Excellence in Business Communication, 10th Edition
Chapter 5. Writing Business Messages
Sound advice bears repeating.
"Part of becoming a good writer is making use of the many tools and references available.
"The English language is a voracious eater, consuming words and digesting them into whole new things.
"Start by writing short, declarative sentences.
Cheryl Conner (photo, left) offers assistance.
"According to graphologist Kathi McKnight, your handwriting can communicate more than you may think.
"A dictionary needn’t include every passing bit of slang that sprouts in the morning and withers in the afternoon, of course.
Chris Weller (photo, left) reports on the topic with an assist from the ideas of Steven Pinker, author of The Sense of Style.
"You’re looking at an e-mail you just wrote, and you’re not sure whether you have the right word: Do you want affect or effect?
"As with everything else we do today, technology has come up with a way to make our writing lives easier.
"Business writing used to be simply about communicating — getting information across to others," writes Michael Theriault.
Susan Adams presents the 8 keys at Forbes.
"These days, unpacking the secrets to viral success has been the mission of researchers, media organizations and businesses alike.
"People don’t have the time or the attention span to read any more words than necessary.
Helen Coster (photo, left) presents "10 Tips for Better Business Writing.
"A great piece of writing is like a great piece of art.
"Back when I was a journalist," writes Victor Lipman (photo, left), "an old editor of mine had a great saying he used to tell his writers: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long letter.
"In writing a speech, you have two objectives: Making a good impression and leaving your audience with two or three takeaways.
"There is a lot to like in Mary Norris’s Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen.
"I asked everyone around me, people who’d been working longer than I had, 'Why do we write this way?
"There’s real power in sending a handwritten note to a customer: a card to thank a customer for subscribing, to celebrate with a customer for completing her first project with you, and so forth.
We check in with Ken Makovsky (photo, left), contributor at Forbes.
"Many companies' help lines are usually crowded with customers trying to find an answer for their questions.
"The slideshow not only acknowledges the long-lasting nature of digital information, but also suggests ways that employees can avoid incriminating themselves and GM by not using words like "catastrophic" and "spontaneous combustion" when talking about GM products.