Write for Business - Blog

“Good writing is clear thinking made visible.” —Bill Wheeler

There may not be a more essential writing mantra in the workplace than this: People in the workplace are busy, so get to the point in your writing. What businessperson doesn’t have it firmly embedded in her brain? The principle is well taken. Most workplace writing needs to be immediate and up front because that is what is required to conduct daily business. (Of course, complex technical documents and extended reports are another matter.)

Note the opening paragraph from four workplace writing samples. In each one, the reader clearly gets the main point right away:

• Starting April 1, please make all of your company-related flight arrangements through the Travel Center. This change will benefit you and the company.
• To help new employees become familiar with day-to-day procedures, Human Resources has revised the New-Employee Orientation Checklist (attached). The revised checklist should shorten the time it takes for new employees to learn their assignments.
• Thank you for requesting a credit account at Cottonwood Hills Greenhouse and Florist Supply. We are pleased to extend you $100,000 in credit based on Dale’s Garden Center’s strong financial condition. Congratulations!
• I’m writing with an idea for training that will improve customer relations and retention. Specifically, I have noticed that our sales and marketing staff could sharpen their skills in speaking and listening to clients.

To achieve this immediacy, most day-to-day business writing is developed deductively, which simply means that you move from a generalization (the main idea or claim) to the specifics (the supporting details). If, on the other hand, you were to lead with the specifics and conclude with the main point of your message, you would be working inductively.

Bad-news messages are, in a manner of speaking, developed inductively. Note in the following message that the first two paragraphs offer “buffer” details that lead up to the main point, the bad news (in bold).

Thank you for your proposal that I join your Customer Training Department. I appreciate your confidence in my ability to provide Miami Computer Enterprises’ clients with instruction and technical support.

While considering the proposal, I reflected on the reasons that I started my own computer-consulting service two years ago. One of the reasons was flexibility. As an independent consultant, I could regulate my work activities around family demands. Although your proposal was financially attractive, I must turn down your offer, at least for now.

Why mention all of this? Just as a reminder that there is a standard type of thinking that governs almost all business writing. If you stray too far from this standard, your reader may become confused or frustrated and say to himself, “Get to the point, please!”

—Dave Kemper