Be honest. When you saw Concise Business Writing in the heading, did you cringe? Perhaps you had a flashback to a redline version of your writing you received from a boss.
As a writer, it’s difficult to overcome the knee-jerk reaction to seeing our pearls come back all marked up. It could make you hate the color red.
Concise Business Writing Defined
Social media has its own version of yelling at you for non-concise writing – the red negative (as illustrated in the tweet shown below).
As we watch the countdown on our 280 characters, our creative juices kick in. How can we eke out one more word before we hit the dreaded red negative? As always, someone figured out a way to get around the limit – the Tweet Thread. I don’t know who invented it but at least it is a bit more organized.
I like to start with a good definition to use as my benchmark. Dictionary.com delivers my favorite definition of “concise” (although I made it even more concise). 😉
Social media advisers encourage you to “write like you talk.” While that is good advice, ramblers (including me) need to beware of allowing that aspect to take over.
5 Tips for Concise Business Writing
The following are 5 tips you may find helpful in “expressing…much in few words.”
Love Red Again
Having every tweet, post, or comment peer reviewed is not practical or productive. But do pay attention to feedback. And remember, silence is its own kind of feedback. My simple mind boils communication down to these three points (you may have heard them before). 😉
- Is it simple?
- Is it clear?
- And is it uniquely mine?
What tips do you have for keeping your business communication concise? Share your thoughts in Comments.
Note: This May 3, 2021 post updates the original that published on December 1, 2009. It was my first post on this blog’s platform. Kind of scary to read what we wrote back then.
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Helping you Keep it simple, clear & uniquely yours
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