The Seven Steps

In this section, we’ll explore a seven-step process that you can use to write anything you need to write. You’ve probably seen lists like the one here before. There are lots of sensible ways to organize and describe the writing process. This one is distilled from my thirty years of work as a writing coach and trainer, and I think it’s comprehensive. If you follow it, you’ll get your writing done. Feel free to adapt it and tailor it to your own needs.

As you browse through these steps, you’ll see that they work together; once you get the hang of one, you’ll probably find yourself unconsciously addressing the others. For example, once you have clarity on Step 1, Get the ask clear, you might find that your openings automatically get stronger and more specific (Step 3). When you really think about writing for your reader (Step 2), you’ll choose your content in a more targeted way (Step 5).

The ultimate point of this process is not to train you to follow a step-by-step process slavishly for the rest of your life, but to make you a better and faster writer. Working with the steps is a means to that end. You should feel free to use the steps any way you want. You can try working with them in numerical order, or you can browse around and pick up tips here and there. Keep what’s useful to you; discard what isn’t. Using the steps will help you refine your own writing process and become a stronger and more confident writer.

THE SEVEN STEPS . . .

. . . to Success with Everything You Write at Work

1Get the Ask Clear

Make sure you know why you’re writing and what you’re trying to achieve.

2Write for Your Reader

Focus on what your reader needs and expects, not just on what you want. Make your writing appeal to your reader

3Start Strong and Specific

Craft an opening that makes your purpose clear and motivates your reader to keep reading.

4Be Concise

Make your point as efficiently as possible

5Fill In Missing Content; Delete Extraneous Content

Do a quick content check to ensure that your readers are getting what they and nothing they don’t need.

6Write in Plain English

Business jargon can creep in unnoticed. Distinguish yourself by saying what you mean in plain English.

7If Something Feels Wrong, Fix It

If you feel like there’s something wrong with what you’ve just drafted, there probably is. Instead of just sending something you feel uncomfortable with, take a minute to figure out what’s wrong, and fix it.

STEP 1: GET THE ASK CLEAR

“If you want me to respond to your e-mail, you HAVE to let me know exactly what you want, and you have to do it fast. I don’t have time to guess what I’m supposed to do.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

Whenever you write, you’re asking for something from your reader. It might be a direct request—“please do this,” “please send me that.” It might also be a simple request for the reader’s attention, in which case the ask is really “please read this information and take it in.”

The ask might be quick, or it might be extended over many pages; one sort of longer ask is a business plan, where the entire document is an argument in support of the request “please invest money in our venture.” It might be an initial e-mail intended to open a ­discussion—for instance, about changing procedures or hiring a new staff member.

The ask also might be an implicit ask, as when a company publishes a white paper on research it has conducted or a process it has developed. The white paper doesn’t explicitly request that the reader hire the firm, but if it’s well done it appeals to a need the reader has and piques his interest in learning more. In business, there’s an implicit ask embedded in most knowledge sharing and thought leadership.

Whether you’re asking your reader to take action now, to start thinking about taking action in the future, or just to pay attention, your communication will be more effective if she understands why you’re writing—if you can get the ask clear.

Getting the ask clear depends on getting clarity in your own mind about what you really want from the reader. Getting the ask clear in your own head isn’t always as easy as it sounds. How many times have you read one of those meandering e-mails and wondered, “What exactly do you want from me?” Maybe you’ve even reread one of your own e-mails after you’ve sent it and cringed a little bit at how unclear it seems in retrospect.

Just for a moment, entertain the idea that you’re not entirely sure what you want, or at least you’re not as clear as you ought to be. It happens more often than you think.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

Luc’s company is getting ready to sign a three-year contract with SARCO. The evening after the team’s most recent call with SARCO, some things are bothering Luc, so he sends this e-mail to his team:

I have concerns about the latest draft of the contract with SARCO. We talked about this on the call, but I’m still not sure what the sign-off process is. And the requirements for Year 3 are vague—if they want something different from what we’ve delivered in Years 1 and 2, it could potentially be costly or force us to renegotiate. We’re close to having a really good agreement, but I think we still have a few issues to address.

Luc

Luc flags his areas of concern clearly, but his e-mail sounds more like he’s turning over some thoughts in his head than actually making a suggestion. What does Luc want from his readers? Does he know at this point?

Now suppose Luc looks at this first draft, thinks about what he’s really asking, and does some revising.

I think we’re close to a really good agreement with SARCO. But I suggest we hold off finalizing the contract until we clarify these two questions:

What exactly is the sign-off process? (We tried but didn’t resolve it on the call.)

What are the requirements for Year 3?

If we don’t straighten these out now, it could be costly in the future. Let’s put these on the agenda for the next call and push to get resolution.

Luc

The content of the two e-mails is nearly the same, but in the second draft Luc has taken a moment to clarify in his own mind exactly why he’s sending the message: he wants to hold off on signing the contract and continue discussions with SARCO until the two open issues are clarified. The team knows where he stands, he’s made a concrete suggestion, and now everyone can get to a resolution faster.

Of course there are situations where you might not want to be as direct as Luc has been in his second draft, maybe for political reasons. If you’re going to propose something you know will be unpopular, for instance, you might choose to be less direct and soften your message a bit. Whether you choose to be direct or indirect in your communication, you should do it by choice, not by accident.

We’re often in such a rush that we fire off e-mails without much thought—we think they’re clear, but are they? If your ask isn’t clear in your own mind, your chances of expressing it clearly are slim. You’re likely to wander, let your focus drift, and lose your reader’s attention.

A lot of our communications at work are less high-stakes than Luc’s e-mail. Many are simply about conveying information. But even if the stakes aren’t particularly high, you’d like your reader to actually read your message, and getting your ask clear can help make that happen.

Let’s look at a second example of getting the ask clear. In this case, Harshita is writing to her boss, Lyn, to share information about a workshop she thinks might be useful for their team.

Hi Lyn,

I had lunch yesterday with Len Cohen. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he was the company’s director of visual communications for over twenty years, and he’s still giving workshops in visual design, using charts, and creating effective presentations. I’m attaching some of the materials he sent me. I’d love to chat with you about his workshops one of these days.

Thanks,

Harshita

Do you think Lyn is going to open those attachments? I don’t. She might mean to, but she probably never will. Harshita fired off this e-mail in a hurry, without thinking of the outcome she wanted. If Harshita really wants Lyn to look at the information, she’ll craft a message with that purpose in mind:

Hi Lyn,

I had lunch yesterday with Len Cohen. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he was the company’s director of visual communications for over twenty years, and he’s still giving workshops in visual design, using charts, and creating effective presentations. I’m attaching some of the materials he sent me. I think the Communicating Through Presentations workshop could be really helpful for us. Let’s talk.

Thanks,

Harshita

This version is likely to pique Lyn’s interest, and she’ll be more liable to look at the information. Now let’s take it a step further and imagine that Harshita thinks it would be a really great idea for the team to take one of these workshops. So her ask has changed from simply sharing information to trying to convince Lyn to consider booking the workshop. (Note that I said convince her to consider. It’s too early to convince her to say yes. The more precisely you understand the ask for each communication, the better your chance of communicating effectively.)

Hi Lyn,

What would you think about getting the team some training in presenting? I’m attaching information about a workshop I think the team could benefit from, and I’d love to talk with you about it.

I had lunch yesterday with Len Cohen. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he was the company’s director of visual communications for over twenty years, and he’s still giving workshops in visual design, using charts, and creating effective presentations.

I think his Communicating Through Presentations workshop would be great for us. A lot of our team hasn’t come up through the sales organization, so they didn’t get the kind of grounding that others have (this includes me). I think it would be especially helpful for our sales team. But as we grow, we want everyone to be comfortable presenting. Shall I block half an hour next week to talk about this?

Thanks,

Harshita

In this version, Harshita is clear in her mind what she wants to do: get Lyn interested in this material and begin a discussion about whether to hire Len. How does she do that? She opens the e-mail with a question for Lyn—Lyn now knows she’s supposed to make a decision about this topic rather than just read about it. Harshita uses a more engaged and enthusiastic tone. She also makes a clear recommendation (“I think his . . . workshop would be great for us”), coupled with support for that recommendation (pointing out that the team lacks this skill and that everyone needs to be able to present because the group is growing so fast).

So you can see how taking a minute to clarify what you want and construct your message accordingly can result in very different ­messages—with potentially very different results.

How to Get the Ask Clear

Most of us are short on time when we write at work, and we don’t have much opportunity to craft our messages. But it usually takes less than a minute to stop and think about what you’re asking from your readers and to write your message with that objective in mind. When you consider how much time you might waste waiting for a reply that doesn’t come or sorting out any confusion that might follow an unclear ask, it’s well worth spending that minute to clarify your purpose before you hit Send.

If you’re a planner and like to organize your content before you write a draft, try this trick as you’re planning. Say to yourself:

I am writing because _______.

I want my reader to _______.

Fill in those blanks as specifically as you can. Don’t do it ­thoughtlessly—imagine exactly what you want your reader to do in response to your message. It might sound like a silly exercise, but you’ll be amazed at how this little bit of clarity will stop you from writing long, vague, ineffective messages.

If you’re the type who likes to edit, and you already have a draft complete, stop before you send it off. Ask yourself:

What is my purpose in writing this?

What do I want from my reader?

If you can’t answer these questions, or if your answers seem vague, take a minute and think it through. Then try to put yourself in your reader’s shoes, and ask:

Will my purpose be clear to my reader?

If the answer is no, take some time to rework what you’ve written. This process often involves rewriting the beginning of the document to orient your reader (we’ll look more at beginnings in Step 3, Start strong and specific), cutting down the content, and doing some reorganizing to present your ideas in a structured way.

SUMMARY: Get the Ask Clear

Think for a moment before you start to write or before you finalize. Ask yourself, “What outcome do I want from this? What do I want my reader to do?”

Then ask yourself, “Have I really made it clear what I want my reader to do?”

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes as you scan your draft for clarity. Will she understand the ask?

Write or revise your draft so that it’s clear to the reader what you want, why you want it, and what he should do next.

In the next step, we’ll look more closely at your reader, with a focus on understanding her needs and tailoring your message to appeal to her.

Ask a Colleague for Help

If you’re working on a document or message that’s important to you, consider asking for help. Find a colleague you trust, and ask him to read over your draft and share his impressions of how it’s working. Having a second set of eyes on your draft can help you see what you might be missing. Whenever you ask a colleague to read a draft, make sure you direct his attention to areas where you want help: Is it persuasive? Is it too long? Do I need to say more? Is the tone okay? If you just plop the text in front of him, you’ll probably get feedback on things that don’t matter to you. People want to be helpful (and they want to sound smart), so you’ll get a more comprehensive review than you need, and your colleague might even miss what you’re looking for. You’ll save your colleague’s time as well as your own by asking specific questions about the draft. Don’t forget to offer to return the favor. It’s great to have a trusted partner at work when you need editing or even just a quick proofread.

Propose a Solution

Do you want to be a better writer and a better colleague? If you’re writing about a problem and you’re not sure of the solution, don’t just speculate and don’t just shift it back to someone else—propose a solution.

How aggressively you pursue this strategy will depend on a few different variables: the culture in your organization, your position, and the position of your reader, among other things. Proposing a solution might mean making a strong argument for a particular course of action, or it might mean sharing your opinion. Whatever course you choose, you’ll be giving your readers something to respond to rather than just pointing out a problem and leaving it for someone else to deal with. By proposing a solution, you help everyone get closer to solving the problem faster.

How to Write by Avoiding Writing

Joel Comm

A lot of people are afraid to write, but not me. I’ll tell you why. I’ve figured out how to write by not writing.

I have a lot of projects I’m working on at the same time, including writing a new book, and to be honest I find the process of writing books agonizing. It’s a huge task. But I love telling stories, and I love talking about ideas. So I’ve found a way to harness what I’m good at to get my writing done. I sit down with someone who asks really good questions, and in answering those questions, I tell the stories and talk about the ideas I want to include in my book. Once this process is done, I have the content transcribed and work with an associate to make sense of it.

