Some common forms of business writing you’ll encounter include emails, memos, reports, and proposals. Presentations can also often be considered business writing since they tend to include a written component, such as a PowerPoint slideshow. While each type of writing has its own unique characteristics, some best practices can be applied to all of them for clear, concise, consistent, and compelling communication. It’s important to note that these best practices are common in the English-speaking Western world. Norms for business writing can differ vastly from one region to another.
Conduct an Audience Analysis
Review the AUDIENCE analysis tool discussed in Chapter 1 (Table 1.1: AUDIENCE Acronym Description). Before you start writing, consider several aspects of your intended (and unintended) audiences, including the following:
| A |
Analyze |
Who is your audience? Who are the people you are sending your message to? |
| U |
Understand |
What do they already know about the topic you are talking about? How much do they understand about your message? |
| D |
Demographics |
What are the basic details about your audience, such as their age, gender, education level, or job position?
|
| I |
Interest |
How interested or invested are they in your message? What’s in it for them? |
| E |
Environment |
What is the setting or situation your audience is in? What is your relationship to that situation? How might their attitude affect how they receive your message? Have you considered cultural differences that might impact their understanding of your message? |
| N |
Need |
What does your audience need to know? What information will help them understand your message better? |
| C |
Customize |
How can you adjust your message to make it more relevant and appealing to your audience? |
| E |
Expectations |
What does your audience expect from your message? What do they hope to gain from it? |
Your answers to these questions will serve as your guide and help you make appropriate choices in mode of delivery, vocabulary, format, level of formality, and more.
Use the Three-Part Format
In the English-speaking Western world, people value directness and efficiency in communication. While beginning with your main point in some cultures can seem impolite, in Western workplace culture, being straightforward shows professionalism and respect for the reader’s time. Rather than making them wait until the end of your email or report to understand your main idea, you highlight this at the beginning so they know exactly what to expect.
Organize your writing using the following three-part format, whether you’re preparing an email, report, or PowerPoint presentation.
Introduction
- State the topic and purpose for writing.
- For longer documents, provide an outline so the reader knows what to expect.
- For example, prepare a slide that provides an overview of each PowerPoint presentation section.
Body
- Provide necessary details that directly support the topic and purpose of the writing.
- For longer pieces, arrange the topics or sections in a logical manner. For consistency, match this order to the order outlined in the introduction.
Conclusion/Call-to-Action
- Briefly summarize the main idea for the reader. For longer pieces of writing, briefly summarize each of the key points as well.
- If you want the reader to do something specific, let them know. Be as specific as possible to avoid any misunderstandings.
- For example, if you want a reader to respond to your email to let you know if they want to join the company softball team, sentence B below would be more effective than sentence A.
A: If you could let me know soon, that would be great!
B: Please respond to this email and let me know your decision by 4:00 PM this Friday, August 23.
Use Active Voice
Whenever possible, which is most of the time, use active voice in your writing. This makes your writing sound more precise, direct, and often, more concise. Below are examples of active versus passive voice.
Notice that in the active sentences, the subject or the doer is mentioned at the beginning of the sentence and is the one performing the action. In the passive sentences, the subject of the sentence receives the action.
Passive: The idea was voted down by our staff.
Active: Our staff voted the idea down.
Passive: Coffee and snacks for this meeting were provided by The Green Spot Cafe.
Active: The Green Spot Cafe provided coffee and snacks for this meeting.
Read more tips on business writing best practices in the following articles.
- From Indeed, read “11 Tips To Improve Your Business Writing (With Examples).”
- Read “The Science of Strong Business Writing“ from the Harvard Business Review.
Attribution
This section contains material taken from Chapter 1.3 “Audience” in Professional Communications Foundations and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
References are at the end of this chapter.
