Business writing

363 Pages·2017·3.409 MB·English

by  Canavor, Natalie

Business
Writing
2nd Edition
by Natalie Canavor
Business Writing For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936222
ISBN 978-1-119-36900-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-36901-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-36903-5 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents at a Glance
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part 1: Winning with Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 1: Make Writing Your Not-So-Secret Weapon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
CHAPTER 2: Planning Your Message Every Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
CHAPTER 3: Making Your Writing Work: The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
CHAPTER 4: Self-Editing: Professional Ways to Improve Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
CHAPTER 5: Fixing Common Writing Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Part 2: Applying Your Skills to Business
Messages and Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
CHAPTER 6: Writing Messages That Get Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
CHAPTER 7: Creating High-Impact Business Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Part 3: Writing to Present Yourself Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
CHAPTER 8: Speaking Well for Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
CHAPTER 9: Telling Your Business Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
CHAPTER 10: Writing for the Job Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Part 4: Evolving Your Writing for Online Media . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
CHAPTER 11: Writing for the Digital World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
CHAPTER 12: Creating Your Online Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 .49
Part 5: Extending Your Writing Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
CHAPTER 13: Writing and the Independent Worker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
CHAPTER 14: Writing Well to Manage Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Part 6: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
CHAPTER 15: Ten Ways to Advance Your Career with Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
CHAPTER 16: Ten Ways to Energize Your Résumé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
CHAPTER 17: Ten Steps to Creating Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Foolish Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
How This Book Is Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Part 1: Winning with Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Part 2: Applying Your Skills to Business
Messages and Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Part 3: Writing to Present Yourself Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Part 4: Evolving Your Writing for Online Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part 5: Extending Your Writing Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part 6: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Icons Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Beyond the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Where to Go from Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
PART 1: WINNING WITH WRITING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 1: Make Writing Your Not-So-Secret Weapon . . . . . . . . . . 9
Putting Good Writing to Work for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Planning and Structuring Every Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Applying the Goal-Plus-Audience Strategy to All Business Needs . . . . 16
Succeeding with email, letters, and business documents . . . . . . . . 16
Writing for the spoken word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Writing online: From websites to blogs to tweets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Special purpose writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Taking the global perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
CHAPTER 2: Planning Your Message Every Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Adopting the Plan-Draft-Edit Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Fine-Tuning Your Plan: Your Goals and Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Defining your goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Defining your audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Brainstorming the best content for your purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Writing to groups and strangers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Imagining your readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Making People Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Connecting instantly with your reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Focusing on what’s-in-it-for-me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Highlighting benefits, not features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Finding the concrete, limiting the abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Table of Contents v
Choosing Your Written Voice: Tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Aligning tone with the occasion, relationship, and culture . . . . . . . 38
Writing as your authentic self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Smiling when you say it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Using Relationship-Building Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Showing active caring and respect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Personalizing what you write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Framing messages with “you” not “I” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
CHAPTER 3: Making Your Writing Work: The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Stepping into Twenty-First-Century Writing Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Aiming for a clear, simple style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Applying readability guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Finding the right rhythm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Achieving a conversational tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Energizing Your Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Relying on everyday wording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Choosing reader-friendly words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Focusing on the real and concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Finding action verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Crafting comparisons to help readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Employing Reader-Friendly Graphic Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Building in white space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Choosing a typeface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Keeping colors simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Adding effective graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Breaking space up with sidebars, boxes, and lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Self-Editing: Professional Ways
CHAPTER 4:
to Improve Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Changing Hats: From Writer to Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Choosing a way to edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Distancing yourself from what you write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Reviewing the Big and Small Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Assessing content success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Assessing the effectiveness of your language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Avoiding telltale up-down-up inflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Looking for repeat word endings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Pruning prepositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Cutting all non-contributing words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Moving from Passive to Active . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Thinking “action” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Trimming “there is” and “there are” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
vi Business Writing For Dummies
Cutting the haves and have nots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Using the passive deliberately . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Sidestepping Jargon, Clichés, and Extra Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Reining in jargon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Cooling the clichés . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Minimizing modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
CHAPTER 5: Fixing Common Writing Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Organizing Your Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Paragraphing for logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
Building with subheads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Working with transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Working in lists: Numbers and bulleting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Catching Common Mistakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Using comma sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Using “however” correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Matching nouns and pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Weighing “which” versus “that” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Considering “who” versus “that” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Choosing “who” versus “whom” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107
Beginning with “and” or “but” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Using sentence fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108
Ending with prepositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Fine-tuning punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Reviewing and Proofreading: The Final Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Checking the big picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Proofreading your work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Creating your personal writing improvement guide . . . . . . . . . . . 115
PART 2: APPLYING YOUR SKILLS TO BUSINESS
MESSAGES AND DOCUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
CHAPTER 6: Writing Messages That Get Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
Fast-Forwarding Your Agenda with Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Starting Strong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124
Writing subject lines that pull people in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Using appropriate salutations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Drafting a strong email lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Building Messages That Achieve Your Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Clarifying what you want . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Assessing what matters to your audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
Determining the best content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132
Structuring Your Middle Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Closing Strong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Table of Contents vii
Polishing Your Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Monitoring length and breadth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137
Simplify style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Going short: Words, sentences, paragraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Using graphic techniques to promote clarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Using the signature block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140
Good Letter Writing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141
CHAPTER 7: Creating High-Impact Business Materials . . . . . . . . . . 145
Creating Valued Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Writing activity reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Reporting project results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Fast-Tracking Your Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Writing formal proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Writing informal proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Applying for grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Writing an Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Giving perspective to complex material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Determining what matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Putting headlines to work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Writing Tips for All Business Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165
PART 3: WRITING TO PRESENT YOURSELF
EFFECTIVELY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
CHAPTER 8: Speaking Well for Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Building Your Elevator Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Defining your goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Defining your audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171
Strategizing your content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Representing your organization and yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Preparing and Giving Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Planning what to say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Crafting your presentations with writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181
Integrating visuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Standing and delivering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Composing Talking Points for Live Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
CHAPTER 9: Telling Your Business Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Finding Your Core Business Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190
Searching for true value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Making your case in business terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195
viii Business Writing For Dummies