Poor Business Writing: A Cure

If writing business materials is a part of your job, how many hundreds—or thousands?—of hours have you spent composing, editing, and formatting business materials? How much professional training have you taken to help you perform these tasks? If you sometimes feel yourself cast in the role of “accidental author,” you’re not alone, says Rosemary Shipton, a publishing consultant for Shipton McDougall Maude Associates, and coordinator of the publishing program at Ryerson University in Toronto. “In fields like marketing and communications, people who aren’t writers by trade or training find themselves producing more written works for a wider audience than ever before. Love it or loathe it, this trend is bound to continue, and the only sensible response is to make friends with the writing process,” says Shipton. There is no doubt that a grammar mistake or unclear writing in a company report or e-mail can have severe consequences for your business. Receiving a letter from a travel company for your next trip to Mexico that misspells the word “accommodations,” Shipton points out, causes you to distrust the source; (if they overlooked a typo, they may also overlook booking your seat on the airplane.) Or perhaps your trusted daily news source omits an important name in a headline. You begin to wonder, is this news source credible and do they verify all the facts? Businesses spend $3.1 billion a year on remedial writing training for employees, according to the U.S. National Commission on Writing (“Writing: A Ticket to Work...Or a Ticket Out, A Survey of Business Leaders,” 2004). “The reason businesses have such a problem with poor writing is that most don’t have standards for writing based on best practices,” explains R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D., director of the Business Writing Center, in a press release issued recently. The Center, located in Bloomington, IL, is an online school training business writers from around the world. “But that’s changing. Businesses are treating writing as a vital part of their infrastructure and expecting the same quality and accuracy in writing that they require in accounting, inventory, or any other infrastructure.” The new style of writing is called explicit business writing, and the Business Writing Center has just published Explicit Business Writing: Best Practices for the Twenty-First Century, explaining to managers and employees how to write. As an example of the explicit standards, Hogan explains that every e-mail should begin with an introduction specifying why the reader is receiving the message, what action the reader is to perform, the critical information the reader should remember, and what is in the e-mail or attached to it. “When writers include that vital information at the beginning, every reader looks for it there,” he says in the press release. “Readers know what they’re to do, and writers get what they want from the first e-mail. It stops the ping-pong game.” The key benefit of explicit business writing, he emphasizes, is in curing the epidemic of bad e-mail. “In-boxes are overflowing with unnecessary back- and-forth messages as readers try to clarify what the writers want. This frustrating game of e-mail ping-pong is eliminated when messages communicate immediately and accurately the first time. Explicit business writing enables business writers to do that.” Explicit business writing standards also eliminate the problem of unclear, ineffective reports, Hogan states. “Many reports aren’t understood or read completely because they’re so badly written. Reports communicate clearly when they use simple, straightforward sentences, plain English, and reading guideposts.” He explains that standards based on best practices train readers as well as writers because everyone learns how all reports are organized so they are understood quickly. One reason behind this epidemic of poor business writing stems from the current office environment, in which nearly everyone sits at a computer and the “business writer” may be a “jack-of-all trades,” says Shipton. “Traditionally in mass media the writing process was divided into different departments: a writer who drafted the writing, an editor who checked for content, a proofreader who checked for spelling and grammar only, and finally a graphic artist who placed the words on the page,” says Shipton. While this still occurs for the most part in mass media, nearly everyone is writing in the workplace today, whether it is e-mails, office memos, press releases or ads. One person may be expected to perform all of these roles, often under tight deadlines and in an unhealthy work environment, says Shipton. Another reason for the problem may be because not enough language and grammar is being taught in the schools, says Shipton. Education typically involves literature and creative writing. This leads to people who write with their ear to determine the order of words rather than with grammatical form. This can result in common problems such as those of punctuation, incorrect pronoun use (“they” incorrectly following the singular “everyone”), and sentence fragments (such as lists commonly seen on web pages) as opposed to well-formulated sentences. “People are also not being trained to think thoroughly about a topic before they write,” says Shipton. “Often when e-mails come in people don’t understand what’s being asked of them, so a lot of time is wasted.” Some basic questions she advises to consider before approaching every writing assignment are: What am I trying to do with this piece of writing? Who is the reader/target audience? Where do I begin? How do I introduce the topic to the reader? What points, and in what order will I be including in the draft? After you have written a draft, put on your “editor’s hat” to evaluate it in terms of effectiveness, organization, clarity and conciseness, language, and grammar and spelling. One of the ways you can separate yourself from the writing and editing process is to allot some time to let the material rest and revisit it with fresh eyes. Also, don’t be afraid to put your “writer’s hat” back on and write a second or third draft—this is all part of the writing process. The next stage of proofreading involves a great degree of focus on the language. “The ‘proofreader’ should be focused on the words themselves, rather than the content,” says Shipton. If you are also involved in design of what you have written, consider the layout on the page, the length of line people find easy to read, and consider keeping distracting design such as different fonts, illustrations and colours to a minimum. “Most people are adept at composing straightforward business letters, such as those that thank people for using an organization’s services, for example,” says Dr. Martina Hardwick, of the Writing Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and an Instructor for the “Forms of Writing” course at the university. “But fewer are comfortable writing a letter which conveys bad or negative news. The Writing 195, Modular Writing course, provides students with a framework and a guideline for this unpleasant, but often essential, task. Specifically, they are taught how to refuse a request for grant funding and turn down a job applicant in such a way that the recipient does not receive a negative impression of the organization. The refusal letters should convey the news in such a way that the recipient agrees with the writer.” So while you may not be a grammar guru, a Shakespeare or an Emily Dickinson, if the reader of your e-mail, letter or article can quickly grasp your message, you will be that much closer to achieving your company goal. Perhaps you may even save yourself from writing or responding to unnecessary e-mails and phone calls in the process! “My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” ~ Elmore Leonard Characteristics of Explicit Business Writing (according to the Business Writing Center) Looks easy to read, not dense Is concise and focused Uses headings throughout Is precise and complete Provides what readers want and need Uses plain, common words Contains short, simple sentences Repeats key terms often Explains changes in thought explicitly and guides readers Uses numbered or bulleted lists Contains fewer pronouns Uses simple punctuation Has strong, active sentences Includes direct, unambiguous requests for responses Commends clear writing and points out unclear writing

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