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Legal Writing

Business Writing

By Lynn Gaertner-Johnston, founder of Syntax Training in Seattle, Washington, and a fan of business writing.

Post Frequency: 3.2/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 02:31:44

Newsletter Content Readers Can't Resist

Posted on December 02, 2010
If you want people to read your online or printed newsletter rather than deleting or discarding it, give them irresistible content. The current issue of Better Writing at Work, our free monthly e-newsletter, covers 13 types of content your audience...

Making Content More Accessible

Posted on November 23, 2010
Have you noticed any changes lately in the layout of this blog? Take a moment to scan the screen and see whether anything looks different. If you are a regular reader, you may notice subtle differences. I took the advice...

Tips on Preparing a Toast

Posted on November 22, 2010
In companies around the world, a season of festivities is about to begin. A calendar of special professional dinners and holiday parties will take place from now through the beginning of January. Many of those events will involve a toast....

What Road Signs Can Teach Writers

Posted on November 19, 2010
I have been teaching business writing in a variety of places lately--New York, St. Louis, and today Portland, Oregon. In my drive from Seattle to Portland and back, I realized that road signs offer good lessons to business writers. Below...

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Will You Choose the Correct Date?

Posted on November 11, 2010
Last week I taught The Keys to Error-Free Writing, a class that focuses on the current rules of business writing. Of the 62 items on the pretest, Question 6 (below) in the section on numbers was answered incorrectly more than...

When Brevity Leads to Ambiguity

Posted on November 07, 2010
Here's a set of concise headlines that appeared in the online version of our newspaper: THIS YEAR THERE'S PLENTY OF FLU VACCINE SHORTAGE LAST YEAR Everyone 6 months and older should get shot, CDC official says Did you recognize the...

Giving Thanks to Customers, Employees, and Others

Posted on November 05, 2010
In the United States, Thanksgiving Day takes place on Thursday, November 25. If you have U.S. customers, clients, employees, colleagues, donors, members, consultants, or friends, Thanksgiving is a good time to remember them. The national holiday is celebrated by nearly...

When to Say Thank You in Email

Posted on November 02, 2010
With all the talk about sending and receiving less unnecessary email, it may be challenging to know when to respond with a thank-you. In my post on thank-you emails last week, "Do Email 'Thanks' Please or Provoke You?" I suggested...

21 Ways to Shrink the Email Monster

Posted on November 01, 2010
Last week, inspired by Halloween, I published "21 Ways to Shrink the Email Monster" in my monthly e-newsletter, Better Writing at Work. The article is all about steps you can take to reduce the amount of unnecessary email that haunts...

Do Email "Thanks" Please or Provoke You?

Posted on October 28, 2010
In the Email Intelligence classes I teach, a hot topic for discussion is email replies that say only "Thanks." Some people complain that "Thanks" emails waste their time. They have to stop what they are doing, click open the emails...

Does the 5-Sentence Email Work?

Posted on October 25, 2010
A participant in a business writing program recently told me his goal was to write emails of no more than 5 sentences. He is the second person in his company who mentioned this writing goal to me. But is a...

My Flyer Is Your Flier

Posted on October 20, 2010
Dan sent me an email recently to tell me I had misused a word. He said: "Just a friendly tip: You used the word flyer on your website. It should be flier." I appreciate friendly tips, but I resisted Dan's....

New Resource Just for Admins

Posted on October 18, 2010
I have been invited to participate in a website that gathers resources for administrative assistants. It's called Assistant Edge. You can see the logo I have added to the right column on this page. If you click on the logo,...

Tips for Efficient Instant Messaging at Work

Posted on October 13, 2010
I was leading a business writing program yesterday, when someone asked me to cover instant messaging (IM). Of course, I said the principles we were discussing in class applied to all types of business writing. Yet IM at work is...

A Warning for Writers

Posted on October 09, 2010
Two weeks ago I took my laptop and went away to an inn to work on a book I am writing. At the end of a long weekend, I was excited to have finished two more chapters totaling around 7,500...