This same technique can work for you, especially if you’re intimidated by the act of writing. If you have something to write that’s making you nervous or something you really don’t want to write, grab someone you trust in your office, and talk it through. Ask them to ask you questions. Get the juices flowing. Stir up the conversation, and let it draw the content out of you. Take notes if you want to, but don’t get so bogged down in the note-­taking that you fail to engage in the dialogue. If you’re going to take notes, it’s better to jot down any especially good key phrases that pop out of your mouth rather than try to write down every word. The idea is to keep your thought process flowing.

Speaking rather than writing is a technique that executives used regularly years ago, dictating letters and other documents into a Dictaphone or speaking while their secretaries took notes in shorthand. They trusted their secretaries to transcribe accurately and to clean up any grammatical errors that might have slipped out.

While most of us don’t have assistants who take dictation, this technique is still something you can make a habit of. Find a thinking/writing/telling partner at work, someone you trust, and help each other; listen and ask good questions to support each other with writing tasks. You’ll find that you can get your writing done more easily by avoiding writing.

Joel Comm is a New York Times best-selling author, professional keynote speaker, social media marketing strategist, live video expert, technologist, brand influencer, and futurist.

STEP 2: WRITE FOR YOUR READER

“There are different kinds of writing for different audiences and different purposes—too often people forget the real audience and just write generically, as if there were no reader there.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

Understanding and articulating what you want is only half of the communication formula. The other half, of course, is your reader. If your ask is clear, your reader should understand what you want him to do. Now it’s time to work on convincing him to do it. To do that, you have to write for your reader.

It’s surprising how easy it is to forget about your reader. If you’re just firing off a short e-mail, your reader is probably at the top of your mind—e-mail is a lot like conversation that way. But the longer and more complex your document gets, the more likely you are to lose sight of your reader. You’re managing a lot of content, you’re probably in a rush, and it’s easy to get sucked into saying what you want to say instead of what the reader needs to hear, or trying to present comprehensive information, or presenting information just because you have it. Especially if you’ve been involved in researching or otherwise obtaining the information, the impulse is often to include more than your reader really needs.

Whether you’re planning a document or editing a draft, it’s crucial for you to look at it from your reader’s point of view. Each reader has a unique point of view, and the better you understand that point of view, the more successful your communication will be. There are three factors you need to consider if you want to understand your reader’s point of view:

Relationship. What’s your relationship with your reader? Is your reader your boss, your client, your subordinate? Does your reader have to do as you ask, or do you have to convince him?

Information. How much information does your reader have about the topic you’re writing about? How much do you need to supply? How much information does your reader need to take the action you’d like her to take?

Attitude. What is your reader likely to think about your message? Will he be enthusiastic, cautious, hostile, indifferent? What expectations will he have? What’s in it for him?

These three factors are often intertwined, but thinking about them separately can help you understand the impact of each one. Let’s look at some examples of how each of these factors might affect the way you write.

Relationship

Your relationship with your reader will shape the content you provide in your message and the way you provide it. Let’s look at an example.

Mathias works for an IT consulting firm and is becoming worried that his client is withholding information from him. He’s writing to his boss, Cherie, and to his client contact, Rich, to try to solve the problem.

Hi Cherie,

I’m running up against a problem with the sales group, particularly Rich. I think he’s withholding information about some transactions. I suspect the margin on some of their complex deals was not as good as it should have been. Oversight has been poor, so they’ve been able to keep this under wraps. We can’t complete the analysis unless we have complete information, and any recommendations we make will be skewed if we have bad data. I’ll follow up with Rich and keep you posted.

Mathias

And here Mathias raises the same issue with his client contact, Rich:

Hi Rich,

I was reviewing the data last night, and I’m having trouble tracking down a couple of deals. We want to look at all the transactions in aggregate, so I’m not worried about focusing on the details of any single transaction, but we do need to have data on all of them. Can you help me find the info on the Morton and Julu deals? Happy to jump on the phone if that would help.

Thanks,

Mathias

Mathias has to walk a fine line here and address the needs of these two different readers. With his boss, Cherie, he can be blunt about what he suspects: that someone at the client is hiding data to protect himself. He also has to let her know what’s at risk from her point of view: that incomplete data can affect the results of their analysis and cause them to deliver inferior recommendations. With the client contact, Rich, Mathias has to raise the issue of the missing data in a nonthreatening way in order to get cooperation—he can’t force Rich to hand over the information. Mathias tells Rich that they are looking at the data in aggregate rather than studying the details of individual deals, which should reassure Rich that they will not be focusing on any mistakes he might have made.

There’s no guarantee that Rich will cooperate, and there’s no way to reassure Rich that he won’t be held to account for any problems with his deals, but Mathias has done his best to anticipate Rich’s concerns and allay them.

Information

Different readers need different kinds of information. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

José works for Avalantra, a pharmaceutical company that’s developed a new extended-release formulation of the popular medication skeezazine, Skeezixx XR. His boss has asked him to draft scripts for two animated videos to be used on the company’s website: one for patients, which will be placed on the home page, and another for doctors, which will appear on a special password-protected page for providers on the site.

José knows that these two audiences both need to be introduced to the new medication but that they’re going to require slightly different information because they have different needs and points of view. He tackles the version for doctors first:

New Skeezixx XR offers your skeezazine patients more options, with a $0 co-pay and a streamlined prescribing process. Skeezixx XR is the only 100% extended-release bead formulation of skeezazine. Skeezixx XR’s unique formulation delivers smooth skeezazine levels over a 24-hour period with the convenience of once-daily dosing. And Skeezixx XR is available in a broader range of dosage options than any other brand, with five available formulations—25 mg, 50 mg, 100 mg, 150 mg, and 200 mg.

The Skeezixx XR Quick Start Program is designed to ensure that your patients have access to affordable Avalantra medications. The program can quickly identify patients eligible for a $0 co-pay offer. This offer is available automatically at pharmacies nationwide through an e-voucher. Our agents can help patients locate pharmacies where the e-voucher is available.

It’s never been so simple to prescribe Skeezixx XR.

Now the version for patients:

Getting the Skeezixx XR you need has never been easier. The Skeezixx XR Quick Start Program is designed to ensure that you have access to affordable Avalantra medications. You may be eligible for a $0 co-pay offer, and if your insurance requires prior authorization, we can provide free products to help you get started immediately.

In addition, we offer personal assistance that works with your insurance from start to finish to gain prior authorization. Our Pharmacy Services team can also fill your first prescription and send it directly to your home.

Finally, we offer patient assistance to qualified patients. Patients whose insurance denies coverage or who are paying cash may be able to get Skeezixx XR for an affordable discounted price.

It’s never been so simple to get the skeezazine formulation you need. Talk to your doctor about Skeezixx XR!

You can see that these different versions reflect the needs and interests of their respective audiences. Patients don’t need the detailed information about available dosages or all the ins and outs of the prescribing options that are essential for doctors. Patients do need to know that Avalantra is going to make the medication accessible to them.

Now let’s look at a more day-to-day example of providing the right information for different audiences.

Darlene’s small company is finally getting around to digitizing all its customer records, and she’s decided to have her current staff do data entry from the paper files, supported by a couple of temps. Here Darlene writes to the staff members who will be working on the project:

Hi all,

Thanks so much for stepping up to get the legacy files digitized. It will be great to have everything in one place.

We’ll be starting on Monday, with the objective of finishing by Friday the 23rd. Xiomara will assign you the files to work on.

You should use the regular customer system with your regular login. Please follow these procedures:

1.Before you enter anything, check to ensure that there is not an existing record for the customer. If you find significant discrepancies between the paper files and the existing records, please ask Xiomara or me.

2.Please enter the following fields from the paper files:

Name

Address

Phone

Contact person

Dates served. If you are not sure about the close date, leave that field blank.

Rep(s) who served the customer

If you have any questions at all, please ask Xiomara or me. I mean this. Don’t guess when you have questions. The whole point of this is to clean up our records. It’s worth taking a little extra time to figure out how to do it right.

Thank you again! I really appreciate your willingness to work on this project.

Best,

Darlene

Darlene also needs to orient the temps who will be helping the staff with the data entry project:

Hi,

Welcome to the team, and thank you for signing on to work on this project. As I’m sure you know, we’re working to digitize all our customer records. You’ll be working alongside our regular employees to get these records entered into our database.

We’ll be starting on Monday, with the objective of finishing by Friday the 23rd.

Before we get into the details of the data entry, some information about the system.

You should have received your login credentials in the introductory e-mail. If you did not, please let me know immediately. If you forget your login, please notify me.

The system will log you out after ten minutes of inactivity. However, I would ask that you not walk away from the screen without logging out. If you need to step away for any reason, please log out and log back in when you return.

The system autosaves, but please make it a habit to hit Save (in the upper right of the screen) after each entry.

Xiomara Maldonado will assign you the files to work on.

Please follow these procedures:

1.Before you enter anything, check to ensure that there is not an existing record for the customer. If you find significant discrepancies between the paper files and existing records—variations on company names, different addresses, etc.—please ask Xiomara or me.

2.Please enter the following fields from the paper files:

Name

Address

Phone

Contact person

Dates served. If you are not sure about the close date, leave that field blank.

Rep(s) who served the customer

If you have any questions at all, please ask Xiomara or me. Please do not guess when you have questions. We would rather have you ask than guess.

Thank you again! I really appreciate your willingness to work on this project.

Best,

Darlene

Darlene has used the message to her staff as the basis for this message to the temps, and she’s thought carefully about what additional information the temps might need. She’s added some context for the project and some information about how the database system works. She’s also rewritten point 1 so that it’s clearer to a reader who’s not part of the team. And she’s rewritten the section about asking rather than guessing for the audience of temps. In taking the time to customize the message for the temps, she’s prevented a lot of confusion and probably a lot of errors.

We’ll take another look at choosing the right content for your message in Step 5, Fill in missing content; delete extraneous content (here).

How Writing a Business Plan Can Make You a Better Business Writer

Robert C. Daugherty

Today’s hottest companies—from Amazon to Apple to Google—have at least one thing in common: they all started with a business plan. A business plan is a document written for potential investors that outlines objectives and strategies; it is intended to convince investors to put up cash for the new enterprise. The stakes are very high: you must address your reader’s concerns, or you won’t get the funding you need to start your business.

To write a successful business plan, you have to provide persuasive answers to three sets of questions. First are the people questions: Why are you the person to launch and run this business? Are you known in the market? Can you attract the talent needed for success? Second are the opportunity questions: Is the market for your product or service large and growing? Is there a good fit between the product and the market? And third are the environment questions: What is the context in which the venture is being launched? Are there competitors entering the market? How will you respond when the market changes (and it will)? Your answers to these questions can mean the difference between a successful, funded business and a lost opportunity. If you fail to answer them adequately, your reader will simply say thanks, but no thanks.

Imagine if you took the same kind of approach to your everyday business writing tasks, understanding that if you didn’t meet your readers’ expectations, you simply wouldn’t get what you were asking for. Imagine if you asked yourself questions like “What does my reader care about?” and “How can I supply what my reader needs?” and “How can I convince my reader?” every time you wrote an important message. Obviously, most situations at work don’t have such high stakes, but the practice of writing a business plan imposes a discipline that’s useful for all kinds of business writing. Focus on your everyday business writing with the same kind of attention and intensity entrepreneurs use in crafting a business plan, and you’ll increase your success rate with all your business communications.

Robert C. Daugherty is the executive dean of the Forbes School of Business and Technology.

Attitude

Sarah works for a small retailer whose website has expanded dramatically over the past few years. The website began as a supplement to the company’s print catalog years ago, and now it’s the primary sales channel. Sarah wants her boss, Mary, to provide some help for the team maintaining the website content.

Hi Mary,

We really need help with the website. We can’t keep up with the volume of changes to the product descriptions on the site. Initially it made sense to have the marketing assistant maintain these. But since we’ve expanded so much, I think it’s time to take another look.

Jamie is swamped. In addition, we have so many different product categories now that we don’t have a consistent template for them or a consistent voice. There’s information missing from product descriptions, and Jamie is having to deal with the phone inquiries that come in.

