|
Readers' Business Writing
Questions
I’ve
had several questions recently about writing business letters, so I’m making
that the October topic.
Q:
When addressing a letter to a husband and wife, whose name comes first in
the salutation, the man’s or the woman’s?
A:
If it’s a personal letter, I use the name of the person with whom I
have the stronger relationship first. If
it’s a business letter, I vote for keeping with the tradition of the man’s
name first.
Q:
Why should I center a letter on a page?
A:
Letters that are way off center tend to look amateurish and can undermine
the writer’s credibility. Letters
should suggest a high level of professionalism in the organization and person
that produced them. A poorly
written or constructed letter can cause a reader to wonder what else isn’t
being done well by the writer or the company.
Q:
Are there rules for spacing a letter?
A:
Yes. Most breaks are
double-spaced. The three places to
“play” with the spacing are the area under the letterhead down to the date,
the area between the date and the first line of the inside address, and the area
between the closing and the writer’s name.
The first two can vary from 2-8 lines; the area after the closing can be
3-5 lines.
Another
way to help center a letter is to enlarge or reduce font size.
It’s amazing how much extra space a letter will take up when you move
the font from 10 to 11 or 12 or even 13!
How
can you be sure a letter’s centered? Fold
it into thirds. All sections should
have text in them, and the paragraph(s) should fit inside, or wrap around, the
middle third. If your closing is in
the middle section, lower the entire letter several spaces.
Q:
Is there any rule for how long paragraphs should be?
A:
I can give you guidelines, not rules.
The first and last paragraphs should be short – a maximum of three
typed lines. The first
paragraph’s only job is to entice the reader to keep reading; a big block of
text, here or anywhere, may be seen as too difficult to deal with – no matter
what the topic.
The
interior paragraphs should probably be no longer than eight typed lines.
This, of course, flies in the face of what many of us learned in school:
never start a paragraph if you don’t have a new thought.
Well, that’s academic writing; what we’re talking about here is
business writing, which is a very different discipline.
Believe me, few readers of business letters, memos, or e-mails will
complain about (or even notice) short paragraphs that don’t have a completely
new thought.
The
purpose of business writing is to give information clearly and concisely.
Big blocks of text are physically and emotionally hard to read.
Short, punchy sentences and paragraphs are usually easier to read and
understand, and that’s the goal of business communication -- not to get an A
on an essay, but to have your reader “get it” with a minimum of fuss.
Q:
Can you give me one example of something you can do in
business writing that you wouldn’t do in academic writing?
A:
There are many, but one that comes to mind is the old “rule” about
never ending a sentence with a preposition.
Many academics still shy away from this, even though it can make for
awkward-sounding sentences.
Which
sounds more natural? “What’s it
good for?” or “For what is it good?”
Right. The first one. The
best business writing generally mimics natural speech, which means sometimes
breaking old “rules.”
|
