Aiming for a clear, simple style

Clarity and simplicity go hand in hand: Your messages communicate what you intend with no room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation. This requires the following:

• Words your reader already knows and whose meanings are agreed upon — no forcing readers to look up words, no trying to impress
• Sentence structure that readers can easily follow the first time through
• Well-organized, logical, on-point content without anything unnecessary or distracting
• Clear connections between sentences, paragraphs, and ultimately ideas, to make a cohesive statement
• Correct spelling and correct grammar

Writing with the preceding characteristics is transparent: Nothing stands in the way of the reader absorbing your information, ideas, and recommendations. Good business writing for most purposes doesn’t call attention to itself. It’s like a good makeup job. A woman doesn’t want to hear, “Great cosmetology!” She hopes for “You look beautiful.” Similarly, you want your audience to admire your thinking, not the way you phrased it.

One result of following these criteria is that people can move through your material quickly. This is good! A fast read is your best shot at pulling people into your message and keeping them from straying off due to boredom. These days, people are so overwhelmed and impatient that they don’t bother to invest time in deciphering a message’s meaning. They just stop reading.

Creating an easy reading experience is hard on the writer. When you write well, you do all the readers’ work for them. They don’t need to figure out anything because you’ve already done it for them. Make the effort because that’s how you win what you want.

Applying readability guidelines

Guidelines for business writing are not theoretical. They’re practical and supported by research studies on how people respond to the written word. Fortunately, you don’t have to read the research. Most word-processing software, including Microsoft Word, and several websites have digested all the data and offer easy-to-use tools to help you quickly gauge the readability of your writing.

Several readability indexes exist (see the sidebar “Readability research: What it tells us”). In this section, we focus on the Flesch Readability Index because it’s the index that Microsoft Word uses. The Flesch Readability Index predicts the percentage of people likely to understand a piece of writing and assigns it a grade level of reading comprehension. The grade level scores are based on average reading ability of students in the US public school system. The algorithm for the Flesch Readability Index is primarily based on the length of words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Word’s version of the Index also shows you the percentage of passive sentences in a selection, which is a good indicator of flabby verbs, indirect sentence structure, and cut-worthy phrases. See the section “Finding action verbs,” later in this chapter, for more on activating sentences that contain passive verbs.

Finding the right rhythm

You may wonder whether basing your writing on short simple sentences produces choppy and boring material reminiscent of a grade school textbook. Aiming for clear and simple definitely should not mean dull reading.

Becoming aware of rhythm in what you read, and what you write, can improve your writing dramatically. Like all language, English was used to communicate orally long before writing was invented, so the sound and rhythm patterns are critical to how written forms as well as spoken ones are received.

Think of the worst public speakers you know. They probably speak in a series of long, complex sentences in an even tone that quickly numbs the ear. Good speakers, by contrast, vary the length of sentences and their intonation. As a writer, you want to do the same.

In everything you write, aim to build in a natural cadence. Rhythm is one of the main tools for cajoling people to stay with you and find what you write more interesting. Just begin each sentence differently from the previous one and try alternating short, plain sentences with longer ones that have two or three clauses.

Good public speakers vary the lengths of their sentences to keep listeners’ ears engaged. They avoid long, complex sentences, and they know that short punchy words and phrases need to be doled out carefully for maximum effect. As a writer, you want readers to have a similar experience.

Achieving a conversational tone

New business writers are often told to adopt a conversational tone, but what does that mean? Business correspondence written during the nineteenth century and even most of the twentieth seems slow, formal, and ponderous when you read it now. Today’s faster pace of life results in a desire for faster communication, both in terms of how you deliver messages and how quickly you’re able to read and deal with them.

Conversational tone is something of an illusion. You don’t really write the way you talk, and you shouldn’t. But you can echo natural speech in various ways to more effectively engage your audience.

Rhythm, described in the preceding section, is a basic technique that gives your copy forward momentum and promotes a conversational feeling. Sentence variety engages readers while unrelieved choppy sentences or complicated ones kill interest.

