gomarketing

When Stephen King attended a Mets baseball game years ago, it started to rain so hard that the umpires stopped play. During the rain delay, King whipped out his laptop and typed a few pages of horror using his raincoat as an umbrella. There’s a lesson here. Too many businesspeople wait for the “perfect” time and situation to write: when there’s absolute silence, the lighting is just right, their schedule is clear for the next two hours, and so on.

Free yourself up and you’ll free up your writing too. Don’t wait for just the right conditions. Write when you have ten minutes to spare in your cubicle or an hour to waste on a plane or train. Get your ideas down on paper or your hard drive, and go back to them later when you have more time. You’ll take the pressure off yourself and your writing, and accomplish more.

The rule of thumb for writing newspaper articles also applies to writing clear and concise emails: Once you’ve explained the Who (your audience)? What (you want to tell them)? When (if it applies, if not, skip it)? Where (if it applies, if not, skip it)? Why (you’re telling them this)? and How (if it applies, if not, skip it)? STOP WRITING!

Major style manuals (for example, The Chicago Manual of Style and the Modern Language Association Style Manual) agree that Latin abbreviations, such as, etc., e.g., and i.e., should not appear in your everyday writing. You should only use them in footnotes, endnotes, tables, and other forms of documentation.

So instead of writing i.e. (the abbreviation of id est), in your business report, write that is. Instead of writing e.g. (the abbreviation of exempli gratia), in your cover letter, write for example. Let’s face it, most people don’t know what the abbreviations stand for—I often see i.e. and e.g. used interchangeably—so using them can affect the clarity of your writing… in a bad way.

One of the major tenets of plain writing is that simple, straightforward language is more powerful than flowery, verbose writing. This is common knowledge among writers, and has been for centuries:

“I never write metropolis for seven cents when I can write city and get paid the same.” Mark Twain

“Use the smallest word that does the job.” E.B. White

This quote by William Penn (1644-1718) also applies to writing in the 21st Century:

“Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.”

“When you wish to instruct, be brief [so] that men’s minds [will] take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.” — Cicero