Business communication developing leaders for a network world 2nd CHAPTER 6

Improving Readability
with Style and Design

Chapter 6

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Provide All Relevant Information

The key to providing all but only relevant information is to plan, write, and
review your message strategically

Repeatedly asking yourself what information is necessary for the purpose of
your message will help you accomplish this.

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in whole or part.

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Be Accurate

Accuracy, like specificity, strongly impacts your readers’ perceptions of your
credibility

Just one inaccurate statement can lead readers to dismiss your entire message
and lower their trust in your future communications as well.

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in whole or part.

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Being Accurate

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in whole or part.

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Be Specific

The more specific you are, the more likely your readers are to have their
questions answered

If you are not specific, your readers may become impatient and begin scanning
and skimming for the information they want

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in whole or part.

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Being Specific

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in whole or part.

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Improving Ease of Reading
with Conciseness

Control paragraph length

Use short sentences

Avoid empty phrases

Avoid redundancy

Avoid wordy
prepositional phrases

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website, in whole or part.

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Control Paragraph Length

Long paragraphs can signal disorganization and even disrespect for the reader’s
time

Typically, paragraphs should contain 40 to 80 words.
For routine messages, paragraphs as short as 20 to 30 words are common and
appropriate.

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in whole or part.

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Controlling Paragraph Length

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in whole or part.

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Use Short Sentences in Most Cases

Short sentences allow your readers to comprehend your ideas more easily
For routine messages, aim for average sentence length of 15 or fewer words

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in whole or part.

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Using Short Sentences

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in whole or part.

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Avoiding Redundancy

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in whole or part.

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Avoiding Empty Phrases

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Avoid Wordy Prepositional Phrases

Eliminating extra words allows you to get your ideas across as efficiently as
possible.

You will often find that you can reduce word count by 30 to 40 percent simply by

converting many of your prepositional phrases into single-word verbs.

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in whole or part.

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Avoiding Wordy
Prepositional Phrases

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in whole or part.

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Improving Ease of Reading with Natural Style

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website, in whole or part.

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Use Action Verbs When Possible

First, find nouns that you can convert to action verbs
Second, find forms of the verb to be (e.g., verbs such as is , are , am ) and convert
them into action verbs

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in whole or part.

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Using Action Verbs

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Use Active Voice

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Use Active Voice

The doer-action-object allows for faster processing because most people’s
natural thinking occurs in this way

It also emphasizes the business orientation of action
Most important, it specifies the doer

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in whole or part.

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Using Active Voice Appropriately

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Using Passive Voice Appropriately

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Use Short and Familiar
Words and Phrases

Whenever possible, choose short, conversational, and familiar words
Using longer, less common ones slows processing and can distract from your
message.

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Use Parallel Language

Using parallel language means that you apply a consistent grammatical pattern
across a sentence or paragraph.

Parallelism is most important when you use series or lists.

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Using Parallel Language

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in whole or part.

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