Business Professional
What Writing is Like in the Business World
Addie Hansen
Rhetoric 1040
University of Iowa
Date
Writing in Business
Writing and business never really seemed to go together. For myself, I never thought that in a future in business that I would do much writing on a day to day basis. Business is all about the communication. It’s all about communicating with one another in person to create bonds, relationships, and trust with the client. It is about getting together with a team to figure out what the client is asking for and how to get it achieved in the best way possible in the amount of time and the amount of money they give to work with. Then it is about selling that idea to the clients and putting yourself as part of that deal as well. I thought it was all about just communication and no writing at all. After conducting research, I realized that I was wrong.
I noticed that after doing research on both academic and non-academic writing in business, that the majority comes from academic writing. Academic writing is defined as writing done by a professional in that topic done for a specific audience. After reading the sources and talking to Linda Hansen, a marketing professional, I realized that almost everything done in the business world is formatted like an academic source. The company creates formal proposals to give to clients in order to give them all their information on what they are trying to achieve. I also came to that conclusion after reading from scholarly articles and books like, Every Writer Needs an Editor, Redesigning Professional Writing Courses to Meet the Communication Needs of Writers in Business and Industry, Language for Men and Affairs, and Business Writing: A Foolproof System for Getting Started. I also made this conclusion from reading articles from places such as University of Oregon, Harvard Business Review, and Instructional Solutions.
There are many aspects of communication that do go into business. It is still about selling yourself and your product to the customers, but there is still much writing that is involved. Writing business proposals to clients and sending them emails to create a relationship with them is another large aspect of it. Business writing is unlike many types of writings for many reasons.
Non-Academic Writing
There are many aspects that go into non-academic writing in business that is critical to closing a business deal and creating a relationship with the client. Examples of non-academic writing includes emails and letters. While these many not seem that important, they can make or break deals depending on the information and the amount of professionalism that it contains.
Structure
There are many ways to structure non-academic writing in business. For example, writing emails to clients, writing meeting topics, and writing to the rest of the company or your team are going to be structured in different ways because of the audience they are writing to. They are writing that does not contain research or much information, but they are critical to completing projects.
Writing emails to clients is not something that used to be done. With booming technology changes however, it is now the norm. It is no longer sending letters, phone tag to try to catch them at the right time, or in person meetings. Sending emails is a great way to communicate with clients and allow them to read and hold onto the information that needs to be given to them at that time. The structure of this email needs to contain an intro, multiple body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The reason for the email is to tell the client something. An article from the Research Guide titled, Formal Business Letter Format, it states, “As you write your letter, remember to keep it simple and to the point so that the recipient understands your intent” (under body of a business letter). Writing a professional email will make a good impression and understanding that there is respect with them. Organizing that email will allow it to make it easy for them to read and go back to if necessary, to find the information once again. If you put details of the budget in one paragraph, they can easily look at that information and understand it better than if it was combined with many more unrelated details. It is also important to structure it as short and to the point as possible to not lose the reader while trying to give them critical information.
Writing information for a meeting is not something that needs to be done professionally. Like in college lectures, the notes are almost given as a guideline that is followed during the meetings. There are shortened points that hit what the meeting will cover, but they never give out all the information that is being talked about. It is not written in a professional way because it is usually given from the boss to the people below them. They share a respect for one another, but it does not need to share the same respect and proper writing that one would have with clients.
The same thing that is said about writing minutes can be said for writing most emails to other people in the company as well. In the business world, the people that others communicate with the most are the others that are in their group. A business is filled with many types of people that are all in charge of getting one job done. Communicating ideas by email to other people in the group is a normal structured email. However, when communicating with people above the job position, it is important to maintain the same guidelines that one would have with the client.