I think we should consider bringing in a contractor for the specific purpose of cleaning up all the product descriptions and posting new ones as we go forward. We could probably use a person full-time to take care of the site and the product descriptions, but as a first step we could bring in a contractor. Jamie and I could create a template and try to round up the missing content as the contractor identifies it.

Do you have time to talk about this next week?

Thanks,

Sarah

Sarah is understandably frustrated by the situation. It sounds like Jamie’s job has grown, and he needs some help. If you look at Sarah’s attitude in this draft, she’s focused almost exclusively on what she needs, and she hasn’t taken into account what Mary’s attitude might be.

What might Mary think about Sarah’s message? First, it’s going to cost her money to hire a contractor. Even more alarmingly to anyone who has to manage a budget, Sarah’s talking about hiring another full-time permanent employee. Sarah’s message leaves some important questions unanswered. Sarah says Jamie is swamped, but why? And if Sarah and Jamie have the time to create a template and find the new content, why can’t they handle updating the descriptions? If I were Mary, my first response would be “No.”

Sarah hasn’t thought about this likely response, because she hasn’t fully considered what Mary’s attitude toward the idea might be. She’s thought only of what she and her team need. Now let’s say she’s taken some time to consider her reader in addition to her ask, and she’s going to write for her reader.

Hi Mary,

Can we set aside some time next week to talk about managing the website? We’ve expanded so much that the job has outgrown the way we initially conceived it, and I think bringing in a part-time contractor might meet our needs without being too expensive.

We’re having the following problems:

Product descriptions on the site aren’t consistent, especially across categories.

These inconsistent product descriptions result in an inconsistent voice online, so we’re not really implementing the branding work we did last year.

There’s content missing in a lot of product descriptions, and Jamie is spending a lot of time fielding phone inquiries.

Inconsistent and incomplete product descriptions make for a poor online experience for customers.

Jamie is spending his time playing catch-up rather than advancing our marketing. He’s smart and has good ideas, and we didn’t hire him to do data entry or answer phones.

Here’s what I suggest:

You, Jamie, and I should work on a template for product descriptions that reflects the brand personality we came up with last year.

Once we have that, we could hire a part-time person on a contract basis to go through the site, pull the product descriptions into compliance with the new template, and flag any missing content.

Once we’ve cleaned things up, we can decide where to go from there.

I’ll follow up tomorrow to see if we can put something on the calendar.

Thanks!

Sarah

In this revised version, Sarah has thought about Mary’s potential response. What’s in it for Mary now? More than just more money going out the door. The current proposal creates an opportunity to implement the branding they’ve already invested in, a better experience online for customers, and the potential to use Jamie for what he was hired to do. Sarah has thought more about the situation and realized that they might not need the contractor forever, and they might not need another full-time person—but if they do, Mary will understand why.

Writing for a Group of Readers

Writing for your reader is straightforward when you have just one reader. It becomes more complicated when you’re writing for a group. In a situation like that, you have to assume that your readers might have different points of view and, perhaps, different needs. How do you strategize when you’re writing for a group of readers? To help focus your efforts, try asking yourself some questions: Which of your readers is the most senior? Who’s the decision-maker? Who’s going to be the hardest to convince? Who’s likely to object and why? Once you’ve done this analysis, you can anticipate readers’ objections.

But what if you’re writing for a group that includes people you don’t know, as often happens when you’re submitting a proposal? In that sort of situation, take a page from the marketers’ book and create personas—fictional readers who are typical of the kinds of people reading your writing. For instance, you might imagine a more senior manager than the one you’re submitting the proposal to. You might imagine a reader concerned about budget. You might picture a reader who has another solution in mind. Don’t let yourself become overwhelmed by thinking about all of these potential readers; rather, use your insights about them to make sure your writing addresses each of their needs, at least in a preliminary way. Don’t let them freak you out; let them help you. When you’re writing for a group, thinking about your potential readers can help you anticipate reasonable objections and make a stronger argument in the process.

How to Write for Your Reader

If you like to plan before you write, the following trick can help you craft your message to appeal to your reader. In Step 1, Get the ask clear, you did an exercise designed to help pinpoint your purpose in writing. Now take what you did there and expand it. As you plan your draft, try completing these two very useful sentences:

My purpose is to _______ so that my reader will _______.

My reader needs to understand _______ to be able to do that.

If you’re an editor rather than a planner and have a draft you’re revising, try reading your draft from your reader’s point of view. Ask yourself:

If I were [insert name of reader], I would think _______.

If I were [insert name of reader], I would want to know _______.

If I were [insert name of reader], I would react better if _______.

For both planners and editors, putting yourself in your reader’s shoes can help you anticipate objections and connect more successfully with your reader.

Writing for Global Teams

With the rise of virtual teaming, many of us are now frequently working with people from other countries and other cultures. And because those team members live in diverse places, our only interaction with them might be in writing. When you’re working with a global team, take some precautions to help promote understanding and prevent offense.

Here are a few tips that can keep global teams communicating smoothly:

Get everyone’s name right. You might find yourself on a team with people who have names that are unfamiliar to you. Take the time to learn how to spell and pronounce everyone’s name correctly. If you’re not sure, ask; people would rather be asked than have their names mangled.

Avoid using jargon. Even for people who know English very well, some business jargon—especially jargon based in ­metaphor—might not make much sense. Instead of writing, “let’s not boil the ocean,” write, “let’s not do more work than we need to do.” Instead of suggesting that the team start with “low-hanging fruit,” suggest they start with “problems that are easy to solve.” (Even when you’re writing for a domestic audience, it’s a good idea to keep expressions like this to a minimum.)

If someone writes something you don’t understand, take the time to clarify it. Don’t assume you know what it means—ask.

Tread carefully around saying no. Some cultures are uncomfortable with refusing requests and otherwise saying no. In some cultures, a direct refusal can cause people to lose face, so bad news is delivered indirectly. If your colleague seems to be communicating vaguely or not answering questions, they might be trying to say no without coming right out and saying it. Try rephrasing your question, summarizing what you think your colleague means, and being gently persistent to be sure you understand what the message really is.

Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. If someone’s tone sounds peculiar to you, you might just be reacting to a different cultural norm.

Always err on the side of courtesy. It’s better to be a bit more formal than usual than to risk hurting someone’s feelings.

Anticipate Objections

There’s a strategic element to most communication, even if the stakes don’t seem very high. Part of strategy is anticipating and preempting the moves of the other. If you’re writing to try to get something from someone—whether it’s a sale, funding for a project, or an agreement to an approach—it’s smart to think about how your reader is likely to respond and anticipate any objections they might raise.

Anticipating objections requires really understanding your reader, so that you can see the matter from her point of view. Is she in charge of the budget? What other demands is she facing? Why should she allocate money to your project rather than to others? What other demands is he dealing with besides your request? Will he have time to address your issue on top of everything else? How can you make your issue a priority for him, given his competing priorities? Is this a bad time for the organization to take risks? How can you convince your reader that the upside outweighs the potential downside? Anticipating and addressing objections in advance can help prevent the reader from rejecting your idea out of hand, and it can shorten any discussion or negotiation that might follow your initial communication.

The “You” Attitude

The “you” attitude is an approach to business communication developed by the late Kitty O. Locker, a professor of English at Ohio State University.^* Put simply, the “you” attitude in writing puts the focus on the reader rather than on the writer. It highlights the importance of the reader and calls out benefits to them. Implementing the “you” attitude in your writing often involves changing the subject of the sentence from “I” or “we” to “you”:

We are shipping your order	→	You will receive your order
We have the largest selection	→	You can choose from the largest selection

As you can see, sales writers have understood this approach for a long time, but you don’t have to be selling anything to make a bid for your reader’s attention in this way. The “you” attitude is useful in any situation where you want to harness your reader’s goodwill:

We need your help to	→	You can help by
Our new process takes only 15 minutes	→	You can get through the new process in only 15 minutes
I can finish this faster if you	→	You’ll get a faster result if

A shift in focus from “I” to “you” is an easy trick to make your writing more appealing and engage your reader.

Use Formatting to Guide Your Reader

Part of writing for your reader is doing your best to ensure that your message is easy to understand. In addition to selecting content carefully, you can make your message more accessible by using formatting that will help your reader absorb your message. Most people at work don’t really read text—they scan it. These three tricks can make text more easily scannable and highlight content that might be impor­tant to your reader:

Use short paragraphs. The eye tends to “bounce” off text set in long paragraphs. A series of paragraphs of a few sentences each will be much easier for your reader to scan.

Use bulleted lists. Whenever you have a list of items, consider formatting it as a bulleted list. The list might be single words, sentences, or questions. A word of caution: don’t try to force content into bulleted lists if the elements aren’t parallel or if they need fuller development than a simple list can provide. Some business writers have gone overboard with the bullets—if you use them, make sure they make sense.

Use strategic bolding. Strategic bolding highlights important words and draws the reader’s eye to them. If a passage has effective strategic bolding, the reader should be able to glance at it and get the gist of it, rather than reading it word for word. As with bullet points, be careful not to overdo it. If you bold too much of your text, the bolding becomes meaningless noise and can have the opposite of the intended effect.

A final word of caution: don’t go nuts with any of these formatting techniques. If your text is too full of bulleted lists, bolding, and italics, it’s going to look like a sales letter. You also risk organizing your writing around the formatting, rather than focusing on developing the content itself. Use formatting as a tool and let it serve you, rather than your serving it. When used skillfully, formatting can help you organize content and direct your reader’s eye to what’s really important.

SUMMARY: Write for Your Reader

As you think about how you can meet your reader’s needs and expectations, consider these variables:

Relationship: Who is my reader, and what is her relationship to me? Does she have to do what I ask?

Information: How much information does my reader have about my topic? How much background do I have to supply to help him understand? What kind of information will appeal to him?

Attitude: What is my reader’s likely attitude to what I’m saying? Will she be receptive or resistant? What information do I need to include to persuade her?

In the next step, we’ll look at the beginning of your document and explore how a strong and specific opening can pique your readers’ interest and motivate them to keep reading.

STEP 3: START STRONG AND SPECIFIC

“I wish some of my co-workers would get to the point faster. There is too much introduction and justification before they get to the point.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

A lot of people have trouble writing introductions and other openings. Getting started on anything can be challenging. It can be especially difficult when you’re trying to introduce a message or document that doesn’t exist yet—that is, writing an introduction before you’ve written the rest of the draft.

But beginnings make a big impression. Readers typically decide within seconds how they’re going to deal with a message or document. If your document starts out loose and sloppy and meandering, you risk losing your reader’s attention. To engage your reader and motivate her to continue reading, you need to start strong and specific.

A good opening should:

Capture your reader’s attention

Let your reader know what’s coming and why it’s important

Let your reader know what he’s supposed to do: absorb information, respond, or take some kind of action

Motivate your reader to continue reading through the end

Let’s look at a few examples of not-so-compelling beginnings and see how they might be improved.

Team,

I reviewed the development timeline, and there are several outstanding issues to resolve before we go live. Due to travel schedules, feedback on the prototype came in later than expected. The new polymer components requested will not be available till April 10. This pushes the timeline out to a period when the vendor cannot turn around our request in a timely way—their next window to work on the project is April 16–19.

I think we can catch up by combining the beta verification period with the beta review. This means we will do verification and review April 19–20. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Abhi

Abhi does a good job of outlining the “issues to resolve,” but his opening doesn’t indicate the consequences of the problem and isn’t specific. He decides to revise his message so that his readers will know what’s at stake right away:

Team,

I reviewed the development timeline, and at our current pace we are going to miss the go-live date. To catch up, I propose combining the beta verification period with the beta review: both can occur April 19–20. Please let me know if this is OK.

Outstanding issues include:

Late feedback on the prototype (due to travel schedules)

New polymer components not available till April 10

Vendor does not have availability till April 16–19

Please let me know if we can do the combined verification/review April 19–20.

Thanks,

Abhi

This version is much better. Abhi captures his readers’ attention right away by letting them know what’s at stake: they’re at risk of missing the final deadline on the project. He proposes his solution in the second sentence, and he asks the readers to respond in the third sentence. He’s front-loaded all the important information into a concise first paragraph with a clear ask of the reader. He’s also put the outstanding issues into a bulleted list so they’re easy to scan, making it easier for the reader to grasp the situation and respond to it.

