Category Archives: Business Writing

Top tips for Business Writing. Learn how to write reports, proposals, emails, and other types of writing used to communicate with different audiences. Business writing is a also known as business communication and professional writing.

Em Dash v En Dash

Noreen Malone, senior editor at New York magazine, admits what everyone else thinks about those pesky em-dashes. “The problem with the dash—as you may have noticed!—is that it discourages truly efficient writing. It also—and this might be its worst sin—disrupts the flow of a sentence. Don’t you find it annoying—and you can tell me if […]

Bertrand Russell: 3 Simple Writing Rules

Bertrand Russell, especially in his book, Why I Write, offers great advice on how to move from wordy, verbose, lengthy, purple prose to shorter text without losing any meaning. Here’s the three step formula he provides: Never use a long word if a short word will do. If you want to make a statement with […]

How can I break into freelance white paper writing?

Q: Where can I find work as a white paper writer? Getting your first project is the hardest. Once you’ve got this under your belt, it becomes easier. I’d suggest the following: Setup a 10 page website. Write about the benefits, sales opportunities, branding development and web traffic that can be made from well written, […]

How to Describe Difficult Technical Concepts

Rule #1! You can’t describe what you don’t understand. We agree? You can try and fudge it, but the people reviewing the document will see through it. I will. You would. Maybe you can try and cheat by cobbling together material that others have written, but it doesn’t work. Anyway, that’s not writing. It’s just […]

[Tutorial] How to Write Software Product Brochures

What are the three documents most potential customers wants to read? I’d say it’s white papers, case studies, and product brochures. The first sets the scene, the second shows you how it works, and the third… this tells you how and why it works. Of the three, product brochures are the least sexy. But they’re […]

How to respond to: “I’m going to be brutally honest with you”

What happens the moment you hear, ‘I’m going to be brutally honest with you’? I tend to filter out the honest part and tense up, wondering about the brutal part. You the same? You sense what’s coming next. It doesn’t feel good. We’re ‘brutally honest’ when someone annoys us but we can’t say it to their […]

How to Track Change Management Tasks Using Excel

How do you track Change Management tasks? Here’s how I do it using Excel. If you look at a large project as many small tasks chained together, it’s easier to start. Learn more about these excel Change Management templates here We often get stuck with large projects because we can’t find the right place to […]

How to Write a Preface for Technical Documents

Summary: Create a preface for technical documents to describe the scope, contents, and materials referenced in the main document. Does a document need a preface? Not always. Short documents are fine without one. However, longer documents, especially those that have changed over releases will benefit from a preface. From one angle, the purpose of the preface is to set […]

Why Writing Mobile Content is Twice as Difficult as Web Content

Have you noticed the way you read (and work) on your phone is different than on your PC? Size, font, layout are all culprits, but there’s more. Research from the Nielsen Norman Group highlights that short mobile sessions means writers must create mobile friendly content in anticipation of user interruptions, slow download speeds, and user […]