Language
Language in writing refers to the words used in order to get the message across to the reader. It is what allows someone to read the information given and understand it. In business there are many aspects that go into what someone has to say. There’s always more information that can be talked about. The thing about however, is that most of that long information is talked about in person in meetings. The non-academic writing such as emails is done so that the purpose is crystal clear. An article from “Instructional Solutions” teaches how to write professional business emails in the correct way in order to be effective. They say, “Each email should only cover one specific item, task, or request. Covering multiple actions in one email can cause confusion and inefficiency” (paragraph 14). In business, when communicating on an email, the purpose of that email tends to be for the client. It is important to use language that is very professional to maintain a respect with them, but it also needs to be to the point. No long and hard words are necessary to communicate the message that needs to be said.
The same can be said for writing emails to the people in the same workspace. The language will change with fellow workers and with clients. Clients are the ones that make or break a business deal. It is important to write in a respectful and appropriate tone when speaking to them. It is also important to write like that when speaking to someone in a position above you. If speaking to someone in your team, it is acceptable to use a more relaxed tone while remaining professional.
Every part of language in business is about being to the point. There is no need in non-academic writing for there to be many details and extra words thrown in to make it longer. With the economy and advertisements always changing, the jobs need to be done quickly and efficiently; making sure everything is to the point cut and clean. When writing notes for meetings, the language will be short and concise with little words on them. They should summarize the information, but never go on in detail. The less unnecessary information in non-academic business writing the better. It is all about “cutting the fat” out. University of Oregon wrote an article about that. Non-academic writing in business is about stating the purpose and getting the point across in an effective and professional way. They state, “Therefore, writing within non-academic, business contexts can be best described as ‘transactional’ or as ‘writing to do.’” This means writing for a purpose. The language written needs to have a clear purpose. There cannot be anything that will distract from the message. It needs to be as clear and easy to read as possible.
Academic Writing
Academic writing is the main type of writing that is used in business. It consists of the many aspects of business that all go into one. It is much different however from the types of write ups that are used in technical writing. In a book called College Composition and Communication, the authors compare three types of writing by saying what goes into the write ups in academic writing and how they are different and similar. Talking about how they are different it states, “Types of reports that are covered are exemplified by model reports about personnel, sales, or marketing topics, never about the economic analysis of engineering projects” (420). Items like model reports and personnel, sales, and marketing topics are all things that go into academic writing in business. These are some of them items that are added into a proposal to give to clients during a presentation.
Since most of the information given out in presentations, usually there is some type of write up that is given out and used to follow along with the information given. Linda Hansen talked about this in her interview. She describes what writing in her field of business (marketing) was like. Talking about how the only writing used on a day to day basis was writing emails to clients and writing the proposals to give to them. She says, “If they wanted to increase awareness it would be a campaign, we would create on how to do that. As a team we would brainstorm all our ideas with the time and budget given and then get to writing what we came up with.” The academic writing is done through campaigns created for the client and with a team. The team allows each of the types of people to come in with their ideas to make it a fluid and complete process.
Structure
Business writing is not the writing that most people are used to right out of college. The purpose and effectiveness or the writing needs to change in order to be effective. That is something that the Harvard Business Review talks about. That when writing in high school and even college, the structure of writing is often compared to as a hamburger. That the bun is the introduction then the meat and then more analysis of what the middle part said. This allows lots of words and explanation to what the writer is talking about. In business, that is not needed. It needs to be structed based on what you want the reader to hear making sure it is straight to the point. The Harvard Business Review explains, “Make your point right up front. Many people find that the writing style and structure they developed in school doesn’t work as well in the business world. ‘One of the greatest diseases of business writing is postponing the message to the middle part of the reading,’ says Garner,” (paragraph 4). The point of writing a campaign is to tell the client exactly what you are going to do to solve the problem they came with. That is what should be said at the beginning. It should start with the objective of what was thought of to be the solution and then later break it down to the budget, advertisements, and much more.
The structure of each campaign is the same. That is why in many companies, they use a template. In places like Linda Hansen’s workplace, someone would create a template for the campaign and then the team would fill it out differently for each company that came in. Linda explains, “Because we spend a lot of time dealing with different accounts there was a job in my company for someone to make templates. Everyone used the same template of the proposal to give to the client, but the information would change between them.” In order to make sure the structure of the proposal for each account was correct and effective, there was someone that drew the blueprint for the information. The structure was taken care of for Linda Hansen, it was the language that she had to fill in.
