Clear Business Writing – 4 Effective And Essential Principles And Practices

Best practices, key principles, and simple business writing rules

Did you know that there is a technique of clear business writing? Famous authors like George Eliot, Helen Beatrix Potter, Hippocrates, Mark Twain, Elwyn Brooks White, including Thomas Jefferson pointed out that jargon, though impressive, confuses and repels readers. On the other hand, writing clear and concise sentences grips your reader’s attention.

Consequently, conveying your meaning precisely and with absolute clarity is a true sign of expertise. Despite the fact that professional business writing is full of industry-specific buzzwords and acronyms, simple and clear business writing breaks ups tasks into clear and understandable instructions.

Do you write directly for your audience and reader? Are you a technical or professional writer? Seth Godin chips in:
“The reason business writing is horrible is that people are afraid.
Afraid to say what they mean, because they might be criticized for it. Afraid to be misunderstood, to be accused of saying what they didn’t mean, because they might be criticized for it.”

After such a quote by Seth Godin, do you still require clear and concise writing worksheets?

The guest author of this blog post, David, demonstrates how a clear business writing style saves your business time and money.

David, fire away …

Click to tweet

The shorter and the plainer the better. ~Beatrix Potter #businesswriting #thextraordinarionly #clearbusinesswriting #businesswriters #writing Click To Tweet

How to write clearly and concisely

There are two kinds of business writing – persuasive and informational. When persuasive writing is effective, you make more money. When information writing is effective, you lose less money.

Both require clarity to be effective.

When people think of clear business writing, they often think of the writing they see most often from businesses. They think of ads. They think of promotions. Too, they think of marketing. These all fall under persuasive writing. What they all share in common is that they are trying to make people take an action, usually to buy something.

Persuasive writing needs to combine facts and emotions. At the end of the day, a person either buys or doesn’t.

Please tweet!

Meanwhile, download this clear thinking and writing PDF by famous authors to inspire you to create clear business writing in plain language that your readers can understand and use.

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Informational business writing

However, most business writing is unseen by the public. It is informational. A few examples of very clear business writing found in business documents that need informational writing includes.:

• Case studies
• Press releases
• Annual reports
• Business plans
• Progress reports
• SWOT analysis
• Marketing plans
• Project proposals
• Company policies
• Job descriptions
• Instruction manuals
• Compliance reports
• Meeting minutes
• Statements of work
• Website content
• Non-disclosure agreements
• Product usage instructions or suggestions
• Anything that comes from the Human Resources department

What other clear business writing contributes to the critical aspect of effective communication in the workplace?

Unless you have tested the assumptions in your business model first, outside the building, your business plan is just creative writing. — Steve Blank #businesswriting #thextraordinarionly #clearbusinesswriting Click To Tweet

How to save time and money by improving your business writing

All that counts with informational writing is that messages are delivered accurately. You need clear business writing. That sounds simple enough. Indeed, if you write simply enough, people should be able to read it well enough.

The problem is that most of us don’t write simply at all. Indeed, there is a growing need for business people to learn how to write in plain language.

Billions of dollars are lost due to insufficient writing skills among business people.- Los Angeles Business Journal

The pitfalls of failing to write in plain language are many. Over half of Americans cannot easily read at a Grade 6 level. If you think that doesn’t apply to business documents, think again. Anything HR puts out has to be easily understood by the custodial staff and the shipping team. And everybody needs to be able to read company policies.

And even the higher-paid and higher-educated staff might not be great readers and can easily misunderstand complex or poorly worded writing. Especially if they are busy and tend to rush through some business documents. Do you know anybody like that?

And even your brilliant engineers and accountants and scientists might have reading challenges if English is not their first language.

The bottom line is that complex, unclear language is costly. Straightforward, clear language saves time, reduces errors and costs less.

Click to tweet

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. — Isaac Asimov #writingcommunity #thextraordinarionly #businesswriting Click To Tweet

4 tips for definite, simple and clear business writing

Here are four ways to write your business documents in plain English.

Use short, simple words

Do you struggle with accurate and clear business writing? This is probably what most people think of first when they think of plain language writing. They know that “but” is easier to read than “nevertheless”. And they know that “car” is easier to read than “automobile”.

But, why use short, simple words?

That is a good question. On its own, most people can read “automobile”. But the word would not be on its own. It would be in a sentence. That sentence would be in a paragraph. And that would be on a page, possibly in a much larger document.

Since most of us are busy, we tend to read fairly quickly. Or, at least as quickly as we can. Much of our speed is based on the physical shape of words. This is called the bouma shape. Research from the UK shows that this is locked in place by the time we are 9 years old:

“Children quickly learn to read common words (the 5,000 words they use most). They then stop reading these words and start recognizing their shape. This allows people to read much faster. Children already read like this by the time they’re 9 years old.”

When our eyes see the shape of “car” and “but”, we keep reading at a fast pace. When our eyes see the shape of “automobile” or “nevertheless”, we don’t recognize their shapes. Our brains have to slow down to identify the words. This is like a train slowing down for a level crossing.

