Business Papers - Tips for Improving Professional Writing Skills

Whether it is drafting an email, compiling a report or preparing various business papers, writing in the workplace is an essential tool for nearly any professional position. In this blog post, we identify four tips for improving your business writing.

4 Tips for Improving your Business Writing: 

1.      Understand Your demographic: Writing in a professional manner requires an understanding of who you are writing content for. Keep in mind that business writing blunders can commonly be traced back to a level of inappropriateness. Try narrowing your focus and creating content within your business papers that is appropriate for your audience, well organized and reader-friendly.

2.     Be short, sweet & concise: Business writing is not necessarily a genre of professional writing that allows for much imagination or creativity. If you are commonly writing with entire teams and/or upper-level management in mind, be sure to remember that they are exceedingly busy professionals and don't have the excess time to read through unnecessary and meaningless verbiage. Practice writing in a way that shows professional finesse and attention to detail in a bare-bones, back to the basics kind of way.

3.     Use organizational resources: As a professional, you shouldn’t be a stranger to the concept that formatting makes a world of difference when it comes to business writing and its effectiveness in the workplace. If you are struggling with the readability of your business papers, try using formatting tools like bullets, numbered lists and headings to organize your data and thoughts. Supplementing your content with strong visual aids such as graphs and charts also adds to the credibility of your documents. Keep in mind that finding a happy medium will be essential for your success, as a document that is too busy can distract your coworkers or clients and take value away from your writing.

4.     Always Proofread: Small mistakes can make big impacts and proofreading is the only way to ensure that little errors don't cost you credibility at work. Always be sure to check your grammar, your spelling and even your spacing. No detail is too small. I find it helpful to read documents out loud to more easily catch little errors. If you need help try www.grammarly.com or pay for a service such as www.proofreadingpal.com.

Whether we like it or not, writing business papers and compiling reports are common in the workplace. Keep pushing forward and with practice, improvements to your business writing skills will be highly evident to you, your coworkers and employees alike.