Let’s look at another example.

Jessica,

We need to make some arrangements for Dalia’s maternity leave. Right now she is saying she wants to take six weeks, but I think we should have a plan in place in case she decides she needs to be out longer—policy allows her up to twelve.

We’ll need coverage for the front desk, processing the incoming mail, and supporting Carl at the open house events.

We can break things out this way:

Front desk: I think we should get a temp for the high-traffic times, which are Monday–Thursday. The rest of the staff could cover as needed on Fridays.

Processing mail: Let’s pick one staff member to own this and have Dalia train them.

Open houses: Staff could rotate. Bob, Liang, Steph, and Esme have all worked on these in the past and could potentially fill in. Am I forgetting anyone?

I’d love your input on these ideas. Dalia is planning to go out on May 7, so we should have a plan in place within the next two weeks.

Thanks,

Eric

Eric does a good job of laying out the impact of Dalia’s maternity leave and proposing some solutions, but if Jessica just skims the beginning of this message, she won’t understand the urgency of the situation or that Eric is asking for her response. Eric doesn’t let Jessica know till the last sentence that they have only two weeks to make arrangements to cover Dalia’s duties. Dalia’s looming departure is a big deal for him, but it might not be for Jessica. It’s better for him to be explicit about the need and the urgency rather than making assumptions about what Jessica knows and thinks.

Now let’s look at Eric’s revised version:

Jessica,

Below are some ideas for coverage for Dalia’s maternity leave—please let me know your reaction to them. She is going out May 7, so we need to have a plan ready to go in two weeks. Right now she is saying she wants to take six weeks, but I think we should have a plan in place in case she decides she needs to be out longer—policy allows her up to twelve, so she might be out until July 30.

We’ll need coverage for the front desk, processing the incoming mail, and supporting Carl at the open house events.

We could break things out this way:

Front desk: I think we should get a temp for the high-traffic times, which are Monday–Thursday. The rest of the staff could cover as needed on Fridays.

Processing mail: Let’s pick one staff member to own this and have Dalia train them.

Open houses: Staff could rotate. Bob, Liang, Steph, and Esme have all worked on these in the past and could potentially fill in. Am I forgetting anyone?

I’ll follow up with you next week.

Thanks,

Eric

In this version, Eric has made the opening of his message strong and specific: there is time pressure, and he’s offering suggestions that he wants Jessica’s opinion about. He begins his message by letting Jessica know that there is information below she needs to read and respond to, thus motivating her to read the whole message.

How to Start Strong and Specific

Beginnings can be difficult, but there are a couple of ways you can take the pressure off when it comes to writing your openings. First, be aware that you don’t have to write your beginning first (see the box “You Don’t Have to Start at the Beginning” here). Second, it’s always a good idea to go back and revise your opening after you’ve completed a full draft. If you make a habit of revising your beginning before you finalize your document, you can be sure not only that your opening is attractive to readers but also that it accurately represents what follows in the rest of the document.

If you’re the type of writer who likes to plan before you write, take a minute and ask yourself:

How can I grab my reader?

What will make my reader want to keep reading?

In Step 2, you spent some time analyzing your reader. Use what you learned in that step to plan an opening that will appeal to him. What will your reader think is important about this message? A risk/­opportunity analysis is a good place to start: Is there risk your reader wants to avoid? Is there an opportunity he doesn’t want to miss? Whatever that issue is, figure out how to get it up front in your message or document. You don’t have to explain all the details of the issue at the beginning, but you do have to raise it. Once you have the opening planned, think about how you can arrange your content to motivate readers to continue reading. Sometimes it’s as easy as saying something like “I’m proposing three potential solutions below.” Whatever you do, don’t bury important information—such as deadline and next steps—at the end. Front-load as much as you can, fill in the details in the middle, and use your conclusion as a reinforcement.

If you’re an editor, the type of writer who likes to draft first and then revise, be sure you go back to the beginning of your draft with a critical eye. Put yourself in your reader’s shoes, and ask:

Is this something I’d want to read?

Would I read through to the end of this message?

If the answer is no, consider how you might grab your reader’s attention. Is there an opportunity or risk you can bring to the fore to get her attention? Can you say something in the beginning to motivate her to read the whole thing?

No matter if you’re writing a quick e-mail or a long report, it’s important to be sure your opening is clear and that you’re saying it in a way that will catch your reader’s attention.

Whether you’re a planner or an editor, it’s a good idea to double-check your opening before you send your document off to the reader. Especially with longer documents, ideas often shift while you’re writing, and your original opening might not accurately reflect what follows. When you review, you might have more clarity about your purpose and how you’re going to appeal to your reader. As you review, ask yourself:

Is it clear to my reader why I’m writing?

Is my reader incentivized to keep reading?

Does my tone support my message? (For more information on tone, see the box “Does This Sound Okay?” here.)

SUMMARY: Start Strong and Specific

The beginning of your message is make or break. Use your opening to let readers know quickly what to expect.

Think from your reader’s point of view when you write your openings. What will make them want to read? Consider any risks or opportunities you can highlight in the beginning to grab your reader’s attention.

Use your opening to motivate your readers to read beyond the first few lines.

Go back and check your opening once you’ve finished your draft. Does it align with what follows?

You Don’t Have to Start at the Beginning

Introductions and other kinds of beginnings can be difficult to write. A lot is riding on the opening of your document, and getting started can be intimidating. The good news is that you don’t have to start your draft by writing the beginning of it. In fact, the beginning might not be the best thing to start with.

Don’t get hung up on writing your introduction, especially when you’re working on a long document like a report or proposal. Start wherever you feel most confident. That might be somewhere in the middle of the document, a section where you feel you have the most to say or can make the most compelling argument. Go ahead and complete that section, and move on from there. If it helps, you can try writing the document piece by piece, not necessarily in order. Once you have a full draft, you can put the pieces together, smooth out the transitions, and then write the introduction. By this point you’ll know exactly what you’re introducing, and you’ll know what you want to emphasize in your introduction to guide the reader’s attention. Very often, introductions that are written last are stronger and more specific than ones that are drafted at the beginning.

In the next step, we’ll look at ways to make the best possible use of your reader’s time and attention by writing concisely.

STEP 4: BE CONCISE

“Most of the e-mails I get should be 30–50% shorter than they are.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

In Step 1 you got the ask clear, in Step 2 you tailored your message for your reader, and in Step 3 you wrote a strong beginning. In this step, you’ll learn to make your writing more concise.

In the business writing survey I conducted for this book, 87 percent of respondents indicated that writing more concisely was a priority for them, and 63 percent said they wished their colleagues would write more concisely.

The ability to write concisely has a lot of benefits—for your reader, obviously, and also for you. Concise writing tends to get a better response, because your readers will quickly learn what you want. If you get in the habit of writing concisely, you’ll spend less time writing and you’ll agonize less over what you write. You’ll also spend less time following up with people who didn’t understand—or didn’t even read—what you wrote. Finally, if you make it a habit, you’ll get a reputation as someone who’s straightforward and doesn’t waste people’s time—and everyone likes that kind of colleague.

For most of us, writing concisely doesn’t come naturally, especially when we’re in a hurry. When we’re in a rush, we tend to write whatever comes into our heads, and it’s often muddy, wordy, and too long. It takes a little time to break the habit of going on too long. As you practice, it begins to come more naturally.

Before we get started, a little caveat: shorter is not always better. Sometimes you want a particular tone or style that involves longer sentences, more explanation, or repetition to drive your point home. The key is to do whatever you do—whether writing concisely or more expansively—by choice, not from lack of skill.

Writing concisely involves learning a few editing techniques. There are practically endless ways to edit your writing, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed before you even start. In this section, you’ll learn a quick, practical method that will cover about 90 percent of your problems with wordiness. If you want to learn even more, look at the section on editing your own writing later in the book (see here).

To give you the power to make your sentences more concise, we’re going to look at a little grammar (not too much, I promise). Here are four tips you can use to cut the chaff in your writing:

1.Watch for forms of the verb “to be”: (“is,” “are,” “was,” “were,” “has been,” “have been,” etc.).

2.Watch for prepositional phrases.

3.Watch for nominalizations (explained below).

4.Watch for padding.

If you can detect just these four patterns in your own writing and learn to make adjustments when you find them, you will greatly improve your prose and make your readers’ lives much easier.

Quick Guide . . .

. . . to Making Your Writing More Concise

1Watch for forms of the verb to be (am, is, are, was, were, has been, have been)

Turn passive constructions into active ones:

X is done by Y → Y does X

Consider rewriting sentences that begin with there is, there are, it is.

2Watch for prepositional phrases

If you have strings of phrases beginning with words like in, on, of, by, around, about, and between, consider rephrasing them:

the permission of the customer → the customer’s permission

in many circumstances → often

3Watch for nominalizations

“Nominalization” means turning a word into a noun. Typically, nominalizations are verbs that have been turned into nouns, which then require a verb for use in a sentence. Convert these phrases back to the original verbs:

reach an agreement = agree

make a decision = decide

achieve a balance = balance

suffer a loss = lose

have a response = respond

conduct an investigation = investigate

engage in a search = search

4Watch for padding

Look out for redundancies:

7 a.m. in the morning

absolutely essential

meet together

basic fundamentals

future plans

final conclusion

lag behind

Look out for “filler” words and phrases that don’t add meaning:

actually

in many ways

essentially

at the end of the day

foundationally

ultimately

Don’t use a fancy expression where a plain one would do:

utilize → use

initiate → start

in light of the fact that → because

with reference to → about

at this point in time → now

1. Watch for forms of the verb “to be”

The verb “to be” in all its various forms—“I am,” “you are,” “she or he is,” “they are,” “we have been”—occurs more frequently than any other verb in English. It’s a perfectly fine verb, but relying on it too much can make your sentences longer than they need to be. We’ll look at two ways that “to be” can creep into your writing and make it loose and meandering: the passive voice and “there is” forms.

THE PASSIVE VOICE

Forms of the verb “to be” can signal the presence of the passive voice in your sentence. You’ve probably heard of the passive voice, but you might not be entirely sure what this sentence structure is. It’s called passive because the subject of the sentence is receiving the action of the sentence. Its opposite is the active voice, where the subject of the sentence is doing the action of the sentence. The passive voice is formed using the past participle of a verb (often ending in “-ed”) and a form of the verb “to be.” Because the subject of the sentence isn’t doing the action, it’s often necessary to add a phrase beginning with “by” to indicate who did it.

Let’s look at some examples.

Passive voice: The intruder was arrested by the security guard.

Active voice: The security guard arrested the intruder.

In the passive voice version, the subject of the sentence, “the intruder,” is being acted upon. In the active version, the subject of the sentence, “security guard,” is performing the action.

Passive voice: Gender and annual income were cited by the research as the major drivers of purchase decisions.

Active voice: The research cited gender and annual income as the major drivers of purchase decisions.

As you can see, the “action” of a verb isn’t always physical action—it’s the “doing” part of the sentence. In the example above, “the research” is doing the action, which is citing.

Passive: The beginning of the recession was signaled by a sharp dip in stock prices.

Active: A sharp dip in stock prices signaled the beginning of the recession.

The action in this example is signaling, and it’s the dip in stock prices that’s doing it.

In all these examples, you can see that the passive version is longer than the active version. Usually it’s a difference of just a few words, but if you make a habit of relying on the passive voice and string together a whole paragraph of passive constructions, you can end up with a lot of verbiage you don’t need.

Sometimes the actor in a passive sentence is omitted altogether:

Bus and subway fares were raised. [By whom? Surely not by the MTA?]

Mistakes were made in dealing with the crisis.

It was determined that the proper procedure had been followed.

Looking at examples like these, you can see how using the passive voice might be a handy way to avoid taking responsibility, and some writers use it for exactly that reason.

It’s important to point out that passive constructions aren’t incorrect. In fact, sometimes they’re exactly what you need. You might use a passive construction when you don’t know who did the action:

The alarm was tripped at 4:30 this morning.

The fence was blown down for a third time.

And sometimes you genuinely want to emphasize the object of the action, rather than the actor:

Seating arrangements at the event caused some controversy. Corporate representatives sat at the lower tables. The main table was occupied by the mayor and his special guests.

