20 The Résumé That Gets the Interview,
References,
Index,
About the Author,
Also by Sandra E. Lamb,
Advance Praise for the Author,
Copyright,