You rsquo d think business writing is always carefully crafted, but the truth it rsquo s often ridden with misspellings, misused words and inaccuracies. The good news is that you can easily improve your business writing in a few easy steps. We write convoluted emails, we format reports poorly, and overall we don rsquo t try to make our content reader friendly.

Writing a business report should follow a specific format for example, an in office email could be short and informal, but a customer email or a powerpoint presentation should follow guidelines of courtesy, clarity and conciseness. Your audience should be your compass keeping in mind what the recipient seeks to learn narrows down the possible directions your writing should take. Style, tone, and vocabulary use should be in line with your audience and situation. This is not just a matter of appropriateness and content effectiveness, it rsquo s about your flexibility to communicate adeptly with different audiences, to empathize with them, and thus be able to connect at an appropriate and effective wave length. Is your writing organized along the following essential features and rules? simple language – create reader friendly content by avoiding adjectives, using the active voice, and opting for commonly known, shorter words. Your aim is to communicate your point across as effortlessly and as quickly as possible.

Avoid hidden verbs by being conscious of unnecessary nominalization for example, instead of saying, we rsquo d love to be of assistance say instead, ldquo we rsquo d love to assist you. Rdquo the second sentence is more effective and customer friendly, because it rsquo s direct, efficient, and comprehensible. conciseness and brevity – business writing has to be succinct. Your audience doesn rsquo t have the luxury to browse through multiple report pages to get the information they seek. Respect your recipients rsquo time they should be able to access important information easily. You can achieve this when you: stick to your subject matter focus on facts aim for clarity and avoid ambiguity choose short words avoid unnecessary décor adjectives and adverbs distinguishing opinion from facts – these two aspects of communication should be clearly separated in business writing. Ensure the reader can tell with certainty when something is a fact or merely your viewpoint.

This way you rsquo ll avoid misunderstandings and you rsquo ll keep your writing ambiguity free. serving a purpose – each piece of business communication should serve a clear purpose. If you rsquo re emailing a colleague with a follow up email about a report due, don rsquo t include three other unrelated requests in the same email. Use headlines, bullet points, numbering and other formatting features bold, italics, different colors to ensure the reader can skim and scan with ease through your text.

But don't overdo it! too many distracting visual elements take the focus off your message. Whether it's an email, a report, or a presentation, formatting helps your writing become clear and user friendly. Especially if we rsquo re talking about a business proposal or report, it rsquo s crucial that you review and edit it multiple times until you rsquo ve created a respectable version. Putting so much work in creating a professional piece of writing should wrap up with thorough proofreading. If you cannot proofread your own work, have it proofread by someone else to make sure it has flow and readability and it rsquo s free of embarrassing errors. You can also run it through an online spellchecker to catch common grammatical errors and misspellings, but remember that spellcheckers cannot detect contextual spelling errors e.g.

If the misspelled word is a properly spelled different word, like their/they rsquo re, accept/except, right/write, here/hear. Spelling errors can best be avoided by improving your spelling skills using software like ultimate spelling. Being aware of commonly misspelled words or grammatical weaknesses you have will help you anticipate and prevent them from spoiling your writing. It rsquo s crucial that you also know the different layers of meaning your writing conveys.

Word choice, sentence structure, viewpoints and expressions all reveal more than you think about your attitude and perspective on what you rsquo re writing about. It suggests that your writing should adopt the point of view of the reader, rather than yours. By embracing the recipient rsquo s perspective you rsquo re more likely to elicit positive responses. When the reader is the focal point, then they rsquo re more keen to help, support, partake or act in what you ask them to. The you attitude more often than not motivates the reader to act towards your desired direction, makes you appear more trustworthy, and promotes a feel good atmosphere. It might seem like a lot of work, but it rsquo s worth it to focus on these five points and polish up your business writing skills.

The benefits of doing so are many you rsquo ll find it easier to communicate your thoughts and people will be more likely to understand and consider your ideas. To be effective, goals should meet three criteria: they should be measurable. And attainable. measurable. many writers start with qualititative goals: we want to be a good writer, or a better writer, or a successful writer, or a writer who produces worthwhile material. But how do you define good, or successful, or worthwhile? because these terms are so difficult to measure, such goals continually seem to slip from our grasp or to be beyond our grasp. Thus, quantifiable goals goals that can be measured by some form of output or results are often more effective. For example, you might set a goal of writing a particular number of pages per day, or sending out a certain number of queries per week. If you dream of becoming rich or at least self supporting , define a specific income goal and the time in which you hope to reach it.

attainable. the gulf between where we are and where we'd like to be often seems to great to span. If your dream is to become a best selling novelist, but you've never set pen to paper, consider setting an immediately attainable goal such as attending a writing course, or taking a class online, or simply studying a book on novel writing. A second goal might be to write your first story, write the outline of your novel, or actually write your first chapter.

A third might be to seek feedback, perhaps by joining a critique group or by sending your story to an editor. Each goal marks a step toward your long term dream, and each is attainable in its own right. To set attainable goals, you must be honest with yourself about what you are able to achieve at this stage in your writing career. If you have never earned a penny from writing, for example, it would be unrealistic to set the goal of becoming self supporting in a year. Similarly, if you've never written anything longer than the annual holiday newsletter, it would probably be unrealistic to expect yourself to complete a 600 page novel in six months. Attainability also means recognizing what is physically possible in the world of writing. I once spoke with someone who was frustrated at having failed to become self supporting by writing science fiction short stories despite the fact that markets for such work average around 5 cents per word.