Business Writing: Discover the Real Secret to Better Writing
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Most business professionals do a pretty good job with their Business Writing.
I know what you're thinking.
This guy has never read any of the e-mails I receive or has ever had to plow through some of the reports I have to read twice to understand.
See. You agree with me.
They don't have any problems with their writing.
Their problems lack Effective Editing.
Effective Editing creates clarity and conciseness.
Effective Editing produces great sentences.
Effective Editing brings sentences to life.
Let me share a few examples with you.
Look at the sentences below.
In your mind or on paper, rewrite the sample sentences to make them clear, concise, complete, correct, and conversational.
Each example contains at least three common errors that produce lengthy, ineffective, time-wasting sentences.
"I am appreciative of all you hard work."
"With this situation, there is involved an apparent reorganization of all fifteen departments in the company."
"In a report to the company president, it was disclosed
that profits were low and costs of sales were high."
"Our manager made a recommendation that we sell the returned goods for half price."
Did you identify all three errors in each sentence?
Did you eliminate at least seven keystrokes in each sentence?
Does your approach come close to the clear, concise, powerful writing that saves time, gets better results, and projects a powerful image of a truly effective communicator?
More importantly, do you use a system that quickly identifies the seven mistakes writers most often make?
That's where Editing comes in.
And the best news is that Editing takes less time than rewriting.
You waste time Rewriting in two ways.
You waste time when you read your sentences and become frustrated when what you see on the paper or on the screen does not match the picture you seen in your mind.
So, you rewrite the sentences, you cut and paste, and you spend too much time in your dictionary or thesaurus.
You also waste time rewriting your document when you are forced to respond to your readers asking you to clarify a statement or an idea from what you have sent them.
Stop wasting your time rewriting.
Devour Editing secrets that save you time and make you more productive.
As I mentioned, you need to know how to find the common errors, find them quickly and easily, and then change the sentences in a logical, grammatically correct, and reader-friendly way.
Let me give you an idea of how this works. We will use the sentence:
"I am appreciative of all you hard work."
Knowing a few key pieces of information would immediately allow you to change that sentence to:
"I appreciate all your hard work."
What did I change?
Why did I change it that way?
Why is it better?
Let's try another.
"With this situation, there is involved an apparent reorganization of all fifteen departments in the company."
You can change that sentence to read:
"This situation involved an apparent reorganization of all
fifteen departments in the company."
or,
"This reorganization involved all fifteen departments in the company."
or,
"All fifteen departments in the company reorganized."
or,
"The company reorganized all fifteen departments."
Look at what structured Editing did for those sentences.
They became clear, concise, correct, complete, and conversational.
They saved you time and they saved your readers time. To them, you look like a genius.
Let's try one more.
"Our manager made a recommendation that we sell the returned goods for half price."
Can you turn this 14 word sentence into 11 shorter words?
"Our manager recommended we sell the returned goods for half price."
You win when you master powerful Editing techniques.
Editing makes your sentences easy to read, easy to understand, easy to remember, and easy to act upon.
If people don't read, understand, remember, or act upon what you've written, you've wasted a lot of time and effort.
And now, for instant access to Al's free, five-day video training on The Amazing Power Editing System, please visit:
http://alborowski.com/5-free-videos
Article author
About the Author
Al Borowski has trained more than 25,000 participants as a seminar leader for The American Management Association, Dun & Bradstreet Business Education, Penn State University, and the Indiana University Executive Development Program.
He is the author of two business handbooks, "How To Get It Right When You Write" and "Excellent E-mails - More Than Etiquette - Results" and more than 25 articles on Business Communication Skills.
Al is the creator and producer of The Wonderful World of Worthwhile Webinars and Chunkinars from Al Borowski.
His websites include Alborowski.com, WorthwhileWebinars.com, Communicatio
SkillsSuccessTips.com, ProposalWritingSuccess.com, and MineWisdom.com.
The National Speakers Association awarded Al the Certified Speaking Professional designation and the Professional Convention Managers Association selected him as a Best in Class Speaker.
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Further Reading
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Management Communication Skills Training
Management skills training, including Power Phrases, performance review phrases and a variety of management phrases for buy-in, meeting management and more.
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