Business Writing With Buzz

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

In her book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss explains why we need commas:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

'Well, I'm a panda,' he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

The sad truth is that we can't do without commas. And, to make it worse, while there are some set rules about how to use commas, writers and editors do not always agree about some of their other uses. This ambiguity means that people tend to abuse and misuse their commas.

Here’s what I mean:

All the children who love pizza will be there on Friday.

This means that only those children who love pizza will be there on Friday. Compare this to:

All the children, who love pizza, will be there on Friday.
 
All the children will be there on Friday and, by the way, they love to eat pizza.


How to use commas - lists

At school, the first use we learn for commas is to separate items in a list. For example:
 
When I go shopping I buy shoes, dresses, coats and gifts.

Sometimes, particularly in the US, we include a comma before "and" as in “dresses, coats, and gifts”. This is called an Oxford comma, or serial comma, because it was used by editors, proofreaders and printers at Oxford University Press.

In Australia and the UK it’s unusual to use an Oxford comma, but feel free if you think it adds clarity, particularly if the last two items in your list are not separate words.

For example, if we write, "I love margarita, meatlovers and ham and pineapple pizzas”, it is not clear if the last pizza is a single ‘ham and pineapple’ pizza or two pizzas: a ham pizza and a pineapple pizza. In this case, we could add the Oxford comma to say, “I love margarita, meatlovers, and ham and pineapple pizzas”.


How to use commas with adjectives

Commas in a list of adjectives are not always needed. As a guide, if you can change the order of the adjectives, use a comma. If not, there’s no need for a comma. Here’s what I mean:

The report was long, boring and too detailed.

You could shift the order of the adjectives:
The report was boring, long and too detailed.

My daughter has beautiful blonde hair and clear blue eyes.
As we can’t change the order of these adjectives, we don’t need commas.

How to use commas – to add extra information

Sometimes we add extra information to our sentences to make them more interesting. For instance:

Our business, the world’s largest producer of eggs, is opening a plant in Rio.

We could easily remove the information about ‘world’s largest producer of eggs’ without changing the meaning of the sentence.

How to use commas to join two clauses together

Use a comma to join two clauses together. These are two separate parts to a sentence joined by conjunctions such as and, but, so, or, yet, but could be separated by a full stop. For example:

I love eating pizza, but I don’t like anchovies.

This could also be written as:

I love eating pizza. But I don’t like anchovies.

There is a move away from using these commas, so if you feel the meaning is clear without a comma, go for it.

How to use commas after introductory statements

There is also a trend towards not using commas after introductory statements, which is fine if the meaning is clear. Whichever option you choose, be consistent. One of the biggest errors I see when proofreading is inconsistency – one sentence has an introductory statement with a comma and the next does not.

Here are some examples:

At Proof Communications, we help our clients to win more business.

On 5 September 2011, we will be holding a party with hundreds of guests.

You could write either of these sentences with no comma.

How to use commas around ‘interrupters’

Sometimes, to add emphasis, we use an interrupter in our sentences. These always need commas before and after:

She was, however, feeling sad about missing out on the pizza.

I asked her, reluctantly, if she would get take-away.

How to use commas: the last piece of advice

Commas give us a pause in our writing. They give us room to breathe. If you’re not sure when to use a comma, read your writing aloud. You’ll hear the need for a pause.
If you suffer from comma confusion, let us know now.

When my daughter was about three years old, we were watching an episode of that classic Australian TV drama, Bananas in Pyjamas. B1 and B2 were struggling to persuade a cow to re-enter its barn.

The cow would not budge.

Despite B1's and B2's pushing, pulling, shouting and feet stamping, the cow stood unmoved.

After a short while, Rat in a Hat came along. Rat, of course, asked, "What's going on here?" The Bananas explained.

Rat bent to the cow, whispered in its ear, and the cow happily strolled into the barn.

The Bananas were astonished. "What did you say?" they exclaimed in surprise. 

"I just said the magic word," replied Rat. 

"What's that?" asked B1 and B2.

"Please", said Rat. 

As we all know from when we first start talking (parents take great pride in their toddler's first "ta, ta"), good manners go a long way, and not just when you have to get a cow into a barn.

While I'm sure there have been occasions when I've inadvertently failed to thank a client, business friend or contact for their referral, help or advice - I admit I'm no etiquette expert and nor am I infallible - I do know that after 10 years in business saying thank you builds business relationships. It's good marketing sense.

But you have to mean it.

You don't need a special reason to say thank you. Thanking a potential client for making the time to meet with you is simply a polite way making yourself memorable. I know there are projects I've been invited to work on, partly because I sent my prospective client a handwritten note to thank them for their time.

I have specially designed and printed thank you cards. I'm not pretending to be an innovator here, but quite a few of the recipients over the years have asked me if they can 'borrow' my idea and get their own cards printed for themselves, or for their companies. 

In 10 years, I can only recall receiving one thank you note myself, from a fellow copywriter to whom I gave some advice on starting a new business. I have had phone calls and emails of thanks, of course, which I always appreciate.

So, in the words of Rat in the Hat, remember the magic word (or words). They can make a thankful differerence to you business' development.