by Sharon Ernst | Apr 2, 2021 | Business Writing Skills
(Originally published August 2017) If you want to be a better, faster writer, be clear. Does that sound like unnecessary and obvious advice? It should be, but I see cluttered, clunky writing in professionally written materials on an almost daily basis. That tells me we still need to work on clarity. Why clarity matters When you’re in a hurry and you’re simply trying to get something written and out the door (or out of your inbox or chat window), you might be typing words that make sense in your head but that doesn’t mean you’re...
by Sharon Ernst | Mar 22, 2021 | Business Writing Skills
(This business writing post was originally published June 2017) Have you ever hit Send only to find out later you had an egregious error in your message? I’m guessing yes, because it has happened to us all. We’re typing fast and probably thinking about the next task while trying to finish this one and boom, next thing you know, we’ve sent a messy message that implies we’re lazy and too busy to proofread. Dang! An Ounce of Prevention or a Pound of Cure? Whether you’re writing a quick Snapchat to a...
by Sharon Ernst | Mar 9, 2021 | Business Writing Skills
If you’re looking for cost-cutting ideas for large companies, chances are there is one critical area you’ve overlooked: your employees’ business writing skills. In fact, you might have a money pit staring you in the face and you don’t even see it. This money sucker wastes time and dollars. And it’s not unique to your business. Like aliens taking over a city in some blockbuster movie, this money pit shows up all over, draining potential profits and tripping up productivity….all without anyone...
by Sharon Ernst | Feb 24, 2021 | Business Writing Skills
(Originally published April 2017) When it comes to business writing, a lot of us think we are better at it than we really are. If our grammar is correct and we’ve got our facts straight, that’s all that really matters, right? Wrong. Because our business writing has a job to do. It’s called writing at work because it’s supposed to work. Sadly, much of the writing done in the workplace today fails to work, costing American businesses billions of dollars and keeping employees busy sending pointless emails long after work hours. I’ll...
by Sharon Ernst | Feb 16, 2021 | Business Writing Skills
Business writing at work can do more harm than good when the reader is ignored. What does it mean to be a jerk when writing at work? It means to write without considering the reader or audience. Because when you don’t write for the audience, you’re being selfish and writing to serve your own purposes only. And that leads to pointless back-and-forth emails, confusing documents, miscommunication and other time wasters. How do we fix this? Josh Bernoff has the answer. On page 5 of his book Writing Without Bullshit, Bernoff asks that we...
by Sharon Ernst | Dec 18, 2020 | Business Writing Skills
“I never said you stole the money.” Have you seen that sentence before? That simple phrase is proof that our writing at work must work harder to communicate better. Here’s how: Read the sentence out loud five times and change the word you emphasize each time. As you do, you change the meaning of the sentence too, like this… “I never said you stole the money” means someone else said you stole the money. “I never said you stole the money” means I’m defending myself against an accusation. “I never said you stole the money” means...