There is nothing wrong with some long words. But if the train has to slow down too often, we tend to surf over or gloss over words and even whole sentences. Especially if we are busy or in a hurry.

Details get missed.

Mistakes get made.

Costly corrections are needed.

These strategy quotes are examples of clear business writing: 137 Great Business Strategy Quotes for Entrepreneurs Inspire You To Be a Better Strategy Execution Ninja

Use big, complicated words

Yes, this sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes clear writing requires monstrously big and complicated words. Whenever describing something technical, legal, scientific or in some other way official, you might want to use the long-winded official title.

But, why use big, complicated words?

Let’s get one thing straight. Clear business writing does not mean dumbing it down. It means clearing it up.

Consider two audiences – middle management and laborers. Middle managers are capable of understanding bigger words.

Yes, it will slow them down.

Yes, it will frustrate them.

But they have decisions to make, so they need precision. It is not good enough to say that asbestos in a component could make end users sick. Even if these managers are not medical experts, they need more details, and that almost for certain will involve bigger words.

But what about your groundskeepers and cleaners? Should we not avoid big, official words them? Not entirely. An employee manual will refer to numerous government programs and regulations with long-winded names. You have to refer to them by name.

If you refer to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as “the people who protect job equality”, they won’t know you are talking about the EEOC. So, spell it out to be clear, then use very plain language to explain what they are to be clearer.

Did you notice that I recommend using big, complicated words only in a very, very limited way? All the other words should be short and simple. In fact, the more big words you have to use, the more important it is for the surrounding words to be small and simple.

Join famous authors who write in easy and simple language to understand.

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Break up big-block-of-text paragraphs

Nothing is more intimidating than walking into a room full of hardened criminals with big muscles and mean expressions on their faces. Nothing, except facing the prospect of reading big blocks of text.

When you look at a page that has long paragraphs of a dozen or more lines, it looks intimidating. It looks scary. But if you break a paragraph into three or four or more shorter paragraphs, it looks safer. It looks easier to read.

But, why break up big-block-of-text paragraphs

One long paragraph or five shorter paragraphs. They have the same number of words. Why would one look harder to read than the other?

For the same reason that two hardened criminals with big muscles and mean expressions on their faces is less intimidating than 20 hardened criminals with big muscles and mean expressions on their faces.

The two criminals are still intimidating, just less so. That’s why we need to use shorter, simpler words. To strip off some of the muscle. To soften some of the hardness. And to put a smile on their faces.

It’s also why we should break up long, complex sentences.

Young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information.

— Irvine Welsh

Break up long complex sentences

Remember how frustrating it is to have to keep slowing down the train? Imagine if that train had a hundred million bajillion cars, give or take a dozen. That’s a long train to try to build momentum each time it slows down. Just the weight of all those cars will keep things slow.

Break up the hundred million bajillion cars into several trains of a mere million bajillion cars each. Or better yet, just a few dozen cars. Now you can take each one through, control their speed and keep track of all the cars.

But, why break up long complex sentences?

Remember these two mantras:

• The comma is evil.
• The period is our friend.

If you see a comma in your writing, that often means one of two things. Either it means you could divide your sentences into two. Or it means you could remove a list from the sentence and make a bullet list out of it.

The golden rule is one thought per sentence. A period at the end of the sentence tells your brain that a thought is complete. You can put it aside and go on to the next thought. One thought after the other, in logical sequence, and you have very clear communications.

A comma, on the other hand, often means “Hold that thought!” So, you continue reading the next part of the sentence, while still trying to hold that other thought. In theory, it should not be that hard to do. In reality, it can get quite taxing after a while, even for highly educated people.

As for lists, do I have to explain why a list that looks like a list is easier on the brain than a list buried in a sentence? If the list is just a few grocery items, it’s not that big a deal. But if the list is of seven business coaching process’, you are hearing the squealing sound of all the train’s brakes working overtime.

Yes, I’ve had to edit manuscripts full of 50-, 60- and even 70-word sentences. They got so complex that I had to stop and re-read them several times to understand what the writer was trying to say. I would rewrite in plain English, and give myself a 50-50 chance of having interpreted the sentences correctly.

F. Scott Fitzgerald states, ‘You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.’

Become part of famous writers, politicians, and others who learnt how to use the smallest word that does the job and produce clear business writing with each company document.

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Many ways to write business documents in plain language

Effective clear business writing is results-oriented. There are many ways to write your business documents in plain language. These four are the big ones. Master them, and somebody on your loading dock might exclaim, “Hey, this actually makes sense!”

If you can reduce the errors your employees make, that will save your business money. If you can reduce the questions your employees have, that will save your business money. If you can reduce misunderstandings with regulators, clients, suppliers and partners, that will save your business money.

By the way, I wrote this article at a Grade 5.5 reading level. It’s not that hard to write in plain language when you know the rules. That’s what clear business writing is all about.

Recommended reading

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/652/01/

https://www.nsaglac.org/joann-killeen-published-in-los-angeles-business-journal/

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Plain language editing relaxes David Leonhardt the way knitting or weeding relaxes normal people. If you think that’s weird, you should see what he had to say in this interview. He also tweets.

Which of rules of clear business writing have surprised you?

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