Additional techniques for achieving conversational tone include the following:

• Infuse messages with warmth. If you think of the person as an individual before you write, content that’s appropriate to the relationship and subject will come to you, and the tone will be right.
• Choose short, simple words. Rely on the versions you use to talk to someone, rather than the sophisticated ones you use to try and impress. See the later section “Choosing reader-friendly words” for examples.
• Use contractions as you do in speech. For example, go with can’t rather than cannot, and I’m rather than I am.
• Minimize the use of inactive and passive forms. Carefully evaluate every use of the to be verbs — is, was, will be, are, and so on — to determine if you can use active, interesting verbs instead.
• Take selective liberties with grammatical correctness. Starting a sentence with and or but is okay, for example, but avoid mismatching your nouns and pronouns.
• Adopt an interactive spirit. As online media teaches, one-way, top-down communication is so yesterday. Find ways in all your writing to invite active interest and input from your reader.

If you ignore the preceding guidelines — and want to look hopelessly outdated — you can write a long-winded and lifeless message like the following:

• Dear Elaine:
• I regret to communicate that the meeting for which we are scheduled on Tuesday at 2 p.m. must be canceled. Unfortunately the accounting information anticipated for receipt on Friday will not be able to meet the delivery deadline.
• I am contemplating an appropriate rescheduling. Please inform my office of your potential availability at 3 p.m. on the 2nd. — Carrie

Yawn — and also a bit confusing. Or you can write a clear, quick, crisp version like this:

• Elaine, I’m sorry to say we’re postponing the Tuesday meeting. The accounting info we need won’t be ready till Wednesday. Bummer, I know.
• Is Thursday at 3:00 okay for you? — Carrie

Although the second example feels casual and conversational, these aren’t the actual words Carrie would say to Elaine in a real phone conversation. This exchange is more likely:

Hi. How are you? Listen, we got a problem. The project numbers are running way late. I won’t have them till Wednesday. Yeah. So no point meeting Tuesday. How’s Thursday look?

Online copy often works best when it carries the conversational illusion to an extreme. Pay attention to the jazzy, spontaneous-style copy on websites you love. The words may read like they sprang ready-made out of some genie’s lamp, but more than likely a team of copywriters agonized over every line for weeks. Spontaneous-reading copy doesn’t come easy: It’s hard work. Some people — frequent bloggers, for example — are better at writing conversationally because they practice this skill consciously.

The next time you encounter bloggers or online writers whose voices you like, copy some text and paste it into a blank word-processing document (to separate the words from all the online bells and whistles). Read through the words carefully and analyze what you like in terms of words, phrases, and sentences. See if you can identify how the writers pull off their appealing breezy style.

Relying on everyday words and phrasing

The short everyday words you use in ordinary speech are almost always best for business writing. They’re clear, practical, and direct. They’re also powerful enough to express your deepest and widest thoughts. They’re the words that reach people emotionally, too, because they stand for the most basic and concrete things people care about and need to communicate about. For example, home is a whole different story than residence, and quit carries a lot more overtones than resign.

Make a list of basic one- and two-syllable words. Almost certainly, they come from the oldest part of the English language, Anglo-Saxon. Most words with three or more syllables were grafted onto this basic stock by historical invaders: the French-speaking Normans and the Latin-speaking Romans for the most part, both of whom aspired to higher levels of cultural refinement than the Britons.

If you were raised in an English-speaking home, you learned Anglo-Saxon words during earliest childhood and acquired the ones with Latin, French, and other influences later in your education. Scan these previous two paragraphs and you know immediately which words came from which culture set.

For this reason and others, readers are programmed to respond best to simple, short, low-profile English words. They trigger feelings of trust (an Anglo-Saxon word) and credibility (from the French). Obviously, we don’t choose to write entirely with one-syllable words. Variety is the key — just as with sentences. English’s history gives you a remarkable array of words when you want to be precise or produce certain feelings. Even in business English, a sprinkling of longer words contributes to a good pace and can make what you say more specific and interesting. But don’t forget your base word stock.