The last sentence in this short passage is in the passive voice, but it’s a good choice. It’s sensible to make “the main table” the subject of the sentence: the real issue is the seating arrangements, rather than the mayor and his pals.

Although the passive voice is grammatically correct and sometimes preferable, you’re usually better off favoring the active voice in business writing. Many business writers fall into the habit of depending on the passive voice because they see other writers doing it. The sound gets into their heads as the proper sound of business and professional writing, and they simply replicate what they hear. However, active constructions have advantages over passive ones: they’re shorter, they’re more direct, they’re easier to read, and they’re more engaging. They sound more personal—that impersonal, businessy, “official” tone isn’t always what you want—and they create a sense of agency in the sentence: there’s a person (or a thing sometimes) who’s taking action.

As with any other style choice, your use of the passive or active voice should be your decision rather than something you fall into because you don’t know how to control it. Learning to convert passive constructions into active ones, and vice versa, gives you more control over your own writing.

So how do you change a passive construction into an active one? Follow these three steps:

1.Diagnose the passive voice by looking for forms of the verb “to be,” like “is,” “are,” “has been,” “have been,” and so on, plus the past participle of the verb (usually ending in “-ed”). Passive sentences will sometimes contain phrases beginning with “by” to indicate who or what is doing the action.

2.Ask yourself who or what is doing the acting in the sentence, and who or what is receiving the action.

3.Flip the sentence so the actor is the subject.

Let’s try an example:

The models are used by the teams to project revenue.

1.Form of the verb “to be” followed by a past participle? Yes, “are used.”

2.Who or what is doing the acting in the sentence? It’s the teams.

3.Flip the sentence so that the actor is the subject:

The teams use the models to project revenue.

You can see that the revision isn’t just shorter, it’s also clearer and more direct.

Here are a few samples for you to practice on. (Solutions are at the bottom of the next page.)

A.Stress testing is conducted by banks to ensure adequate capital levels.

B.The guidelines were rewritten by legal counsel to prevent future breaches.

C.Personas are used by marketers to help them understand who their target customers are.

D.The faulty monitor was replaced.

(Notice that in the last sentence, the person doing the replacing doesn’t even appear. In your revision, you get to make up who did it.)

“THERE IS,” “THERE ARE,” “IT IS”

Forms of the verb “to be” can also signal the presence of filler phrases like “there is,” “there are,” and “it is.” These are not passive constructions, and they’re not incorrect. However, they don’t add meaning, they can create an impersonal and distant feel, and they waste space. Once you learn to spot them, you can tighten up your writing considerably.

Original: There is a large group of potential customers that can be reached by our affiliate marketing program.

Revised: Our affiliate marketing program can reach a large group of potential customers.

Original: There are three questions for you to keep in mind.

Revised: You should keep three questions in mind.

Original: It is under these conditions that the risk is highest.

Revised: The risk is highest under these conditions.

Used occasionally, “there is” and “it is” constructions can help you vary your style and add interest to your writing. As a steady diet, though, they can slow things down and make your writing feel impersonal. Be careful they don’t become a habit.

Becoming aware of how you use—or overuse—the verb “to be” can help you tighten and strengthen your writing. Of course, the verb “to be” has plenty of legitimate uses. But when you rely on it too much, your writing can become bloated. Paying attention to your “to be” habits can help you in your quest to make your writing more concise.

2. Watch for prepositional phrases

A preposition is a part of speech defined as “a word or group of words that is used with a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, location, or time, or to introduce an object.”^† That’s a pretty vague definition, and it isn’t terrifically helpful on its own. But remembering the definition of prepositions is not as important as your ability to spot them and understand what they do.

Prepositions are those words like “in,” “on,” “of,” “into,” “by,” “under,” “with,” “around,” “about,” and “between” that serve as connectors in a sentence. You’ll find a long list of common prepositions in Appendix B. They introduce prepositional phrases. A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and has a noun or a pronoun as the object of the preposition. Like so:

about the customer

in the office

on the phone

by my authority

under these circumstances

of the organization

Like the passive voice, prepositional phrases are perfectly correct grammatical forms. It would be hard to write in English without using them. The problem comes when they’re overused. When writers try to sound “official,” they often fall into the trap of piling up prepositional phrases one after the other. Policy statements and anything else trying to sound legal often feature lots of prepositional phrases strung together. Learning to identify prepositions and the phrases that follow them is an important skill in making your writing more concise, so be on the lookout for phrases beginning with “of,” “by,” “in,” “for,” “about,” “with,” “through,” and other prepositions.

Let’s look at an example:

Participation in client negotiations with suppliers is prohibited by company policy unless (in very rare circumstances) there is advance consent of a leader of the gyro division in the client’s geography as well as an industry leader for the supplier’s industry.

Whoa. Most people can recognize this kind of writing as bad. It’s a little harder to identify exactly what’s wrong (it’s prepositional phrases and forms of the verb “to be”) and understand how to fix it. Let’s take this sentence apart. The prepositional phrases are in italics, and the “to be” forms are in bold:

Participation

in client negotiations

with suppliers

is prohibited

by company policy, unless

(in very rare circumstances) there is advance consent

of a leader

of the gyro division

in the client’s geography as well as an industry leader

for the supplier’s industry.

That’s a lot of prepositional phrases all strung together. How do we fix it? The first step is to figure out what the message is and say it in plain English.

Here’s a colloquial “translation” of the passage:

You can’t participate in client negotiations with suppliers unless a leader in the gyro division and a leader in the supplier’s industry say it’s okay.

That version is probably too informal to use, but doing this kind of commonsense check can help you sort out what’s really going on in a sentence burdened with too many prepositional phrases. With only minor revisions, you can turn this version into something you can use:

You may not participate in client negotiations with suppliers unless a leader in the gyro division and a leader in the supplier’s industry consent.

Although the prepositional phrases were the main culprit in the sentence, we also cleaned up a couple of forms of the verb “to be.” “Participation . . . is prohibited” became “you may not participate,” and “unless . . . there is advance consent” became “unless a leader . . . and a leader . . . consent.” (You’ll often find loose forms of the verb “to be” in sentences that have strings of prepositional phrases.)

So what’s the remedy? Here are three techniques you can use to fix sentences that are overburdened with prepositional phrases:

1.Look for the action in the sentence or clause: What is the action, and who’s doing it?

Our original sentence read: “unless there is advance consent of a leader of the gyro division.” What’s the action there, and who’s doing that action? The action is “consent,” and the person giving consent is a leader. So we can revise to “unless a leader of the gyro division consents.”

2.Replace a prepositional phrase with an adjective:

the permission of the client → the client’s permission

members of the committee → committee members

of a high quality → high-quality

3.Replace a prepositional phrase with an adverb:

in very rare circumstances → rarely

in an efficient manner → efficiently

with clarity → clearly

Once you become attuned to spotting prepositions and prepositional phrases, you’ll see them everywhere. Most of them are probably fine. But when you start accumulating a lot of them, you usually end up with unnecessary length. Trimming prepositional phrases can help you make your writing more concise and efficient.

3. Watch for nominalizations

What the heck is “nominalization”? It’s taking a verb or adjective, turning it into a noun, and then adding more words to the sentence or phrase to make it mean what it meant in the first place.

Maybe an example would help. Look at the phrases below and see if you can recognize what’s going on here:

Reach an agreement = agree

Make a decision = decide

Achieve a balance = balance

Suffer a loss = lose

Have a response = respond

Conduct an investigation = investigate

Have applicability = apply

Engage in a search = search

The words on the right-hand side of the equal signs are all perfectly good verbs that someone felt the need to nominalize—that is, to turn into a noun. Then, because the verb had become a noun, the writer needed an additional verb to do the work needed in the sentence. So because “search” somehow wasn’t good enough, someone changed it to “conduct a search,” adding words but not meaning.

Nominalization isn’t grammatically incorrect, but it’s a very common bad habit in business writing. It’s usually done to create writing that sounds official and objective. It adds length without contributing additional meaning.

You’ll often see nominalization in sentences that feature prepositional phrases and the passive voice. They’re all part of the common impulse in business writing to make sentences longer so that they’ll sound more authoritative. The cure for nominalization is to convert these phrases back to the original verb or adjective they came from.

Instead of

Heavy traffic on Monday morning caused the network to experience slowness.

Try

Heavy traffic on Monday morning slowed the network down.

(“Experience slowness” is a nominalization of the verb “slow.”)

Instead of

Engaging in regular discussion about expectations can help enhance the performance of employees.

Try

Discussing expectations regularly can help employees perform better.

(“Engaging in discussion” is a nominalization of the verb “discuss”; “enhance the performance of” is a nominalization of “performing better.”)

Most writers aren’t even aware that they’re using nominalizations; they’re just trying to make their writing sound more “businesslike.” Once you become aware of the pattern, it’s easy to recognize it and to say what you mean in a clearer and more straightforward way.

4. Watch for padding

We’ve looked at how relying on the verb “to be” can make a sentence long and sloppy. We’ve looked at how prepositional phrases and nominalizations can make sentences unnecessarily long. Now let’s look at padding—that is, using more words than you need.

There are lots of ways to pad a sentence. Two of the most common are using redundancies and relying on filler words and phrases that don’t add meaning.

Redundancy in writing is unnecessary repetition. Here are some common redundancies that might look familiar to you:

10 a.m. in the morning (“a.m.” means “in the morning”)

Absolutely essential (if something is essential, it’s essential; something can’t be “sort of essential”)

Advance warning (all warnings occur in advance)

Basic fundamentals (fundamentals are basic)

Current trend (unless you’re writing about a historical trend)

Final conclusion (a conclusion is final)

Follow after (“follow” is enough)

Merge together (“merge” implies “together”)

Group together (“grouping” is putting things together)

Future plans (all plans are for the future; you can’t plan for the past)

Postpone till later (“postpone” means reschedule for later)

Still remains (“remains” implies “still”)

Unintentional mistake (if it was a mistake, it was not intentional)

Some writers use redundancies as rhetorical devices, for emphasis.

Sales and marketing would like us to increase production to meet the spike in demand. But in actual fact, we cannot increase production that quickly, so we need to find a way to engage the market realistically given our current limited capacity.

In this example, “actual fact” is a redundancy (all facts are actual facts), but the writer has used this expression to emphasize his point that sales and marketing are asking for something that’s not realistic.

Most of the time, though, writers use redundancies unconsciously. It’s a bad habit you have to break.

An occasional redundancy isn’t such a big deal, unless you’re a real stickler. The problem comes when this kind of writing expands and becomes ingrained. This habit feeds into the tendency of some business writers to write unnecessarily long and needlessly complex sentences, trying to sound professional and authoritative. Consider a sentence like this:

Everybody must share a clear common understanding of the company’s key risks and a clear line of sight into the overall general level of exposure to those risks.

You can see there’s repetition in the sentence (“clear”), but there’s also significant redundancy. When “everybody” has an understanding, it’s already “shared.” If it’s a common understanding, then everybody has it. So the beginning of a revised version of this sentence might go something like this:

Everybody must share an understanding of the company’s key risks . . .

What about “a clear line of sight”? Doesn’t that just mean “understand”? And what’s the difference between “overall” and “general”? Aren’t they the same?

So how about this version instead:

Everybody must share an understanding of the company’s key risks and its level of exposure to those risks.

You could even take it this far, if you wanted to trim more:

Everybody must understand the company’s key risks and its level of exposure to them.

Let’s look at another example:

The projected cost for the renovation is estimated at approximately $11 million.

“Projected,” “is estimated,” and “approximately” all convey the same idea. One alternative version of this sentence:

The projected cost for the renovation is $11 million.

Once you become attuned to redundancy in writing, you’ll begin to see it everywhere, and you’ll get better at stopping yourself from writing redundant prose. Your writing will be more concise and clearer, with a more natural voice.

Another problem that can make your writing bloated is the habit of using filler words and phrases that don’t add meaning. Consider these overused words and phrases:

Actually

A number of

Apparently

At the end of the day

A variety of

Basically

Completely

Currently

Entire

Honestly

I just wanted to

In many cases

In many ways

Literally

Meaningful

Significant

Totally

Very

Whole

With reference to

Of course, all these terms have meanings, and when they’re used precisely they contribute to the meaning of the sentence. The trouble is that they’re often dropped thoughtlessly into sentences where they contribute no meaning at all.

