StyleJennifer Harrison

Alex ParkJenna Sherman

Hyun Yoo

Know your Audience

The key to any effective writing is to know your audience.

Before you compose anything, think about the recipient of your document.

What are you trying to say to this person?

After you decide what message you are trying to convey, make sure the message is brief.Strive for clarity and avoid vagueness! Be precise!

Grammar

Nothing can kill your credibility faster than grammatical and punctuation errors. Especially in formal documents.

Many errors occur simply from insufficient proofreading.

Proofread and have someone else proofread your report.

You cannot proofread your own work with 100% accuracy!

Not all errors derive from proofreading mistakes. Some are common grammatical mistakes.Such as...

● Misuse of apostrophes and commas○ Its, it’s

● Contractions in formal pieces○ Using won’t, I’ll, etc.

● Ending sentences in prepositions○ ie. “I do not know of”

● Incomplete sentences○ ie. “Since he likes to”

So our words of advice…

Invest in some good reference booksand use them!

Effective Use of Passive Voice

Active voice, active voice!!! It seems so many teachers are shouted at us.

In general we are told to eliminate passive voice as much as possible

But….

Like every rule in the english language there is an exception!

Effective use of the passive voice in business writing is an art.

Sometimes you will have to write a report or memo describing a disaster that was caused from someone who made a mistake.

Passive voice can describe the mistake without directly putting blame on someone.

(this is especially useful when said person is your superior!)

Overall, passive voice should be eliminated (you can check your document’s passive voice % through Word) but there ARE times where the use of passive voice can increase the tact

and diplomacy in your document.

Gender Neutral Writing

Under traditional style, “he” includes both male and female actions.

Some will switch on and off using “he” or “she” but this is confusing and offensive to the opposite gender.

So..

what do you do?

Just eliminate the pronounsall together!

If you are writing a letter when you do not know the gender of the person you are addressing, use their title

...such as “Dear Editor”

Informal/Formal??

Get writing samples from CEO or top officers of your company

Formality in the workplace has relaxed a little, but not so much in the banking and legal world.

If your upper leaders use formality in office notes, you should to.

If in doubt, always be formal in an office memo or letter, especially when writing to a superior.

At the end of the day, the goal is communication. Communication is best achieved by writing in the preferred style of the recipient of your document.

Conclusion

With the trend towards instant and global communications via computer, a company's written communications and marketing literature impacts a larger audience than it ever has before