Business Writing With Buzz

When The Morning Bulletin, Rockhampton, reported 30,000 pigs had been swept away in the recent Queensland floods, did either the reporter or editor stop to consider what a huge number that was? Clearly not. The farmer had actually told the newspaper that he had lost 30 sows and pigs!

When Media Watch and the weekend newspapers reported the error, no doubt there were a few giggles. While the truth can get in the way of a good story, failing to check your facts in business writing could be a plain embarrassing, if not a recipe for disaster.

Using over-inflated statistics, false claims or, simply, incorrect statements makes you appear, at best, unreliable, at worst, stupid. Readers will question your credibility and capability if they spot inconsistencies or errors in your writing.

Quoting people can also be risky. Generally, we are not aiming for John Pilger-style exposés when writing business documents. Misquoting someone, or referring to a quote they are unhappy with, can cause offense and seriously damage relationships.

Check – twice!
Of course, the internet is your friend when it comes to fact checking and is the easiest place to look if you are unsure of something. But it is important that your reference sites are reputable and you understand the limitations of some sources. Wikipedia, for example, although a fantastic resource, can be updated by anyone. Its articles are not necessarily written by academics or qualified experts. It is worth cross-checking any information with another source.

Quotes and references
If your document quotes people, call them to check they are happy. To really cover your back, get them to email their permission so you have a record in case of dispute further down the track.

When you want to refer to a statistic or quote someone from a public source, it is a good idea to provide a reference. Not only is it polite to reference other peoples’ work, it also provides substance and credibility to your own piece. Most online guides on how to reference are for an academic audience, but the University of Sydney’s guide [http://writingworkshop.edtec.unsw.edu.au/quote.html] is pretty user-friendly.

Take these simple steps to get your facts right and you’ll avoid the potential for public humiliation that The Morning Bulletin reporter received from Media Watch, not to mention the weekend papers!

It’s a rainy Tuesday and your deadline for an important tender is fast approaching. You’re doing the final proofread and everything is looking good… When, suddenly, it glares up from the page. A word that can trip up the most experienced writer: ‘affect’. The doubts creep in. Is it right? Are you sure it shouldn’t be ‘effect’?

You are not alone if you are sometimes stuck by doubts as to when and how to use some of the following words. Even the experts get caught out and need to check the rules. But don’t worry. We have got some simple ways to remember your ‘affect’ from your ‘effect’ and your ‘which’ from your ’that’.

Which/that
Which and that are commonly used interchangeably, but they actually do different jobs. "That" defines something, while "which" gives extra information about it, usually in a clause enclosed by commas:

This is the cake that Mary made.
This cake, which Mary made, is delicious.

You can delete ‘that’ from a sentence and it will still be grammatical (this is the cake Mary made) and this can be a good way to edit your writing. But a sentence using ‘which’ won’t make sense without it.

Affect/effect
It’s one of the most difficult to get right, but you’ll be OK if you remember ‘effect’ is usually a noun and ‘affect’ is always a verb.

She was greatly affected (verb) by the latest news. Smoking will affect (verb) your health.

Take care of your personal effects (noun). The effect (noun) it had was amazing.

The only exception is when we write in a formal style. Then we sometimes use ‘effect’ as a verb meaning ‘to carry out’ or ‘to cause to happen’:

The lawyer effected (verb) a great result. We hope to effect (verb) a change soon.

It’s/its
When do you use an apostrophe for ‘it’ plus ‘s’? It is intuitive to think it is when you use ‘it’ possessively as you do for ‘Mary’s cake’ or ‘Martin’s cheese’. But you’d be wrong. The possessive form of it does not include an apostrophe:

The cat is eating its fish.

The only time you use an apostrophe is when you want to shorten ‘it is’ or ‘it has’:

It’s a fat cat. It’s been a while since we met.

Advice/advise, practice/practise
Advice is a noun, and advise is a verb, just as practice is a noun and practise is a verb.

Take her advice (noun). She runs a large legal practice (noun).
I advise (verb) you to keep quiet. I will practise (verb) every day.

If you’ve got any others, let me know.

Anyone who missed the recent election must have been hiding under the proverbial rock, or willfully avoiding it altogether. If the latter is the case, we at Proof Communications sympathise because at no other point in the political calendar is the main purpose of communication – to impart information clearly – so casually abused, with the use of political double-talk, repetitive slogans (moving forward, anyone?) and ‘officialese’ at an apparent all time high. Or low, depending on your point of view.