In many ways, the cost estimate is higher than expected.

In how many ways was the estimate higher than expected? (How many ways could an estimate be higher than expected?) If there’s no answer to this question, the phrase is probably serving no purpose except to take up space.

With reference to the proposed expansion, I really don’t support this idea.

This sentence is awkward; getting rid of the filler can help:

I don’t support the idea of expansion.

Here’s another example:

Hi all,

I just wanted to check in about the whole video production process. I totally agree with Sam that it’s very important to involve the full team at the kickoff meeting.

Felix

Felix’s entire first sentence feels like padding. His real message is in fact very brief:

Hi all,

I agree with Sam that the whole team should be involved in the video kickoff meeting.

Thanks,

Felix

Sometimes people pad their writing for social reasons—they want to sound friendly or they don’t want to sound abrupt. Consider if there are other ways to create a friendly tone in your communication, rather than padding your writing with meaningless phrases. In the second example above, the “Thanks” added to Felix’s brief message creates goodwill with his readers. It might take a minute or two of thought, but you can be concise and polite at the same time.

Work with Drafts

It’s likely that every English teacher you ever had told you to work through multiple drafts when you write. Maybe you did writing assignments in high school or college that included writing a rough draft, getting feedback from the instructor, and then rewriting the draft at least once. If you’re like most people, when you started writing at work you realized you didn’t have a lot of time to get your writing done, so the idea of working with drafts seems like an impossible luxury.

While you might not have as much time as you’d like to polish your writing, developing a sensible approach to working with drafts can improve your writing significantly and can save you time in the long run.

The reason working with drafts leads to better writing is that it allows for time between iterations. During this time, you develop a different perspective on what you’ve written, even if you’re continuing to think about it (or perhaps because you’re not continuing to think about it). That different perspective helps you catch errors, notice gaps in content, cut out extraneous information, and recognize that you might have said something insensitive or politically unwise. Getting that little bit of distance can help you take a more objective eye to your own writing.

So the trick is to build in some time between iterations, even during your busy workday. You probably won’t have a week to let your first draft rest, but can you find a day between drafts? If not a day, how about a few hours? Some business writers do all their important writing for the day first thing in the morning, when they feel fresh, and then return to their drafts near the end of the day. The time that’s passed during the workday lets them revisit and revise what they wrote in the morning.

If this kind of system won’t work for you, do whatever you can to take a break after you write your first draft. For instance, try writing out a quick draft before you have to go into a meeting, and then checking it before you need to send it out. Try grabbing a cup of coffee between your first and second drafts. Do whatever you can within the confines of your busy day to help yourself get some distance on your early drafts and enable you to make improvements in later ones.

It can be difficult to find additional time in the day, but devising a system that allows you to work with drafts will save you time in the long run—your communications will be clearer and more complete, and you’ll spend less time following up to clarify.

Writing Is Rewriting

Steve Strauss

Would you ever expect to go to the theater to watch a movie and see the director’s very first cut or the raw footage of the film? Of course not. When you read a book, are you getting the author’s unedited first take of the manuscript? Again, no. Why is that? Because we know that when someone has an important idea to convey—whether it is a director or an author or whoever—they will take the time to do it right and give us their best effort.

The same should be true for you and your business writing. Writing is rewriting (or it should be). It doesn’t matter whether you are writing a blog, a letter, a proposal, or an e-mail. You owe it to your reader—and, more importantly, to yourself—to take the time and have it say what you really mean. And that requires some editing, plain and simple.

Very few of us can put down on paper (or screen!) exactly what we want to say the very first time we think it. Either the idea will be unformed, or it won’t come out exactly as intended, or there will be typos. Whatever the case, it is vital, if you want your writing and ideas to be both understood and taken seriously, that you take a little extra time, give the item a little extra effort, and have it say precisely what you mean.

Ask yourself this question: What would you think of a job applicant whose cover letter got your address wrong, or contained typos, or used “i” instead of “I”? You would likely think that the person is lazy, sloppy, or uneducated—or all three. Yet that is the very risk you take when you don’t edit, review, and rewrite your writing. Doing so will not only ensure that you avoid mistakes that can be damaging to your business, brand, or career but will also mean that the recipient will truly understand what it is you are trying to say.

That will happen, however, only if you live by the mantra “Writing is rewriting.”

(And, by the way, I edited this sidebar eight times.)

Steve Strauss is a best-selling author and the senior USA Today small business columnist. He runs the website TheSelfEmployed.com.

STEP 5: FILL IN MISSING CONTENT; DELETE EXTRANEOUS CONTENT

“I hate it when I have to wade through a bunch of information I don’t need to get to the information I do need.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

Most of us are writing in a hurry, and one of the biggest risks of writing in a hurry is making mistakes with content—either forgetting something or including too much. When you write a first draft, you tend to just splat out whatever is in your head. Sometimes you include information that isn’t really relevant. Sometimes you forget to include important content. That’s perfectly normal for a first draft, but before you send your document off to its final destination, you need to be sure you’ve included the right content.

Forgetting important content usually has one of two possible outcomes. Either the reader zones out and gives up, or he has to follow up with you to get the content he needs, wasting time on both your parts.

Including too much information can also make life harder for your reader. Extraneous content will force your reader to work to figure out why you’re saying all this and what she’s supposed to do about it. If your message ends up being too long and vague, your reader might give up entirely.

A quick content check helps ensure that your readers are getting exactly what they need.

Let’s look at a couple of examples to see how this works.

All,

Just a reminder that next Thursday’s training session is mandatory. Everyone in the group needs to complete diversity training for compliance purposes.

If you haven’t done the diversity training module during the last twelve months, you need to do it this time. Everyone has to complete the training by the end of May, or it could affect our licensing.

We’ve got two more slots with the vendor. Please ensure you make it to one of the two upcoming sessions. If you know you cannot make it, let me know now.

Thanks,

Mona

You can tell that Mona is concerned about making sure everyone gets this training and that she’s worried about what will happen if people miss it. She’s also worried that people are going to blow it off. She’s so worried about these issues, she’s forgotten to provide helpful information about when and where the training will take place. First she mentions “next Thursday,” then she refers to “two more slots with the vendor,” and the overall effect is confusing.

Mona takes a step back and thinks about what her readers really need, what’s at stake, and how to communicate it best. She realizes that she needs to add those dates.

All,

To renew our licensing, everyone in the group must complete the diversity training module by May 31. If you haven’t yet, you have two more chances:

February 11: 2–3 p.m.

March 27: 10–11 a.m.

If you don’t remember the last time you did this training, let me know and I will confirm. If you absolutely can’t make either of these times, let me know immediately. This has to get done.

Thank you!

Mona

Reviewing your draft for content often helps you improve it in other ways as well. Mona has added the new information her readers need—the dates of the training sessions—and in the process of thinking it through, she’s also managed to cut down the overall length of the message. Moreover, she has brought the issue of licensing to the very beginning of the message, letting her readers know what’s at stake right away.

Including too much information can be as problematic as including too little. We often include too much because we’re more focused on ourselves than on our reader. A quick review of a draft can help tighten up the communication.

Alec works for a regional bank that’s about to launch a new customer service initiative that will include getting more customers into the Elite Checking program. Currently branch personnel are offering customers Standard Checking as a default. As a result, customers who qualify for the better account are missing out on rewards, and some are paying unnecessary fees. Alec drafts a memo to branch tellers and other personnel introducing the new initiative. Here’s his first draft:

Hello MaxxBank AllStars!

I’m writing today to announce an exciting new initiative for MaxxBank: the EliteStar program. As part of the initiative, we have a goal to bring 20 percent more new customers into Elite Checking accounts, and to move 20 percent of existing customers from Standard Checking into Elite.

Based on research throughout the region, we estimate that currently about 30 percent of existing customers in Standard in fact qualify for Elite based on their running daily balances. And about 25 percent of new customers are placed into Standard Checking when they would be better served by Elite Checking. The result is that many of our customers are being underserved and missing out on the benefits that Elite offers. These customers often incur service charges that they would not be subject to if they had Elite status. We are managing a large volume of complaints across the branches as a result. We estimate that by moving qualified customers to Elite status, we can reduce fee-related complaints by as much as 35 percent. And the revenue from the lost fees could be offset through happier customers engaging with the bank in other ways, say, through credit cards, home loans, mortgages, or other products.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out training to make it easier for branch personnel to recognize potential Elite customers and help them have conversations to invite customers into the program. Keep your eyes open for more communication about this exciting initiative!

Alec puts his draft aside and comes back to review it the next day. Reading it over, he realizes that the content in the middle paragraph was on his mind because of a meeting he’d attended that day, but it really isn’t helpful to his readers. It makes the memo too long and tedious to read. In fact, some of that content—the section about making up lost revenue—he would prefer not to share with the branch personnel, because he doesn’t want to risk their passing it on to customers. That’s information for internal consumption only. He does want to provide some explanation for the initiative, though, because people perform better when they understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

Here’s Alec’s second draft:

Hello MaxxBank AllStars!

I’m writing today to announce an exciting new initiative for MaxxBank: the EliteStar program. As part of the initiative, we have a goal to bring 20 percent more new customers into Elite Checking accounts, and to move 20 percent of existing customers from Standard Checking into Elite.

Research shows that many of our Standard customers qualify for Elite status, and they’re missing out on the great rewards they could be enjoying, including free checks, overdraft protection, and interest on their balance. We want to ensure that these customers get the most from their MaxxBank relationship!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out the EliteStar training to help you identify potential Elite customers and bring them into the right account for them. Keep your eyes open for more communication about this exciting initiative!

In his revision, Alec removes the figures and some of the detailed rationale from the middle paragraph, and instead writes a middle paragraph with a clear message that will resonate with his readers: we’re launching this initiative to make sure that customers are having the best possible experience with MaxxBank. In this case, less content makes for a more effective communication.

Use Structure to Help You Choose Your Content

Not everyone likes to use outlines when they write. If you’re writing something very short and straightforward, an outline might be unnecessary. But sometimes with a longer document, structuring your message with a quick outline can help you make sure your content is complete and you’re presenting it in a logical way. The outline doesn’t have to be complex; it can be a list of topics, which you then arrange in the order in which you want to present them.

You can even outline after you’ve written a draft, to check whether you’re including the appropriate information—and nothing extraneous. Outlining after the fact is called “reverse outlining.” Let’s look at reverse outlines of the two versions of Mona’s message above.

Original version

Diversity training is mandatory for compliance purposes.

You have to go to the diversity training once during twelve months so we can get our licensing.

If you haven’t been to a session yet, you must go to one of the two remaining ones this year.

Let me know if you have problems.

Revised version

Everyone has to do this training or we won’t get licensed again. Here are your chances.

Here are the two dates of trainings.

I’ll help you make sure it gets done; let me know if you have problems.

We have to do this.

You can see in the revision of Mona’s message that she hasn’t just added the missing information (the dates and times of the training sessions); she’s also restructured her entire message to make it clearer to her readers.

Writing a quick outline doesn’t have to be a big deal, but it can make a big difference in the content and quality of your message.

How to Get the Content Right

If you like to plan before you write, you should think about your content in light of the work you did for Step 1, Get the ask clear, and Step 2, Write for your reader. Ask yourself these questions:

What content must I include to achieve my purpose in writing?

What content does my reader need?

If you’re the kind of writer who likes to create a first draft and then edit, make sure you do a content check as part of your revision process. Including extraneous content often comes from the writing equivalent of “thinking out loud”—mulling over or reviewing content in your own mind without considering if your audience needs it. Sometimes it’s helpful to your thought process to write everything out. But if the content isn’t useful to your reader, you should go back and cut it out. If you’ve already got a draft, take a quick pass over your document. Look at your pieces of information one at a time and run through a mental checklist:

Is this all the information my reader needs?

Does my reader really need this information?

Whether you’re a planner or an editor by nature, taking a quick content inventory before you send your draft will help you meet your readers’ needs.

