“Acquire a knack for summarizing,” he says. When writing longer memos and proposals, Garner suggests stating the issue and proposed solution in “no more than 150 words” at the top of the first page. By succinctly presenting your main idea first, you save your reader time and sharpen your argument before diving into the bulk of your writing. “One of the great diseases of business writing is postponing the message to the middle part of the writing,” says Garner. Many people find that the writing style and structure they developed in school doesn’t work as well in the business world. “Step back and spend more time collecting your thoughts,” Blackburn advises. “They work out the thoughts as they’re writing, which makes their writing less structured, meandering, and repetitive.” Ask yourself: What should my audience know or think after reading this email, proposal, or report? If the answer isn’t immediately clear, you’re moving too quickly. “The mistake that many people make is they start writing prematurely,” says Garner.
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“It’s a skill that you cultivate.” Here’s how to write simply, clearly, and precisely.īefore you put pen to paper or hands to keyboard, consider what you want to say. Effective writing “is not a gift that you’re born with,” he says. “You can have all the great ideas in the world and if you can’t communicate, nobody will hear them.” Luckily, everyone has the capacity to improve, says Bryan Garner, author of The HBR Guide to Better Business Writing. “As Marvin Swift memorably said, clear writing means clear thinking,” said Kara Blackburn, a senior lecturer in managerial communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management. But knowing how to fashion an interesting and intelligent sentence is essential to communicating effectively, winning business, and setting yourself apart. Overworked managers with little time might think that improving their writing is a tedious or even frivolous exercise.
But how can you ensure that your writing is as clear and effective as possible? How do you make your communications stand out? You probably write on the job all the time: proposals to clients, memos to senior executives, a constant flow of emails to colleagues.
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