If you’re writing to a non-native English speaking audience, you have even more reason to write with one- and two-syllable words. People master the same basic words first when learning a new language, no matter what their original tongue, so all new English-speakers understand them. This applies to less educated readers too. Given the diverse and multicultural audiences many of your messages must reach, simplicity of language should rule.

This principle holds for long documents such as reports and proposals as much as for emails. And it’s very important for online writing such as websites and blogs. When you read on-screen, you have even less patience with multi-syllable sophisticated words. Reading (and writing) on smartphones and other small devices makes short words the only choice.

Choosing reader-friendly words

The typical business English you see all the time may lure you toward long, educated words. Resist!

Consciously develop your awareness of short-word options. Clearer writing gives you better results. Opt for the first and friendlier word in the following pairs:

The longer words aren’t bad — in fact, they may often be the better choice. But generally, make sure that you have a reason for going long.

Focusing on the real and concrete

Concrete nouns are words that denote something tangible: a person or any number of things, such as cat, apple, dirt, child, boat, balloon, computer, egg, tree, table, and Joseph.

Abstract nouns, on the other hand, typically represent ideas and concepts. They may denote a situation, a condition, a quality or an experience. For example: catastrophe, freedom, efficiency, knowledge, mystery, observation, analysis, research, love, and democracy.

Concrete nouns are objects that exist in real space. You can touch, see, hear, smell, or taste them. When you use concrete nouns in your writing, readers bring these physical associations to your words, and this lends reality to your thoughts. Moreover, you can expect most people to take the same meaning from them. This isn’t true of abstract words. Two people are unlikely to argue about what an apricot is, but they may well disagree on what exactly independence means.

When your writing is built on a lot of abstract nouns, you are generalizing. Even when you’re writing an opinion or philosophical piece, too much abstraction doesn’t fire the imagination. A lot of business writing strikes readers as dull and uninspiring for this reason.

Suppose at a pivotal point of World War II, Winston Churchill had written in the manner of many modern business executives:

We’re operationalizing this initiative to proceed as effectively, efficiently, and proactively as possible in alignment with our responsibilities to existing population centers and our intention to develop a transformative future for mankind. We’ll employ cost-effective, cutting-edge technologies and exercise the highest level of commitment, whatever the obstacles that materialize in various geographic situations.

Instead he wrote, and said:

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Which statement engages the senses and therefore the heart, even three-quarters of a century after this particular cause was won? Which carries more conviction? Granted, Churchill was writing a speech, but the statement also works amazingly when read.

While you probably won’t be called on to rouse your countrymen as Churchill was, writing in a concrete way pays off for you too. It brings your writing alive. Aim to get down to earth in what you say and how you say it.

Using short words goes a long way toward this goal. Note how many words of the mock business-writing piece contain three or more syllables. Churchill’s piece uses only three. And running both passages through readability checks (see the previous section “Applying readability guidelines”) predicts at least a 12th-grade reading level to understand the business-speak with only 2 percent of readers understanding it. By contrast, Churchill’s lines require only a 4th-grade reading level and 91 percent of readers understand them.

You may often find yourself tempted to write convoluted, indirect, abstract prose — because it’s common to your corporate culture, or your technical field or the request for proposal you’re responding to. Don’t do it. Remind yourself that nobody likes to read that kind of writing, even though he may write that way himself. Take the lead in delivering lean, lively messages and watch the positive response this brings.

Finding action verbs

Good strong verbs invigorate. Passive verbs, which involve a form of the verb to be, deaden language and thinking, too. Consider some dull sentences and their better alternatives:

• All department heads were invited to the celebration by the CEO.
• The CEO invited all department heads to the celebration.
• A decision to extend working hours was reached by the talent management office.
• The talent management office decided to extend working hours. Or: The talent management office is extending work hours.
• The idea is an improvement on the original design.
• The idea improves the original design.
• The annual report numbers were contradicted by the auditors.
• The auditors contradict the annual report numbers.

