Business Writing For Dummies

Learn how to write for the results you want every time, in every medium!

Do you wish you could write better? In today's business world, good writing is key to success in just about every endeavor. Writing is how you connect with colleagues, supervisors, clients, partners, employees, and people you've never met. No wonder strong writers win the jobs, promotions and contracts. Business Writing For Dummies shows you, from the ground up, how to create persuasive messages with the right content and language every time--messages your readers will understand and act on.

This friendly guide equips you with a step-by-step method for planning what to say and how to say it in writing. This sytem empowers you to handle every writing challenge with confidence, from emails to proposals, reports to resumes, presentations to video scripts, blogs to social posts, websites to books. Discover down-to-earth techniques for sharpening your language and correcting your own writing problems. Learn how to adapt content, tone and style for each medium and audience. And learn to use every message you write to build better relationships and solve problems, while getting to the "yes" you want.

Whether you're aiming to land your first job or are an experienced specialist in your field, Business Writing For Dummies helps you build your communication confidence and stand out.

• Present yourself with authority and credibility

• Understand and use the tools of persuasion

• Communicate as a remote worker, freelancer, consultant or entrepreneur

• Strategize your online presence to support your goals

• Bring out the best in people and foster team spirit as a leader

• Prepare to ace interviews, pitches and confrontations

Good communication skills, particularly writing, are in high demand across all industries. Use this book to gain the edge you need to promote your own success, now and down the line as your career goals evolve.

Auteur

Natalie Canavor's career spans national magazine editing, journalism, corporate communications and public relations. Her writing for business media, professional audiences and The New York Times have won dozens of national and international awards. She has taught advanced writing seminars for NYU and conducts frequent workshops.

Texte du rabat

• Write for the right audience
• Craft the perfect message
• Inform, persuade and stand out
  
  Make business writing your superpower!

Whether you're looking for your next job or promotion, or you're a new or future entrepreneur or freelancer, strategic writing can be the key to achieving your goals. This friendly guide shows you how to understand your audiences and create messages that win the "yes" you want. You'll learn an easy structure for determining what to say and how to say it that works for every email, proposal, blog, resume, letter, report, website, social post, presentation and video. Plus, discover commonsense techniques for handling technical challenges and improving your own writing.

Inside...

• Learn to plan what you'll say
• Catch and keep reader interest
• Create the right content
• Use language that gets results
• Adapt to each platform
• Write for remote work
• Fix your own writing problems
• Handle challenging messages

Résumé

Learn how to write for the results you want every time, in every medium!

Do you wish you could write better? In today's business world, good writing is key to success in just about every endeavor. Writing is how you connect with colleagues, supervisors, clients, partners, employees, and people you've never met. No wonder strong writers win the jobs, promotions and contracts. Business Writing For Dummies shows you, from the ground up, how to create persuasive messages with the right content and language every timemessages your readers will understand and act on.

This friendly guide equips you with a step-by-step method for planning what to say and how to say it in writing. This sytem empowers you to handle every writing challenge with confidence, from emails to proposals, reports to resumes, presentations to video scripts, blogs to social posts, websites to books. Discover down-to-earth techniques for sharpening your language and correcting your own writing problems. Learn how to adapt content, tone and style for each medium and audience. And learn to use every message you write to build better relationships and solve problems, while getting to the yes you want.

Whether you're aiming to land your first job or are an experienced specialist in your field, Business Writing For Dummies helps you build your communication confidence and stand out.

• Present yourself with authority and credibility
• Understand and use the tools of persuasion
• Communicate as a remote worker, freelancer, consultant or entrepreneur
• Strategize your online presence to support your goals
• Bring out the best in people and foster team spirit as a leader
• Prepare to ace interviews, pitches and confrontations
  Good communication skills, particularly writing, are in high demand across all industries. Use this book to gain the edge you need to promote your own success, now and down the line as your career goals evolve.

Contenu

Introduction 1

About This Book 3

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 4

Beyond the Book 5

Where to Go from Here 5

Part 1: Winning with Writing 7

Chapter 1: Making Writing Your Weapon for Success 9

Putting Strategic Writing to Work for You 10

Planning and Structuring Every Message 13

Applying the Goal-Plus-Audience Strategy to More Media 18

Succeeding with email, letters and business documents 18

Writing to present yourself powerfully 19

Writing online: From websites to blogs to tweets 19

Leveraging your writing skills 20

Remembering to think globally 20

Chapter 2: Planning Your Message Every Time 23

Adopting the Plan-Draft-Edit Principle 24

Fine-Tuning Your Plan: Your Goals and Audience 25

Defining your goal 25

Defining your audience 27

Brainstorming the best content for your purpose 33

Writing to groups and strangers 36

Imagining your readers 36

Making People Care 38

Connecting instantly with your reader 38

Focusing on what's-in-it-for-me 39

Persuading with benefits, not features 40

Finding the concrete, limiting the abstract 41

Choosing Your Written Voice: Tone 43

Sound positive, never negative 44

Align tone with the occasion, relationship and culture 45

Writing as your authentic self 46

Using Relationship-Building Techniques 48

Showing active caring and respect 48

Personalizing what you write 49

Framing messages with you not I 50

Chapter 3: Making Your Writing Work: The Basics 53

Stepping into Twenty-First-Century Writing Style 54

Writing to be understood 54

Applying readability guidelines 55

Finding the right rhythm 59

Achieving a conversational tone 61

Energizing Your Language 63

Relying on everyday wording 63

Choosing reader-friendly words 65

Focusing on the real and concrete 66

Finding action verbs 67

Crafting comparisons to help readers 68

Employing Reader-Friendly Graphic Techniques 70

Building in white space 71

Choosing a typeface 71

Keeping colors simple 73

Adding effective graphics 73

Breaking space up with sidebars, boxes and lists 74

Chapter 4: Self-Editing: Professional Ways to Improve Your Work 77

Changing Hats: From Writer to Editor 78

Choosing a way to edit 78

Distancing yourself from what you write 80

Reviewing the Big and Small Pictures 82

Assessing content success 82

Assessing your language 83

Avoiding telltale up-down-up inflection 85

Looking for repeat word endings 86

Pruning prepositions 89

Cutting all…