SUMMARY: Fill in Missing Content; Delete Extraneous Content

Think for a moment before you start to write or before you send: “What do I want my reader to do?”

Then ask yourself, “Have I given them the information they need to do this? Have I given them content they don’t need?”

Organize and edit your draft with this in mind.

Now that you feel confident about your content, we’ll explore how to write your message as clearly as possible.

STEP 6: WRITE IN PLAIN ENGLISH

“I find it frustrating to be somewhat trapped by a long-standing and robustly implemented ‘institutional writing voice.’ This enforced company style is overly wordy, full of run-on sentence structures and embraces a bureaucratic, impersonal tone that might be ‘legally effective’ but not effective in motivating or communicating with the audience. Ultimately the impersonality of the tone is off-putting to readers and can often be misunderstood as authoritative or even hostile.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

Business writing is often mocked for its heavy reliance on jargon and unnecessarily convoluted language. Modern-day corporate-speak comes from a variety of sources outside the business world: from the military, from sports, and from law, among other fields, often driven by the latest trends in management thinking. As businesspeople became more interested in warfare analogies, the habit of using military-style acronyms and specialized vocabulary grew. As businesspeople began to envision themselves as athletes, sports metaphors crept in. And because there’s always been a close connection between business and the law, some of the worst tendencies in business English come from aping legal writing—trying to sound authoritative and official, and muddying the meaning in the process.

The pushback against these tendencies started in the 1970s. The plain English movement arose in response to the ridiculously obscure legalistic writing in government documents. In 1977, New York State passed laws requiring plain English in consumer contracts and leases. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter issued two executive orders mandating that government regulations be easy to understand. There is similar legislation across the English-speaking world.

There are no laws against muddy, convoluted, jargon-ridden business writing, so it’s up to us to fix it on our own. The good news is that you can distinguish yourself by saying what you mean in plain English.

Jargon

There are two kinds of jargon. One is the language specific to your business or industry: acronyms, abbreviations, and specialty vocabulary used as a shortcut among people who understand it:

Will the ASB be ready in time for SteerCo? If not, I suggest we prioritize the alpha of ITB so the team can review it prior to the launch of ELF.

Almost everyone who has a job has written this way at one time or another, and most of the time it’s perfectly fine. Sometimes, though, it’s not. When you use heavy jargon outside your immediate work ­circle—among people who don’t understand it—it can create a barrier to understanding. It can be a particular problem in proposals, where it can confuse, annoy, and alienate readers.

The other kind of jargon is that common group of business buzzwords and clichés that many of us desperately overuse (moving the needle, circling back, drilling down, and so forth). Using this kind of jargon excessively, even when your audience will understand it, can flatten your writing and diminish its impact. Relying too much on jargon can make you sound sloppy, as if you’re not willing to do the work to express what you mean accurately.

How many of the phrases below do you see in a typical workweek?

Actionable

Aligning

At the end of the day

Bandwidth

Best practice

Blue-sky thinking

Boiling the ocean

Boots on the ground

Deep dive

Delta (instead of “change”)

Disruptive

Game changer

Going forward

Hard-baked solution

Impactful

Iterate

Leading-edge

Leverage

Low-hanging fruit

Moving the ball forward

No-regrets move

Popping the bubble

Quick win

Reaching out

Reality check

Strategic

Synergy

Taking the pulse

Thought shower

Tools

Touching base

2.0

Upskill

Value add

Warning shot

I’m sure you could add to the list. Such phrases are often metaphors, as you can see, and taken in bulk they’re just comical. Things really get interesting when writers begin to mix these metaphors; the result is often pure nonsense:

Have you noticed that the farther you move toward fulfilling your potential, the higher the needle moves forward?

Wait, which way is the needle moving? Up or forward? It’s a silly example, but it came from a real document, and it illustrates what happens when people rely on these expressions too much: they stop thinking. Consider how distinctive and refreshing your voice as a writer could be if you cut down on your use of this kind of jargon.

Instead of

Going forward, we should drill down into actionable initiatives rather than blue-sky thinking.

Try

In the future, we should focus on initiatives that we can actually implement rather than unproven ideas.

Instead of

At the end of the day, we can advance by targeting quick wins and low-hanging fruit in the market.

Try

Ultimately, we’ll succeed if we focus on easily achievable goals.

You’ll note that both of these examples do more than eliminate offending phrases. The revisions are more specific and easier to understand than the originals. They present concrete ideas that can be discussed and perhaps disagreed with. Do we really want to stick with what we already know how to do, without exploring other avenues? Is focusing on easy goals really the right thing to do now? When you strip these suggestions of their jargon, it becomes much easier to understand and discuss them.

Needlessly Complicated Language

In Step 4, Be concise, we looked at the bad habit of using long phrases where short ones would do. In that step, we were concerned about saving space and writing economically. Here we’re concerned with a different issue: how using language that’s needlessly complicated can instead impinge on your ability to communicate.

What do I mean by “needlessly complicated” language? Here are some examples:

Utilize = use

Initiate = start

Subsequent to = after

Prior to = before

In light of the fact that = because or since

In the event that = if

In close proximity = near

In the near future = soon

With reference to = about

With regard to = about

Regarding = about

At this time = now

At this point in time = now

By means of = by

In accordance with = under, by

In order to = to

In the absence of = without

In cases when = when

The basic pattern here is taking a small, simple word and replacing it with a bigger word or a series of words. Just as with jargon, the impulse behind this kind of writing seems to be that it will make you look smarter or more serious or more professional. Why merely begin something when you can initiate it? Why use a thing when you can utilize it?

You’ll notice that a lot of these forms are prepositional phrases, which we discussed in Step 4, Be concise. Learning to recognize them is a useful tool in improving your writing skills.

This kind of deliberate complication is everywhere in business. It has seeped into customer service training. Cashiers in some stores have stopped calling for the “next” customer and started saying “following” instead, as if adding those syllables demonstrates superior customer service.

Of course, stores are not fooling customers about the quality of their service simply by having associates say “following” rather than “next.” By the same token, you’re not fooling anyone when you use needlessly complicated language in your writing. In fact, you’ll impress people more if your writing is straightforward and clear. Let’s look at some examples:

Instead of

In the absence of relevant performance data, we are unable to make an appropriate recommendation for an alternative software solution.

Try

Without performance data, we cannot recommend alternative software.

Instead of

In the event that you encounter a program error, utilize the indicated button on your screen to restart the program.

Try

If the program crashes, click the Restart button.

Instead of

At this point in time, we lack sufficient desk and seating arrangements to accommodate a full complement of staff in the office on a daily basis.

Try

Right now, we don’t have enough desks for everyone to come into the office every day.

But Everybody Writes This Way

You might be wondering what the big deal is. Lots of people write this way—business writing just sounds like this. If everyone writes this way, then everyone will understand you, right? So what’s the problem?

There are two problems, in fact. The first is that not everyone will understand you. It’s possible to get your head so deeply into jargon and convoluted language that you’re actually hard to understand. Look at this sentence, for example:

A strong risk identification process casts a broad net that captures all key risks and then drills down within the major risks to understand root causes.

What?

Unless you’re a risk consultant, you have to squint at this sentence pretty hard to understand what it’s trying to say, which is this:

A strong risk identification process helps you understand the key risks and their causes.

This “translation” might be too informal, but it captures the meaning of the original in much clearer terms.

The second problem with this kind of writing is that it can make you look bad. Ironically, most people start writing this way to sound smart. Then it takes over their brains. I’ve always felt that this habit made people look dumber, not smarter. It turns out I’m not the only one who feels this way, and there’s research to support this conclusion. Carnegie Mellon psychologist Daniel Oppenheimer, in a paper called “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly,” found that writers who use long words unnecessarily are perceived by readers as less intelligent than those who use simpler vocabulary.^‡ In accepting the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize for Literature, Professor Oppenheimer explained, “It’s important to point out that this research is not about problems with using long words but about using long words needlessly.” He concluded: “One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it’s more likely you’ll be thought of as intelligent.”^§

Furthermore, I suspect that writing this way does more than make you sound dumb. I think it makes you dumber. I don’t have any research to support this idea, but it seems to me that if you have a limited vocabulary, your thinking will be limited. If you have only a small set of ideas that your brain defaults to, can you really be “thinking outside the box”? I suppose it might happen the same way that relying on a GPS can short-circuit your sense of direction and prevent you from using your natural navigation skills. By accepting the challenge to write clearly, you’ll challenge yourself to do better thinking.

When everyone else communicates this way, it’s natural that you may want to fit in. Of course, there’s vocabulary in any line of business, but there’s also a voice, and we unconsciously adopt that voice. There’s nothing wrong with fitting in; what’s wrong is the “unconscious” part. So you fit in, and then eventually you sound like everyone else. But once you have some confidence, you might find the courage to start sounding like yourself. You will stand out in the organization if you have a distinctive and clear voice. It will be an asset to you. People will see that your writing is clear and figure that your thinking must be clear, too. You don’t have to write in businessese to sound smart. You’ll sound even smarter if you can get rid of the jargon and the inflated language and write in a clear and direct voice.

Your Favorite Buzzwords

Everyone has favorite things: foods, clothing, movies . . . and language. You might find that you have particular buzzwords you use over and over again. I had a client once who couldn’t get through the morning without calling something “foundational.” He seemed to be completely unaware of how frequently he was leaning on the word.

What’s the harm? For one thing, people notice it when you overuse buzzwords, and they will notice if there’s one you tend to use repeatedly. For another thing, relying too much on one word can shape the way you think. A shortcut in communication can reflect a shortcut in thinking. When you default to repeating certain words, your vocabulary shrinks, and so does the way you perceive the world. Was everything my client noted really “foundational”? Sometimes he used the word to mean “seminal” (which is close to its actual meaning), sometimes to mean “original,” and sometimes to mean “important.” His overuse of the word had blurred the distinctions among the different meanings he ascribed to it, and his thinking, in this area at least, had become a little sloppy.

Is there a word you overuse? It’s worthwhile noticing if you’ve developed an unconscious habit of depending too much on the same word. Breaking the habit can help you break into more specific and creative thinking patterns.

How to Write in Plain English

Breaking the habit of writing in businessese can be difficult. If you’re a planner and like to outline your messages and documents before you start writing, you can use a trick that will make it easy for you to draft in plain English right from the start: explain the concept to your grandmother. This trick is very helpful in overcoming writer’s block (see here), and it’s also helpful when you want to express yourself in clear language. Your grandmother probably doesn’t know what moving the needle means, and she’ll probably laugh at you if you say you’re going to initiate something rather than start it. Use your grandmother as a model audience to figure out how to say what you mean directly and without jargon.

If you’re an editor and like to revise your drafts, you can also enlist the help of your grandmother. As you read what you’ve written, imagine that she’s sitting next to you. Is there junk in your draft that would make her raise her eyebrows or shake her head? Get rid of it, and replace it with plain English.

Obviously you don’t have to use your grandmother as this model reader—she’s just a good example of someone who’s probably intelligent and not overly impressed with fancy language. She’s sympathetic to you and cares what you have to say, but she wants to understand it. You can choose any model reader you like—anyone who will help you get a different perspective on your writing, so that you can write more clearly.

Beware of Revision Fatigue

Every time you revise, you create the potential for new errors, and revising onscreen can increase this risk. Especially if you’re working in a rush, it’s easy to leave careless errors in your document. These are often the product of partial revisions:

I will be in the London next week.

This writer initially wrote, “I will be in the U.K. next week,” then decided to be more specific and say “London” instead. But she forgot to remove “the,” and so ended up with this weird hybrid form.

Using tracked changes creates another risk: you might have a document so full of changes that you literally can’t see what the final version will look like through all the strikethroughs and different colors of additions. So when you accept changes, you might inadvertently end up with something like this:

Tom Stevens and Karen Washington will lead consolidation efforts in the Midwest and regional strategy leadership and provide leadership in strategy in the region.

With tracked changes showing, that revision looked fine, but with the changes accepted, it’s clear that the actual editing wasn’t quite finished.

