Ways To Write Better

May 13, 2009
Interview with Ken O'Quinn, author of Perfect Phrases for Business Letters (Perfect Phrases Series)

______________

Mike Carruthers:
In business writing today we often use too many buzzwords -  and buzzwords are usually vague.

Ken O'Quinn:
For example initiative - something that is thrown around all the time - if you asked people what is an "initiative" you'll get eight or nine different answers.

Writing consultant Ken O'Quinn, author of the book Perfect Phrases for Business Letters (Perfect Phrases Series) …

Leverage is used far too often and 99% of the time when you see it, you could substitute the word "use." Because that's exactly what is intended there. We have other phrases like, "going forward" which most of the time it doesn't need to be in the sentence at all because it's almost always accompanied by a future-tense verb. In other words people say, "This will help us in our strategy going forward". Well if you say "will help" that's future tense - "going forward" simply means the same thing.

Functionality is the perfect example of a vague buzzword.

Nine times out of ten if you look at the context in the sentence, what it refers to is a technologies capability or its features and if you use either one of those words the reader will immediately understand what you mean.

And Ken would like it if we would all stop ending letters or emails with the phrase, "If you have any questions please don't hesitate to call."

You know how often your phone rings? Do you think anybody ever hesitates to call you? The last line in almost anything that I write is, "Please call or write anytime with questions." Period.

Full Interview not available.