When you are talking to someone face-to-face, you have lots of visual clues to help you – your tone of voice, gestures, eye contact. It may not be fair, but in the everyday world we are judged and influenced by all these criteria. And like it or not, it’s through the way we speak and […]

I read recently that 81% of readers felt that poorly written material wastes a lot of time.   Yes, 81%! It’s everyone’s responsibility to stop wasting the reader’s time. So here are five habits you need to stop right now. Why? Because they make you look lazy and unprofessional. Habit #1. Stop Using Vague Subject Lines […]

Do you think you’ll impress readers by using big words? Do you use phrases like Please be informed? Kindly find attached? When you put your fingers on the keyboard, do you think, “What should I write?” If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be making your business writing much more difficult […]

In all my years of teaching business writing skills, I’m often asked, “Why don’t they teach us this at college?” Yes indeed, why not? There’s a huge difference between academic writing and business writing. So let’s look at the differences between academic writing and business writing: Students write to demonstrate learning Schools, colleges and universities […]

In all our writing workshops and in all my books, I recommend that after you’ve drafted a message, don’t hit ‘send’ immediately.  First, it’s important to take off your head! Yes, take off your head! And put on the head of… the reader! Put yourself in your reader’s position. Imagine how the reader will feel […]