Revision—especially when you go through many ­iterations—can cause fatigue and lead to errors. No matter how sick and tired your intensive work on the project has made you feel, be sure to go through your draft one last time before you finalize it to catch all the weird little errors that might have crept in. If you’ve been through so many revisions that you feel you can’t “see” the document anymore, ask a colleague to take a quick pass through and clean up any clutter left behind.

SUMMARY: Write in Plain English

Your writing will be clearer, easier to understand, and more effective if you write in plain English.

Avoid excessive use of jargon, and avoid needlessly complicated language.

To write in plainer English, imagine that you’re writing for your grandmother or some other model reader outside the world of business. Express yourself clearly in a way that this model reader would understand.

STEP 7: IF SOMETHING FEELS WRONG, FIX IT

“So much aggravation and time-wasting could be avoided if people would just stop and think before they hit Send”.

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

Ever finish a writing task and feel like there’s something wrong? It could be an e-mail, or it could be something longer, like a proposal. It’s not a great feeling, but it’s also not uncommon. Most people who have this apprehension will struggle a little bit, maybe glance over their writing, fight back the feeling, and send the thing anyway. I’m going to suggest that you do not do that—that instead you spend a little more time figuring out what’s bugging you and fix it, rather than sending something you’re not confident about.

How? Let’s look at a quick method for checking over your writing.

First, run through Steps 1–6 quickly.

Step 1: Get the ask clear

Step 2: Write for your reader

Step 3: Start strong and specific

Step 4: Be concise

Step 5: Fill in missing content; delete extraneous content

Step 6: Write in plain English

Look especially closely at Steps 1 and 2—they’re harder than they seem, and sometimes some extra attention to refining your purpose and writing for your reader will solve whatever problem you’re facing. Step 5, Fill in missing content; delete extraneous content, is also worth special consideration. It’s common to have afterthoughts about the information you’re including. Have you said too much or too little?

What else might be bothering you?

Confidentiality

Maybe you’re getting that nagging feeling because you’re putting something in writing that you shouldn’t. Are you including something that could make you or your company look bad? What if the content of your message or document became public? If that idea bothers you, you should probably revise what you’ve written.

Commitment

Are you overpromising? Are you committing to something you’re not sure you can deliver? If you’re making a commitment you’re not sure you can meet, you should probably revise your message.

Politics

Does your document or message contain something that’s politically unwise? Are you oversharing, about either yourself or someone else? Are you blaming someone when you shouldn’t be? Are you aligning with someone you shouldn’t or failing to align with someone you should? Political issues at work can be quite delicate, and if you’ve rushed through your writing, you might not have hit the right note the first time through. Take some time to consider your position and perhaps revise it.

Punctuation

Don’t laugh. Who remembers the rules for comma usage? No one, that’s who. Most of us have forgotten punctuation rules, if we ever learned them in the first place, and worries about punctuation can make otherwise good writers feel insecure about their writing. There’s a very easy remedy for this: review the rules and be sure you’re using punctuation correctly. Refer to the “Punctuation” section at the back of this book (starting here) as often as you need to. ­Answering your punctuation questions can boost your confidence as a writer. Don’t let punctuation bring you down.

Laziness

Laziness strikes even the most conscientious writers from time to time. Possible signs of laziness in your writing include lack of clarity and poor logical connections. Don’t worry—this is precisely why we break the writing process into steps and work with drafts: to enable you to catch problems before you send them out into the world. Go back and put in a little extra effort to ensure that what you’re sending is clear and complete.

Tone

Often when we feel that our writing “just doesn’t sound right,” the problem lies with the tone of what we’ve written. Most good everyday business writing uses a tone that’s friendly and professional.

It’s not always easy to get your tone right the first time. Two things, in particular, to consider are:

Your relationship with the reader

The importance of the topic (which includes what’s at stake)

Checking your draft against these two points can help you correct an inappropriate tone.

The tone of business communication in most organizations is pretty casual, but not as casual as a personal chat. Check to make sure that what you’ve written is appropriate for work—no texting abbreviations, no super-casual expressions. (For more on tone, see “Does This Sound Okay?” here.)

So, as you can see, there might be a number of causes behind that nagging feeling that there’s something wrong with your draft. Let’s consider some examples of messages that could be improved by one last review before they’re sent out.

Hi Terri,

Would you mind sharing the Arris opening/closing titles used for the Arris conference as a .mov file with me? We have a couple more videos that popped up, and we’re planning to handle these edits internally. Also, can you point me to a finished video as a model of the style we’re looking for? I’m taking over from Sean on this project.

BTW, the Walls files are now in the final folder on Dropbox.

Thanks,

Jared

Writing to Terri about Arris has reminded Jared that he also wanted to share the Walls files with her, so he drops in that information at the end of this message. This kind of last-minute addition is very common, and it’s also very common for readers to overlook these afterthoughts. Mentioning an unrelated topic at the end of an e-mail on another subject creates a significant risk that the reader won’t see it. It also makes it harder to organize and search e-mails by subject if the reader should want to go back later. In this case, it’s better for Jared to send Terri a separate message about the Walls files.

Here’s one that’s trickier:

Dear Ming,

Please feel free to reach out to me directly if anything else comes up. David and Jon hadn’t finished the analysis when they handed off the project to us, so David just had to contact me when you wrote to him yesterday. Amy and I tracked down the information you needed. There are likely other gaps, so please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Brandon

Brandon’s tone sounds a little snarky, and this first draft isn’t as politically astute as it might be. Brandon is trying to tell Ming that David and Jon didn’t finish the work, that he and Amy had to clear up their unfinished mess, and that she should not write to David for this information in the future. He’s not happy about what happened, and he’d like to let Ming know that. However, when he reviews his draft, he realizes that he’s throwing David and Jon under the bus and sounds passive-aggressive. He’s uncomfortable with the first draft, so he revises it.

Dear Ming,

Please feel free to reach out to me directly if anything else comes up. I spoke with Amy yesterday while we were tracking down the information, and we both feel there might be other gaps. I’d be happy to find anything else you need.

Best,

Brandon

Brandon’s revision gets the message across—that he and Amy did the work to find what Ming was looking for, that the project was not in fact completed, and that Brandon is the owner now—without explicitly blaming David and Jon. Brandon closes on a note of goodwill.

Here’s one more first draft that felt wrong:

Alison,

Thanks for your message. We should be able to get those units out to your customer by June 2. I’ll stay in touch.

Maria

Maria reviews her draft and feels a little worried. She realizes she’s being vague and that she’s not sharing with Alison what’s really on her mind. She also realizes that her vagueness could lead to problems in the future, so she revises her message.

Alison,

Thanks for your message. I’ll try my best to get those units out to your customer by June 2. However, we have two very large orders in the queue ahead of this request, so I am not sure we can deliver that quickly. Would your customer accept half the quantity by that date and the other half two weeks later? Let’s talk about how to get this done. Please call me.

Maria

In her revision, Maria avoids the temptation to push the issue off her plate and explains what’s worrying her. She briefly lays out the reason she might not be able to fulfill Alison’s request and invites Alison to do some creative problem-solving with her.

Ask a Colleague for Input

If you’re not sure what’s bothering you, and you’re working on something you don’t mind sharing, ask a colleague to have a quick look at your draft. Whenever you ask someone for feedback on your writing, you’ll get better results if you direct their attention to areas that concern you. It’s fine if your question is simply “There’s something bothering me about this draft; does it look okay to you?” But if you ask specific questions, you’ll get more focused feedback. Try “Am I leaving out anything?” or “Am I approaching this right?” or “Am I saying too much?”

It’s a great idea to find an informal proofreading and copyediting partner at work. You’ll learn not just from your partner’s comments on your writing, but also from looking closely at her work. You’ll both become better writers.

Does This Sound Okay?

“Expressing the right tone is critical to avoid misunderstandings, without the benefit of facial expressions and body language.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

Often when a piece of writing “just sounds wrong,” there’s a problem with tone. “Tone” in writing is like tone of voice. Your tone reflects your attitude toward the reader and toward the topic you’re writing about. Your tone might be friendly, cordial, respectful, deferential, playful, abrupt, rude, or anything in between.

In business writing, appropriate tone can range from very informal—think of the website of an online grocery-­delivery service—to very formal, such as communication from a bank. Most companies have adopted a tone that reflects their brand and their values, for both external and internal communication. The tone used in external communications—advertising, websites, messages to customers—will usually be the product of conscious, brand-driven decision-making. The tone used for internal communications usually develops more organically, with people emulating the style they see others using.

Several elements contribute to the tone of your writing. One of these is word choice: consider the different implications, for example, of “terrible,” “very bad,” and “not ideal.” If your tone sounds harsh, you might want to replace some of your vocabulary selections with softer options. Consider the different impressions made by “awesome,” “successful,” and “impressive.” If your tone feels too chatty, consider a more professional vocabulary.

Sentence length also shapes tone. Short, choppy sentences can sound abrupt. Long, complex sentences can come across as impersonal. Experiment until your writing sounds conversational but respectful.

Here are a couple of ideas about how to change your tone easily:

Take the focus off the reader and put it on yourself: “You didn’t send the information” versus “We haven’t received the information”

Consider whether deleting or changing a word or two can change your tone:

“He still hasn’t finished the analysis” versus “He hasn’t finished the analysis”

(The word “still” can suggest that he’s missed a deadline or imply that he’s a slacker.)

“We expect to receive . . .” versus “We’re looking forward to receiving . . .”

(“We expect” sounds dictatorial; “we’re looking forward to” sounds warm.)

It can be difficult to recognize the tone of your own writing. But if you’re worried that your tone might not be appropriate, you might be right. If you’re not sure you’re hitting the right tone, ask a colleague to read over your draft and give you feedback on how it sounds.

Use Your Company’s Style Guide

Many organizations that take written communication seriously have developed style guides for their employees to use. These guides vary a lot in length and scope, but the overall goal of all of them is to help ensure that everyone in the organization is communicating consistently.

Style guides serve a number of purposes. Like visual style guides, which specify the fonts, colors, and logos used in visual materials, written style guides can help keep an organization’s branding consistent.

Style guides usually contain directions specific to your company. For instance, is it ever acceptable to abbreviate the name of the company in written correspondence, or should you always spell out its full name? What are the appropriate titles to use for people? Should those titles be capitalized? What are the correct names for products and services? How do you refer to the people who buy your products and services—are they “clients” or “customers”? Can you ever abbreviate clients’ names in writing? This kind of information is especially important in situations where your company’s public identity is in flux, such as during a merger or a rebranding.

Style guides also specify preferences in punctuation and spelling. Should you use the Oxford comma or not? (See here for a definition of the Oxford comma.) Is it “Internet” or “internet”? Guides can also offer help with style issues—for instance, should you use “e.g.” or “for example”?

Some style guides also provide reminders about basic grammar and usage. For example, when should you spell out numbers in text, and when is it okay to use numerals? When do you use double quotation marks, and when do you use single ones? How should you use a hyphen? These questions are especially important if your company is global and different rules apply across the different countries where the company operates.

It’s worthwhile finding out if your company has a style guide—and, if it does, getting hold of it—when you’re trying to put the finishing touches on your writing. Unless you’re an editor at heart, you probably won’t want to read your organization’s style guide cover to cover, but you might find that it has the answer to that little question that’s been bothering you. Using your company’s style guide can help save you time and keep the brand voice consistent.

SUMMARY: If Something Feels Wrong, Fix It

If something about your draft feels wrong, it probably is. Trust your gut.

To help identify what’s bothering you, try applying Steps 1–6 to your draft.

Check your draft for problems around confidentiality, commitment, politics, punctuation, laziness, and tone.

Consider asking a colleague to read over your draft and give you feedback.

*Professor Locker coauthored (with Donna Kienzler) the textbook Business and Administrative Communication (11th edition; New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2015).

† Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, Mass., 1983).

 

A. Banks conduct stress testing to ensure adequate capital levels. B. Legal counsel rewrote the guidelines to prevent future breaches. C. Marketers use personas to help them understand who their target customers are. D. IT replaced the faulty monitor.

‡ Applied Cognitive Psychology 20 (2006): 139–56; https://www.affiliateresources.org/pdf/ConsequencesErudite.pdf.

§ “The Secret of Impressive Writing? Keep It Plain and Simple,” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051031075447.htm.