A Guide to Business English

Successful business writing means taking some extra care with grammar and spelling, clearly stating your main point, writing clearly, and giving some thought to your audience.

The Impact of Business Writing

Readers will judge you to some extent based on your writing.  Take extra care with grammar and spelling.  Sending a message with grammar errors is like showing up for a meeting with your shirt untucked.  It gives an impression of sloppiness.

Business English should be reasonably formal.  Do not, however, let your writing become stilted.  Keep a somewhat conversational tone, without being unprofessional.  Be careful with humor, which is easier to miss or misunderstand in writing without the benefit of body language.

Don't use "smilies" :) or the casual abbreviations that have become popular in e-mails, like LOL or TTFN.

Be particularly careful with the names of companies and people.  You don't want subordinates, colleagues, or clients to get the impression that you don't care about them.

Bad writing will do more than give a bad impression.  A poorly-written document will fail to achieve whatever objective you had when you wrote it.  If you write a long, rambling document with dense blocks of text, many readers will skim it briefly and discard it.  If people don't read your letters and e-mails, then writing them is a waste of your time.

Write Clearly

To write clearly, keep the following points in mind:

• Use simple, clear words
• Get to the point
• Format the document appropriately

Use Simple, Clear Words

Most of us can speak fairly clearly, but somehow when we write, an unhelpful complexity often creeps in.  People use words in writing that they would never use in conversation.  Often we use written words that are less clear, because they seem more official or more formal.  The result is stilted, stuffy, unnatural writing that is more difficult to read than it needs to be.

Here is a list of fancy words and their simpler equivalents.  Try to use the words in the second column instead of the words in the first column.

    commence    begin
    prior to          before
    furnish          give
    proceed        go, continue, walk, drive
    anticipate      expect
    implement     start
    utilize           use

Try reading your documents out loud.  They should not sound clumsy, awkward, or pretentious.  You should write more or less the way you speak, although with more strict attention paid to grammar.

Get to the Point

There are two questions you must answer before you begin to write.  What is your message?  What are you trying to achieve?  Answering these two questions will make the writing process easier, and the quality of the writing higher.

In your document, you should immediately state the main point or key piece of information.  Don't make your readers dig through a long letter or e-mail, trying to figure out why you wrote it.  State your conclusions or key message up front.  Add further details after you've gotten to the point.

Avoid unnecessary words.  Don't bury your message in pointless phrases.  Trim meandering sentences that add nothing to your message.  Consider the following example, with two versions of the same paragraph.

In the event that the purchaser is not fully satisfied, the company warranties and guarantees that the purchaser shall be eligible for a full and complete refund, subject to the following conditions: that the product is returned in a reasonable condition; that a receipt is presented at the time of returning the product; that the receipt shall correspond in every way to the product being returned.  Customers not fully satisfied with the product must bring both the product and the corresponding receipt to the service desk on the second floor.

You must have a receipt to get a refund.  See the service desk on the second floor.

The first paragraph has no useful information that is not found in the second paragraph.  It is harder to understand, and that is all.

Format the Document Appropriately

Make your documents reader-friendly.  The main point should appear close to the top of the document, and it should be easy to find.  The document should not resemble a marathon, or a maze where you've cleverly hidden your information.

Avoid extremely long sentences or very long paragraphs.  It is intimidating to search for information in a large, dense mass of text.  Use whitespace to break up the document and to emphasize key points.

Use headings to make it easy for readers to find information, and to keep track of where they are in the document.  Use bulleted and numbered lists so that key facts are easy to find.

Here is a basic model for clear, accessible documents:

• start with your main point
• organize your writing into blocks of information
• label those blocks with headings

Consider Your Audience

Keep the reader in mind as you write.  Think about your reader's vocabulary and education level, and write appropriately. Only use abbreviations or jargon that your audience will understand. 

Ask yourself what your readers are interested in and need to know.  What is in it for the reader?  Don't write out every fact that you know.  Put in the information that the reader needs.

Sometimes, considering your audience means deciding not to send out a document.  Many workers feel inundated with e-mails, especially corporate communications sent to too many recipients.  Many people learn to delete e-mails with only a cursory glance.

If you send out too much information, you can create a situation where less and less information is actually being received.  If your co-workers expect to receive irrelevant and long-winded e-mails, they may not recognize an important message.  Be selective about the messages you send, to avoid training people to delete your messages unread.

Give all e-mails an appropriate and descriptive subject line.  It is the first step in making your message clear.

Good business English means more effective communication.  It is simple, clear, and straightforward.  It is easier to read, and when you get used to it, easier to write.

Did you like this article? Read my other Knols, The Essentials of Writing in English, Introduction to English Grammar, and The Guide to Proofreading and Editing.
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