You’ll know officialese when you hear it; it’s bureaucratic, hard to follow and mostly meaningless. Consider these examples from the excellent Bendable Learnings by Don Watson, author and speechwriter for former Prime Minister Paul Keating: ‘front-end strategies’, ‘leveraged solutions’, ‘the execution of deliverables’ and (our favourite) ‘synergy-related headcount reductions’, which was Nokia Siemens’ way of saying in a media release that they planned to fire a few people. It’s management-speak designed to hide either the horrible truth… or the fact that the speaker is utterly clueless about the subject. Which gives us an excellent insight into why pollies use it so much!

Officialese isn’t just a convenient tool for misinformation used by silver-tongued politicians. It’s also a disease that, if left unchecked, can spread rapidly and infect your business writing. Look at all your business communications – that’s everything from e-mail correspondence to reports and tenders – and ask yourself: is my meaning clear? Have I used industry jargon when talking to a customer who may not understand it? Am I using unnecessarily complex words when a simple, everyday alternative would work just as well?

We’ve talked about ways to make your business writing clearer in Proof Communications newsletters before but, unlike our Prime Minister’s favourite slogan, some things can bear repetition. Here’s a quick refresher on writing clearly and effectively:

1. What am I trying to say?
Identify the purpose of your communication or ‘key message’, as well as all the supporting information you need to convey.

2. Get yourself a gorgeous body.
Structure is crucial to clarity. As a rule of thumb, every paragraph should contain a unique point that contributes to your overall message.

3. Spell-check your work.
Your computer’s spell-check function doesn’t understand jargon, so it’s an excellent way of identifying industry-specific terms, as well as misspellings.

4. Honesty is the key.
Have you used ‘antediluvian’ instead of ‘old-fashioned’ because you think it makes you sound smarter? Not only do you risk alienating your customer, you might just run out of words. As CS Lewis said, “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” Save the posh words for the cryptic crossword.

As the American Plain English Foundation says: “Though no one knows the total cost of poor communication, the information we do have suggests it's high. While writing in plain language isn't easy, it pays off in positive results”.

So stop the rot: inoculate yourself against the spread of officialese before it costs you a customer!

Resources:
www.plainenglishfoundation.com
www.plainenglish.org
http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/default.aspx?page=book&id=9781741669046

What’s the worst typo sin you’ve committed?

You’re not alone...making mistakes comes naturally to humans, so it’s not surprising that websites and marketing materials are littered with typos.

Sadly, typos cost money. Research in the UK shows that typos cost businesses there millions each year. People don’t want to do business with companies that can’t get their name right, or make mistakes in their emails, letters or brochures.

One of the worst culprits are call centres, where operators often take down the wrong details. It’s a blessing we haven’t had to ring the US call centre that had a 35% error rate in orders it took over the phone. Classics were:

The name Whithead typed in as -hithead (I'll leave you to fill in the gap).

The gift greeting With Our Love typed as With Out Love.

And these were the ones that were caught before they were sent to customers. Imagine what was missed!

Our own big companies are just as susceptible. When proofreading an annual report for a major bank, I spotted a mistake on the inside cover of the report. And this was on the day that the cover was going to print. The mistake?

Shareholders were to receive divideds, not dividends. 

It's easy to find others' mistakes, but not our own. This is why I recommend you don't proofread your own work. Here’s some ways you can avoid typo sins.

1. Read each sentence aloud. You’ll hear your mistakes.

2. Look at each word in isolation. If you have time, start at the end of the document and read each word in turn, from the last to the first. This way, you’re more likely to spot typos.

3. Watch out for the old favourites. We often repeat the same mistakes:

Missing narrow letters (e.g. ‘i’ - offical, opportunites, instnctively)
Using extra letters  (e.g. acccountancy, narrrow)
Misspelling long or technical words (e.g. physiothearapy, implenemtation).

4. Spell checkers won’t pick up typos which are correct spellings, or words that sound the same but have different meanings. For example:

causal/casual
form/from
unclear/nuclear
their/there
site/sight.

5. Double check all the headings and page numbers and that indexes match the page numbers. This is where most mistakes are made, especially in long documents such as annual reports, proposals and tenders.