Business Writing 101: Five Common Mistakes to Avoid
-
by Lisa Cote, Wordings Editorial and WWW Services
You’re a successful entrepreneur or professional with superior people skills; you know how to manage employees, communicate effectively with associates, and sell to clients. You give dynamic presentations and organize productive meetings. Your verbal communication is excellent. But what about your writing? Putting things on paper (or on disk) is a crucial part of doing business, whether you’re sending memos to your staff, composing a business plan, or drawing up contracts. Because written communication is more or less permanent, what you write and how you write it may affect your reputation and image more than what you say. So, before you fax off that proposal or carbon copy that e-mail to your staff, make sure you proofread and edit your writing for the following errors:
Error One: Improper "I"
Example: Please send a copy of the report to Sheila and I when it’s completed.
You’re accustomed to using the pronoun "I" in a compound subject, such as "Sheila and I commissioned a report." In this case the use of "I" is correct, since "I" is one of the people doing the action - i.e., "I . . . commissioned." However, in the sentence above "I" is not the subject of the action, but is rather the indirect object of it. The proper form of the pronoun is therefore "me," which acts as object of the preposition "to." If in doubt, write or read the sentence without the other subject, in this case "Sheila": "Please send a copy of the report to I when it’s completed." This way the error becomes obvious. The corrected sentence, we now can see, should read: "Please send a copy of the report to Sheila and me when it’s completed." Note: The same rule applies for "who" and "whom": "Please tell me who to send the report to when it’s completed" should be: "Please tell me whom to send the report to when it’s completed."
Error Two: Faulty Words
Example: The outreach committee will concur with the executive on Friday to ascertain the budget for this year’s charity drive.
Mark Twain once wrote, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." Precision, then, is the key to good writing, and therefore every word you write should be chosen with care. This doesn’t mean you should be paralysed by your dictionary, checking the meaning of every second word as you write; that would only inhibit the flow of your ideas. Instead, when you are proofreading your writing, underline and look up any word that you’re unsure of, then edit where necessary. In the above sentence "concur" should probably be "confer," unless the writer is making a prediction. ("Concur" means agree; "confer" means consult.) Try not to get attached to fancy words like "ascertain," since they’re more likely to confuse your meaning than they are to boost your credibility. In this case "ascertain" is best replaced, as it means "find out," and a budget that doesn’t exist yet can’t be "found out." The edited sentence then might look like this: "The outreach committee will confer with the executive to set the budget for this year’s charity drive."
Error Three: Imbalanced Sentences
Example: The public relations department’s functions will be distributing consumer information, helping with advertising efforts, and to handle consumer complaints.
In the sentence above there are three phrases following the main verb "will be," but they are not parallel: two begin with "ing" verbs, "distributing" and "helping," while the other begins with an infinitive verb, "to handle." Why must all three phrases follow the same pattern? For the same reason the same pattern of notes recurs in certain parts of a melody, or the same motif is repeated in a knitted sweater: the eye and ear crave pattern and symmetry. "To handle consumer complaints" breaks the expectation of symmetry in this sentence, making the writing sound awkward and unclear. To balance the sentence we can change "to handle" to "handling" or we can change "distributing" and "helping" to the infinitive forms "to distribute" and "to help." Alternatively, we can simplify the sentence by dispensing with the stiff-sounding "functions will be" and write instead: "The public relations department will distribute consumer information, help with advertising efforts, and handle consumer complaints."
Error Four: Ambiguity
Example: The latest industry reports are favorable, and our own market research reveals a growing market for our products in several sectors. This would suggest an immediate launch of our new product line is in order.
There are no glaring grammatical errors in the above sentences; however, the second sentence is vague. What does "this" refer to exactly? Industry reports, our market research, or both? It’s always best to be as clear as possible, instead of assuming your reader will glean your meaning on his or her own. In this example, using the structure "This would suggest" also obscures the subject of the sentence. Who exactly is suggesting an immediate launch of the new product line? A shareholder or potential investor in your business will have more confidence in your ideas and plans if you own them in your writing. Don’t say, "It is advisable that"; say instead, "I advise." You’ll hold more authority for your reader if you write this way. Now, let’s reformulate the second sentence to make it as explicit as possible: "The latest industry reports are favorable, and our own market research reveals a growing market for our products in several sectors. Based on these indicators, I recommend that we launch our new product line immediately."
Error Five: The Cliché
Example: On this momentous occasion I would like to congratulate our marketing team for a job well done; thanks to their tireless efforts we can predict nothing but unlimited growth for the foreseeable future.
Most everyone avoids the more obvious clichés in their writing and speeches -- don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, and the like. But some clichés are more insidiously tempting. They are trendy, positive, and provide an easy shortcut to getting your message across. The problem is, your reader (or listener) will recognize these shortcuts for what they are: clumsy and insincere. How can we remedy this tendency in our writing? In the case of our example, we need to find out exactly what sort of "tireless efforts" were put into the project and what "job well done" resulted, and thank the team for these. We’ll also dispense with the inflated "momentous occasion" and "unlimited growth," both of which smack of overstatement. Finally, we’ll substitute a definite period of time for the nebulous, "foreseeable future." The revised statement might read: "On this important day I would like to congratulate our marketing team for their outstanding job on our advertising campaign; thanks to their creative ideas and adherence to a tight schedule, we can predict significant growth over the next several months."
The best way to improve your writing is to reexamine your work and revise it. The time it takes to make revisions may seem better spent on other work, but remember that your writing speaks for the quality of your ideas and expertise, and ultimately for your business itself. Thus the more effort you spend on revising your writing, the more your written communication will provide a concrete testament of your vision and abilities, and thereby lend credibility to your business.
Lisa Cote is a freelance writer, editor and Web designer and the owner of Wordings Editorial Services. She also publishes and edits The Art of Writing, a free Webzine for aspiring and professional writers.
For more information about Lisa’s professional services, e-mail her at [email protected]