Try also to avoid sentences that rely on the phrases there is and there are, which often bury the meaning of a sentence. Compare the following pairs:

• There is a company rule to consider in deciding which route to follow.
• A company rule determines which route to follow.
• There are guidelines you should use if you want to improve your writing.
• Use the guidelines to improve your writing.

For most dull passive verbs, the solution is the same: Find the action. Be clear about who did what and then rework the sentence to say that.

You may need to go beyond changing the verb and rethink the entire sentence so it’s simple, clear, and direct. In the process, take responsibility. Passive sentences often evade it. A classic example follows:

Mistakes were made, people were hurt, and opportunities were lost.

Who made the mistakes, hurt the people, and lost the opportunities? The writer? An unidentified CEO? Mystery government officials? This kind of structure is sometimes called the divine passive: Some unknown or unnamable force made it happen.

To help you remember why you generally need to avoid the passive, here’s a favorite mistake. When a group of people were asked to write about their personal writing problems and how they planned to work on them, one person contributed the following:

Many passive verbs are used by me.

Take the time to identify the passive verbs and indirect constructions in all your writing. Doing so doesn’t mean that you must always eliminate them. You may want to use the passive because no clearly definable active subject exists — or it doesn’t matter:

The award was created to recognize outstanding sales achievement.

Or you may have a surprise to disclose that leads you to use the passive for emphasis:

This year’s award was won by the newest member of the department: Joe Mann.

Using the passive unconsciously often undermines your writing success. Substitute active verbs. They can be short and punchy, such as drive, end, gain, fail, win, probe, treat, taint, speed. Or they can be longer words that offer more precise meaning, such as underline, trigger, suspend, pioneer, model, fracture, crystallize, compress, accelerate. Both word groups suggest action and movement, adding zing and urgency to your messages.

Crafting comparisons to help readers

Comparisons help your readers understand your message on deeper levels. You can use similes and metaphors, which are both analogies, to make abstract ideas more tangible and generally promote comprehension. These devices don’t need to be elaborate, long, or pretentiously literary. Here are some simple comparisons:

• Poets use metaphors like painters use brushes — to paint pictures that help people see under the surface.
• Winning this award is my Oscar.
• Life is like a box of chocolates.
• The new polymer strand is 10 nanometers in width — while the average human hair is 90,000 nanometers wide.
• From 15,000 feet up the world looks like a peaceful quilt of harmonious colors where no conflict could exist.

Whatever device you use, effective comparisons do the following:

• Create mental images. You can give readers a different way to access — and remember — your ideas and information.
• Align things from different arenas. Using the familiar to explain the unfamiliar can be especially helpful when you introduce new information or change.
• Heighten the effect of everyday practical writing. Just as in well-written fiction, a great comparison in a business document engages the reader’s imagination and boosts your message’s memorability.
• Make intriguing headlines that grab attention. If you saw a blog post titled, “How Learning to Ride a Bike Is Like Working at Home,” you’d be likely to read it just to find out what the two things have in common.

Building in white space

To coin a comparison (see the sidebar “Making up fresh comparisons”):

Add white space to your writing for the same reason bakers add yeast to their bread — to leaven the denseness by letting in the light and air.

Help your writing breathe by providing plenty of empty space. The eye demands rest when scanning or reading. Don’t cram your words into a small, tight space by decreasing the point size or squeezing the space between characters, words or lines. Densely packed text is inaccessible. If you have too many words for the available space, cut them down. We show you many ways to do that in Chapter 3 in this minibook.

Always look for opportunities to add that valuable white space to your message. Check for white space in everything you deliver. Factors that affect white space include the size of the typeface, line spacing, margin size, and column width, and graphic devices such as subheads, sidebars, and integrated images.

