Business Communication Essentials, 7th Ed.
Chapter 4. Writing Business Messages
Jeff Haden gives fair warning about word traps.
"Can you diagnose a company's problems by the way it abuses the English language?
Can you guess what's on the list?
"John ate a slice of pepperoni pizza, and drank a bottle of beer.
"Fast Company recently attacked the use of "so" at the start of sentences, claiming it insults your audience, undermines your credibility, and demonstrates discomfort with the subject matter," reports Christina Sterbenz.
"You would think every company would prefer to communicate in a way that connects with the audience," writes Lou Hoffman (photo, left).
Sarah Green interviews Bryan Garner in this podcast at HBR Blog.
Christina Sterbenz (photo, left) covers the issue at BusinessInsider.
'Word meanings can shift radically, just like pronunciation,' writes Christina Sterbenz.
"The following is an excerpt from The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead [Crown Business, $17.
"Each of the wordy phrases below can be replaced by one word.
"Fundamentally, poor business writing is costly and leads to disastrous events.
Claire Fallon (photo, left) covers the topic in a piece at HuffingtonPost.
"There is an old adage: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
"Why should we avoid well-worn phrases and clichés?
"If my marketer misses a typo while writing about a product, I want my packaging staff to catch it before the design gets sent to print.
"I took many writing classes in college but perhaps the most useful was one focused on business writing.
"According to our internal reports, here — in no particular order — are the ten most frequent catches by our editors in your press releases: .
According to Dean Evans (photo, left), "Poorly written or edited copy will adversely affect how people view your content.
The Writer's Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, features an article on the topic of writing clean, concise sentences.
"Pronunciation is the ugly sister of language teaching, coming way behind vocabulary and grammar.
"Words are everywhere, and many are strung together recklessly.
Andrea Wenger (photo, left) is the membership manager with the Carolina chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC).
"Writing with numbers and figures is an overlooked skill despite the fact that we often include them in our communications.
"We reached out to the Global Language Monitor, which publishes an annual list of the year's top English words, to compile a ranking of the most popular business terms.