Language
The language one uses in academic writing in business is what can make or break a deal. It is important that the word choice and the way it comes across is used in a professional and well written way. The language used to write in isn’t something that is taught in school, as the book, Language for Men of Affairs: Vol 1, Talking Business/Business Writing, explains. This book reviews other books that talk about how to write in business and what that is like. They state, “It is rather difficult to classify the books in a phrase, but it is fairly safe to say that they combine a fascinating study of the philosophy and psychology of the English language as applied to business proposals with a well arranged guide to the best usage and style in business,” (236). After reviewing a book written about writing in business, they summarize the types of writing that the book states go into business. Unlike writing in engineering or science, there isn’t just one thing going into this type of writing. It needs to be written correctly in a clean format, it needs to contain the business information that is used to solve the client’s problem, and it needs to be able to get into the readers head and create a bond with them. It is the difference between completing the sale or not.
Academic writing in business is professional. It is written to the client, has proper grammar and punctuational, is filled with information, but it is also conversational. Business is all about conversations with someone. How well you connect and converse with someone is how ideas are shared and given to the client. When writing, it is important to use words that don’t scare the reader away. According to a book called, Business Writing; A Foolproof System for Getting Started, using more simple words is a key factor in academic writing. They share, “People like to read things they can comprehend quickly and easily. To help readers understand what you’re saying, use plain language” (page 89). Business proposals are not anything like essays. There should be no complex and hard to understand language used. The client should be able to read the proposal and understand exactly what is trying to be said, and that is done with conversational language. Using anything other than this will distract the reader from the main point of the proposal.
While academic writing in business may not seem academic like at all, it is still going to professionals. Academic writing in business, like stated before, is about getting the message across clearly with as much plain writing as possible. Just because it doesn’t need to be complex does not mean that it does not need to be professional. It should still be structured, written properly, and well. The way that is recommended to make sure this happens is to have someone edit the writing. That is what the book, Technical Communication, talks about. When writing in business, it is not typically one person in charge of the entire thing. Like Linda Hansen says, “there are many people working together at once to finish the project.” There are many people that complete the writing together, and it is important they look over each other's work. They book says,
“Every word or sentence is not subject to evaluation; rather a team of employees, ‘in this together,’ tries to get a job done in the most effective way. Managers obviously must be concerned about the final product, since the outgoing document reflects the organization as a business. As a result, the organization must find potential weakness early, before a document leaves the organization” (339).
It is important that every business proposal and write up is checked over by everyone in the team. It needs to be edited and checked for mistakes since it is going to be given to clients. While the language isn’t the most formal, it does not mean there is room for mistakes. There is still a deal on the line every single time.
Conclusion
After reading all these sources, business writing is unlike any other type of writing in both academic and non-academic. It must be professional while still being conversational, detailed but concise and to the point, and so much more. There are so many details and parts of business that go into coming up with these writing ideas. Writing emails are crucial to maintain a relationship with the clients and asking questions, and the proposals are what can turn a potential client into a real one. I learned that business is still about a lot of communication and presentations, but it is the details in the writing throughout that play a large role as well.
References
Beck, C. (1995). Every Writer Needs an Editor: A Paradigm for Writing in Business, Industry, and Education. Technical Communication,42(2), 335-339. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/stable/43087909
Formal Business Letter Format: Non-academic writing- A Research Guide. (2017). A Research Guide for Students. Retrieved 21 September 2019, from https://www.aresearchguide.com/formal-business-letter-format.html
Off Campus Access- The University of Iowa Libraries. (2019). Search.proquest.com. Retrieved 22 September 2019, from https://search.proquest.com/docview/198255015/fulltextPDF/8B28056A22F94063PQ/1?accountid=14663
Tebeaux, E. (1985). Redesigning Professional Writing Courses to Meet the Communication Needs of Writers in Business and Industry. College Composition and Communication,36(4), 419-428. doi:10.2307/357861