Toying with type

Type has numerous graphic aspects and effects. Following are some of the most powerful, as well as easiest to adjust.

Keeping colors simple

Using color to accent your document can work well, but keep it simple. One color, in addition to the black used for the text, is probably plenty. See whether an accent color sparks your message by using it consistently on headlines or subheads or both.

Using a lot of different colors — even on a website — strikes people as messy and amateur these days. Designers prefer simple, clean palettes that combine a few colors at most. So should you. And do not place any type against a color background that makes it hard to read. Backgrounds should be no more than a light tint. Dropped or reversed-out type — for instance, white type on a black or dark background — can look terrific but only in small doses, such as a caption or short sidebar. An entire page of reversed-out type, whether in print or onscreen, makes a daunting read.

If you’re producing a substantial document or website in tandem with a graphic designer, never allow graphic effect to trump readability and editorial clarity. To most designers, words are just part of a visual pattern. If a designer tells you the document has too many words, certainly listen; it’s probably true and you do want the piece to look good. But just say no if playing second fiddle to the visual undermines your copy. Graphics should strengthen, not weaken, your message’s effect and absorbability.

Adding effective graphics

On the whole, if you have good images and they’re appropriate, flaunt them. This doesn’t really apply to an email or letter, but graphics certainly help long documents and anything read online.

Appropriateness of graphics depends on your purpose. A proposal can benefit from charts and graphs to make financials and other variables clear and more easily grasped. A report may include photographs of a project under way. A blog with a fun image related to the subject is more enticing. Additional possibilities for various media include images of successful projects to support credibility, illustrations of something yet to be built, change documentation, and visualizations of abstract ideas.

Your own resources and time may be limited. But when visual effect matters — to attract readers or when you’re competing for a big contract, for example — take time to brainstorm possibilities. Wonderful online resources proliferate, and many are free. With some imagination and research, you can use your computer to produce a good chart or graph.

Images must feel appropriate to your readers. If not, you create a negative reaction. Even with websites, research shows that people value the words most and are put off by images unrelated to the subject. And generally stay away from clip art that’s packaged with your word-processing software or other design tools. Clip art must be totally appropriate to your medium and message or cleverly adapted to look original or else it instantly cheapens your message in the viewer’s eye.

Breaking space up with sidebars, boxes, and lists

Print media in the past decade have increasingly used graphic techniques to draw readers in with as many ways as they can come up with. Today’s readers are scanners first. Think of your own behavior when opening up a newspaper or magazine. You most likely scout for what interests you and then read the material, in whole or at least in part, if it appeals to you. When you get bored, you quickly stop reading and start scanning again.

Good headlines and subheads are critical to capture readers’ attention and guide them through a document. But you must also pay major attention to writing:

• Captions accompanying photos and other images
• Sidebars and boxes offering additional background, sidelights, or information
• Interesting quotes or tidbits used as pullouts in the margins or inside the text
• Small tight summaries of the article, or introductions, at the beginning
• Bulleted or numbered lists of examples or steps
• Icons (such as the Tip and Remember icons in this book) that denote something of special interest

All these devices serve three important purposes.

• Along with images, they break up unrelieved blocks of type that discourage the eye. In fact, on a printed page, some print editors use the dollar bill test: If you can lay down a bill on a page and it doesn’t touch a single graphic device, add one in.
• They offer different ways to capture a reader’s attention. A summary, caption, or box may draw you in to read the entire piece, or at least some of it.
• Using graphic devices helps to convey ideas and information more clearly and effectively. People absorb information in different ways. Taking lessons from the online world, today’s editors offer readers choices of what they want to read, and where they want to start.

All these graphic techniques should be part of your writing repertoire. Do you need them for every email you write? Of course not. But strategies and elements such as subheads and bullets can still help get your message across. For long documents and materials intended to be persuasive, draw on all the techniques that suit your goals and audience.