Leading by Example

Posted on October 07, 2010
Over the past 1.5 days, I taught a business writing course for internal auditors. Throughout the program the vice president of internal auditing participated wholeheartedly in every learning activity. He shared his knowledge, admitted his knowledge gaps, and communicated his...

Do You Know What You Don't Know?

Posted on October 01, 2010
While making a comment on Marcia Yudkin's excellent Marketing for More forum, I realized I was not sure of the spelling of a word. I was writing a comment something like this: When a website doesn't contain an About Us...

Proofread Your Slogan Too, Scammers!

Posted on September 29, 2010
Today a friend sent me an example of a typo at the end of an email. It appeared in the company slogan: OBSESSED WITH BEIGN THE BEST I burst out laughing at the beautiful irony of the error, as he...

Email Replies: A Hard Lesson at Steve Jobs' Expense

Posted on September 27, 2010
This past week I was reminded of worst practices for email, unfortunately at Steve Jobs' expense. My Comcast Internet featured a video from Good Morning, America, an ABC news show. The video cobbled together a story of email gone wrong...

Tips to Help Smartphone Readers

Posted on September 24, 2010
For those who read their business email on smartphones, we need to take steps to keep them happy. Below I have listed a few tips that smartphone readers in writing classes have suggested. And since I won't be getting an...

"Discrete" and "Discreet"--Two Discrete Words

Posted on September 21, 2010
Yesterday a friend asked for feedback on the resume she had just written. In her resume, she mentioned a job in which she had provided "discrete, confidential secretarial support." But discrete means "separate, distinct." My friend wanted the word discreet,...

Essentials of Emails That Sell

Posted on September 15, 2010
I am working on business writing skills with a team that writes emails to sell their company's product. Here are the 12 essentials for sales emails I created for them. Would you add any essentials to this list? Grab the...

Writing to the Assistant to Reach the Physician

Posted on September 10, 2010
Susan, who works for a healthcare research organization, wrote to ask how to start an email when she is sending it to the assistant for forwarding to a physician. Susan usually uses this approach, but she wonders if it is...

Friendly Advice for Job Seekers

Posted on September 08, 2010
I got an email this week from someone who is looking for an opportunity to become a business writing teacher. The individual happens to live just a two-minute walk from my house. She introduced herself briefly, attached a cover letter...

Writing Lesson From REI

Posted on September 03, 2010
REI is running its Labor Day sale, and the flyer I received from them contains gems of persuasive writing. In a two-page spread of tents and sleeping bags, notice how REI sells in just a few words: For a tent:...

Find the Error I Missed

Posted on August 31, 2010
Every month in my monthly e-newsletter, Better Writing at Work, I include a feature called Error Quest. In it, I challenge readers to find the one error I have purposely included in a short paragraph. Every now and then, a...

Being in the Moment

Posted on August 26, 2010
I sent out our monthly e-newsletter, Better Writing at Work, yesterday. As usual we got hundreds of out-of-office messages. Here is my favorite, which came from Phillip in Germany: "I am in the moment not in the office." I prefer...

Will You Commit Lynn? On Commas in Direct Address

Posted on August 23, 2010
My husband Michael gets copies of my email. We are in business together, and he keeps track of what comes in when I am busy teaching business writing courses. Last week Michael received a political email, a persuasive request with...

Editors, Copyeditors, Proofreaders--Whose Job Is It?

Posted on August 16, 2010
The other day a client emailed to tell me she had seen me quoted in an online newsletter. Always thoughtful, she sent me the link to the article. I excitedly clicked the link (it is still exciting to be quoted)....

Be Cautious With Blog Comments

Posted on August 12, 2010
In the past couple of weeks, two people who commented on this blog asked me to remove their comments. Their requests inspired me to share these cautions: Don't share anything you don't want a potential employer to find. The first...

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