Text III. 20 Tips of Business Writing

Here are the basics of business writing – tips to keep your written communications sharp and effective. These tips provide the basics of good business writing and will always stand you in good stead.

1. Keep your writing simple, short and to the point.

2. Write positively. If you use a negative, try to find a solution or reason.

3. Spend time on your headline. Everybody reads a headline, so use an attention-grabbing statement.

4. Get to the point: put first things first. The opening paragraph should be particularly clear and easy to understand.

5. Stress the benefits to the reader in both your headline and text.

6. Make the text look both neat and interesting by breaking it up with paragraphs. In that way the letter will be much easier to read. If a paragraph contains more than three sentences, break it up.

7. Start sentences with the main clause and not with a subsidiary one. An example of putting the subsidiary clause first would be as follows: “To make the copy easier to read, break up the text with paragraphs.”

8. Aim your writing at the reader or customer by turning ‘I/we’ into ‘You’ wherever possible. The rule is to use 4 ‘you's’ for every ‘I’.

9. Put the reader’s wants and needs first. Even in a letter to your boss you are ‘selling something’ – yourself or an idea. People tend to buy what they want from people they know and like.

10. Write a powerful introduction and conclusion.

11. Mind your language – be sure you look for strong, active and attractive words. Also, keep adjectives and adverbs to a minimum. Go for one really good word rather than two or three woolly ones.

12. Watch out for clichés, jargon and popular phrases. They are blight on your business letters, so root them out.

13. Write actively – subject, verb, object.

14. Keep sentences short (maximum 15 words) and vary the length of sentences.

15. Make only one point per sentence: your reader does not want to be overwhelmed with information.

16. Be friendly and polite. Establish trust and credibility.

17. Keep the number of points to a minimum – between 3 and 5.

18. End the document by saying what will happen next, encourage the reader to take some action, make clear what action you will take and follow that up.

19. An excellent way of testing your business letters is to read them out loud to see how they sound.

20. Always show complicated business letters to other people for a second opinion. What you write may not be what is read – you may accidentally cause offence to the reader.

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Match the beginnings and endings below and identify which letter a) is a letter of complaint, b) offers an apology, c) is an application for a job.	\|	Text IV. Resumes and Covering Letters

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