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Business Writing: What It Is and Tips to Help You
Business writing is much more precise and less detail oriented than other styles of writing. In writing for a
business there are a few elements you must know. Your knowledge or lack there of these elements can make or break
your business writing career. Your goal for business writing is to strive for clarity and precision, yet not be too
vague or elaborate. Examples of business writing would be emails, business plans, brochures, and many more.
Virtually anything writings that pertain to a business are classified as business writing.
When people read business writings they are not only looking for what happened and why, but how you are handling
the situation at hand. A person reading a business writing that has an organized and concise style with an active
tone is going to heed a much better result and give confidence that any matters will be taken care of.
Organize your thoughts. The more organized you are the quicker and easier it will be for you to put your
words in a decisive and orderly style. Your writing should be grammatically correct along with the proper usage of
capitalization and punctuation. These errors can cause misinterpretations amongst the readers of your business
writings. An example of correct and incorrect punctuations would be “We are missing the actress Jane.” Or “We are
missing the actress, Jane.” While both are correct, they mean two entirely different things.
Business writing is backwards or upside down from other writings. You start with the ending and then give a brief
synopsis on how you got to that point. You may include other avenues that were considered and why they were not
chosen.
Have a positive attitude. Even if you are conveying a message that has on outcome other than optimal a
positive tone will bring a much better response. Tell your readers what good came about from the outcome. Tell them
what you can do with these results. For example a non-profit agency held a fundraiser. They were hoping to bring in
$25,000 for building repairs and play ground equipment. Unfortunately, they only got $15,000. Positive tone writing
would be “Our fundraiser was successful. We can now begin building repairs.” Or “The new playground equipment will
be delivered tomorrow due to our successful fundraiser.”
Even though it was not as much of a success as you would have liked, by keeping a positive attitude and showing
people what can be done will promote a positive attitude in the future. A negative tone might be something like
“Since our fundraiser was not as successful as we had hoped, we will have to choose between playground equipment
and builder repairs.” This approach could be unfavorable to future fundraisers because it seems as though you are
unthankful for what you did get. Being positive shows your appreciation for the hard work or donations that you
have received.
Don’t play the blame game. Even if you know whose fault it is a deal fell through there is no need to start
a mud-flinging contest. Surely, the person responsible is already aware of the situation and chances are so is
everyone else. Down the line they are not going to remember whose fault it was, but they will remember who was
naming names. This is not only very unprofessional, it is malicious and that is not how you would like to be talked
about.
Finally using an active voice will promote a better reception to your business writing than a passive one. An
active voice shows that you are in control and are aware of how or why things are going to happen.
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