How to Write Using Proper Business Style

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Last Updated: March 29, 2019

Writing using proper business style is very different than using personal or academic styles. A business document is not a place to show off your vocabulary and grammar skills or to highlight your creativity. Instead, you should strive to be as clear as possible in the fewest words possible, so your readers know what action to take without wasting time reading and re-reading complicated prose.

Steps

1
Use short, simple sentences and short paragraphs.
- Keep in mind that the longer the sentence is, the more difficult it is to understand. Readers may interpret a long sentence differently than your intent or misunderstand it altogether, which may cause them to take the wrong action.
- Remember that in business writing, each idea gets its own paragraph, even if it means a paragraph is comprised of only one sentence.
2
Write in active voice unless it's important to disguise who took the action.
- Strive to structure your sentence so the person or thing that takes the action appears at the beginning. The sentence "President Miller reviewed the report" is in active voice. "The report was reviewed by President Miller" is in passive voice.
- Disguise who took the action with passive voice when necessary. For instance, if you want to inform readers of a mistake but don't want to blame a specific person for it, you might write "a mistake was made in the closing procedure."
3
Think about what the company would say, not what you say.
- Remind yourself that your readers work for the company, not for you. Don't say "I have changed the procedure," but "the company has changed the procedure."
- Consider using "we" when referring to the company if you want a more informal style or to make the readers feel as though they are participants in the action. For example, you may want to say, "we have established a new procedure."
4
Avoid jargon, unusual terms and made-up words unless they're the standard in your industry and you're sure everyone understands them.
- Ask yourself if every reader knows the meanings of every term you use. Remove any terms that may confuse readers or define the terms the first time you use them. "Employees should review their LES (Leave and Earnings Statement) each month."
- Reword any sentence that contains buzzwords (words that are in vogue) not only to increase clarity but to avoid annoying your readers. Some examples of buzzwords are "repurpose," "mindshare" and "spin-up."
It's always clearer to write "the department heads decided" than to write "the department heads have made a decision."
6
Talk about action, and don't weaken statements with qualifiers.
- Don't write "employees should review the procedures, if possible, during their next shift" or "we are tentatively changing the schedule," because these statements aren't clear that the employees are required to review the procedure or that they can argue against the change in schedule.
- Make unqualified statements like, "review the procedure" and "we have changed the schedule."
You can do this by using a colon and then separating list items with commas "Do the following: unlock the door, turn on the lights, etc." You can also simply make a numbered list.

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What's the format for a business letter?

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Reference Write a Business Letter.

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