Writing: The Not-So-Hidden Part of Your Professional Image
By Guest Columnist, Jan Andersen
So you have your personal brand defined and you’re doing all you can to promote a positive professional image. Now someone is telling you they don’t understand what you meant in a document you sent out last week.
Welcome to an often-overlooked part of your professional presence: your writing. You can have everything else under control. But if your business writing is unfocused, overly complex, or full of errors, you’re hurting both your ability to communicate effectively and your reputation.
What You’re Writing
Much of your writing today is probably in short bursts, like texts and brief emails. But this article is about long-form general business writing: memos, reports, extended emails, and other documents — the longer stuff you write as you work every day.
In this kind of writing your goal is to present information that’s clear, concise, and understandable. You want to make things as easy as possible for your audience — your readers — to “get it” and then take appropriate action.
To do this, you need to make your writing simple, clear, and accurate. And to do that you need to start with your readers. But because they’re people, it gets tricky.
Reader Oblivion
Consider Downton Abbey, the British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century. It follows the lives of the Crawley family and their servants in the family’s Edwardian country manor. The program begins with the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. Without the costumes, none of these characters would have come to life as they did in this popular series.
Basic Starter Questions
To get a start on writing simply and clearly, answer five basic questions before you put pen to paper or fingers on keyboard:
• Who, exactly, are your readers?
• What, specifically, is your subject and what key messages do you want to get across?
• What are your readers likely to already know about your subject?
• Why are you writing this piece; what do you want readers to accomplish/do/think about what you’ve written?
•What is the most effective format for getting your message across (e.g., email, memo, report, extended document)?
Going On From There
By now you’re saying to yourself, “Get on with it! Give me some practical tips for writing that I can use right now!” So here’s a far-from-comprehensive list gleaned from my career as a writer and editor.
• Large words and long, complex sentences carry some weight in academia and highly technical writing. But in general business writing they’re just hard to read and don’t impress anyone.
• Not all writing should be the same. Circumstances dictate your approach. A one-paragraph memo is not the same as a white paper.
• It’s important to understand the basic rules of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and spelling. But you don’t need to be an English major to write well.
• Delaying to “think about it” (i.e., procrastination) always increases pressure and creates problems. Start right away with one simple sentence that breaks up the dreaded blank white page.
• Using previous writing won’t save the day. It might not apply to the current situation, it might have been poorly written, or (the biggest danger) you might include something you didn’t intend to include.
Deep breath. Here are some more.
• The best overall organization for a business document is the inverted pyramid. Give your readers the most important information first, then fill in the details in subsequent paragraphs.
• For easier reading, organize each paragraph around one idea. Then start each paragraph with a topic sentence — a sentence that states the central idea of the paragraph.
• To illustrate concepts, use easily understood, familiar ideas. For example, chronology (i.e., time sequence), cause and effect (i.e., this led to … /because of this …), comparison and contrast, or examples.
• To the extent possible in your industry/sector, limit the use of jargon, nonstandard abbreviations, emojis, and anything else that readers could easily misunderstand.
• Keep introductions and conclusions short. Get to the point quickly, and wrap up with a summary and/or brief description of needed next actions.
A writers’ cheat: it’s fine to write from the “inside out” if your brain isn’t wired for linear thinking. Get your key messages/ideas down first, then write your introduction and conclusion last.
Finally, when you think you’re done, you’re not. I won’t go into editing here other than to say…
Stop, take a break. Then go back and read aloud to yourself what you’ve written, or have someone else review it. Have you clearly stated what you meant to say? Is anything redundant, unnecessary, or confusing? Are there any spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors?
Writing isn’t easy but, ultimately, your job as a writer is to make things easy for your readers. By doing that you’ll boost your reputation as a clear communicator. Plus, you’ll enhance this overlooked part of your professional presence.
