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What Is Good Business Writing?

"Any scientist who cannot explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan" -Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

The basic principles of good business writing are simplicity, accuracy, and clarity. As George Orwell pointed out, the purpose of bad writing is often to obscure meaning, rather than state it. Some of my favorite examples come from an article about Lockheed. These date from 1989, when Harold Simmons, chairman of NL Industries, had purchased a significant share of Lockheed stock. The following were his interpretations of Lockheed's annual report:

		Lockheed Report We characterize 1989 as a transitional year which prepared us for strong financial performance in 1990 and beyond.				Simmons' Translation 1989 was a bad year.
		Regarding the P-7A, several factors have occasioned design and schedule difficulties in developing the aircraft. Significant among these factors was an expectation of a high degree of a commonality with the P-3 which turned out not to be attainable due to other performance characteristics required by the Navy.				We bid on the wrong plane.

In the interest of better writing, this issue of TechProse Tips provides a few tricks to avoid this type of "business speak."

• Remember the journalist's questions: who, what, when, where, and why. Focus on answering these questions as quickly as possible. Your audience has limited time. Let them know right away whether they need to read this.
• Use short, declarative sentences. This is especially important if some of your readers are not native speakers, as they can get confused as to the syntax of the sentence and misunderstand what goes with what. For example, you might edit the above sentence as follows.
  This is especially important if some of your readers are not native speakers. Short sentences are much easier to follow than long sentences with multiple clauses.
• Be specific. Words like infrastructure or technology are vague umbrellas that contain real things. Name the real things, not the vague concept.
• Use present tense, active voice. Present tense gives the writing energy. Active voice tells who is responsible for an action. Active voice is "A does B"; passive voice is "B is done." Phrases like "It is anticipated that…" or "circumstances dictate" are an implied passive construction. Avoid these phrases.
  • Instead of "It is anticipated that the technological infrastructure will need upgrading."
  • Use "We need to upgrade our network, hardware, and software."
• Only use the word will or shall when you mean the action takes place in the future. For example:
  
  • Instead of "The survey of software needs will demonstrate…"
  • Use "The survey of software needs demonstrates…"
• Minimize the use of gerunds (verbs ending in "ing"). These tend to be vague. For example:
  
  • Instead of "Advocate requesting a full review when circumstances warrant."
  • Use "Request a full review when necessary."
• Avoid long words if you can use a shorter one. Some common examples:
  • use instead of utilize
  • get or have instead of access
  • to instead of in order to
  • effective instead of results-oriented

A recent example of business speak appeared in a Wall Street Journal review of the book, Why Business People Speak Like Idiots:

"Technological innovation, globalization, complex regulation and increased accountability at the senior management and board level have all combined to significantly change the landscape of risk management today. To help address these issues, our security professionals deliver services to address the various elements of security and trust associated with communicating, transacting and accessing in this environment."

I don't know about you, but the above paragraph doesn't inspire my trust. I don't believe I'll be accessing any of those particular security professionals. Just for fun, let's rewrite it using the principles discussed in this article:

Shareholders require that corporations minimize risk. To do this, managers must understand complex hardware and software. They need to understand relevant local, state, and international regulations. Often, they need expert help in these areas. Company XYZ has experts who can help.

This may not be the liveliest, most compelling prose, but at least it makes sense. And basically, that is what business readers require.