Writing That Works, 3e_ How to Communicate Effectively in Business - Kenneth Roman [9]
Somewhat defensively, lawyers explain that such language is essential to precision in contracts and such. Perhaps, but we suspect that the same ideas could be expressed more briefly, more clearly, and without any treacherous increase in ambiguity:
BLANK Corporation wants to offer holders of its Ordinary Shares who are U.S. citizens or residents the opportunity to participate in its Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRP) on the same basis as non-U.S. holders. This includes U.S. holders of ADRs (defined below) as well.
BLANK has amended the DRP to enable this participation, and a copy of the amended DRP is attached.
Whatever excuses lawyers may have, there are none for the business counterpart of this sort of writing, known as “bureaucratese.” Among its symptoms are long sentences, abbreviations, clauses within clauses, and jargon.
If you find yourself writing like that, try putting down what you want to say the way you would say it to your readers if you were talking to them face-to-face. Don’t worry if the result is too casual. Once you’ve got the main idea down in plain English, you’ll find it easy to adjust the tone of voice to the appropriate level of formality.
A good start in breaking out of bureaucratese is to banish from your writing unnecessary Latin. For example, “re,” meaning “in the matter of,” is never necessary outside the most formal legal documents. You don’t need it in headings or titles any more than the Bible needs “re: Genesis.”
14. Keep in mind what your reader doesn’t know
Your reader seldom knows ahead of time where you are going or what you are trying to say. Never expect people to read your mind as well as your letter or paper. Take into account how much you can assume your reader knows — what background information, what facts, what technical terms.
Watch your abbreviations. Will they be an indecipherable code to some readers? Might they be ambiguous even to those in the know?
K is code for a thousand in the United States, M means million in England.
9/12 means September 12 here — December 9 over there.
If you must use abbreviations, define them the first time they appear in your paper. “The cost per thousand (CPM) is a figure that we will keep an eye on throughout this proposal.”
15. Punctuate carefully
Proper punctuation functions like road signs, helping your reader to navigate your sentences. A left-out comma, or a comma in the wrong place, can confuse readers — or even change your meaning altogether. Here is a statement that most women will disagree with:
Woman without her man has no reason for living.
With a colon and a comma, the writer would get a different reaction:
Woman: without her, man has no reason for living.
A common mistake in business writing is to use quotation marks for emphasis: This bolt provides “superior” tensile strength. When the head of a large company put quotation marks around a word in an important paper, his administrative assistant asked him why he did that. He replied that it was to stress the truth of the point. The assistant asked whether it would stress the truth if he were to register at a hotel as John Durgin and “wife.”
Most dictionaries offer lucid help on common problems of punctuation, such as the difference between a colon and a semicolon. You’ll find brisk, useful advice either in the front or the back of the book.
16. Understate rather than overstate
Never exaggerate, unless you do so overtly to achieve an effect, and not to deceive. It is more persuasive to understate than to overstate. A single obvious exaggeration in an otherwise carefully written argument can