Intelligent business style guide pdf

They need to know essential career skills, like presenting and summarising. On top of this, they need to learn useful business English. Before you write off your lunch break for the next 12 weeks as extra planning time, take a look at the Intelligent Business Course Book.

The Course Book assumes that students have a limited prior knowledge of the business world, so it teaches business concepts and skills as well as business English. Have a question about government services? Skip to main content Official websites use. In this page Other Writing Resources. Plain Language. Federal Communicators Network. Open Opportunities. The Guide to the Paperwork Reduction Act. However, business communication should never be too informal and should always be polite and courteous.

Never assume the other person has all the background information necessary to understand your message. Think about what details you need to put into your communication to help them understand and act upon it. When you write Whether you are writing a full, formal report or a memo to your colleagues, it is generally agreed that the following Points should be respected: 7 «Be brief, clear and concise. Use simple words and phrases and keep sentences short.

Don't write: If there are any points on which you require explanation or further particulars, we shall be glad to furnish such additional details as may be required by telephone. Write: Hf you have any questions, please ring. Your reader may not understand. Don't write: Tm on a roll here. Write: The trip has heen successful so far. It is better to use them only in the opening. It is a good idea to read it aloud to see if it is communicative and easy to read.

If you have a clear idea of this, it will help to make your writing coherent, Make notes of all of your ideas and then organise these into topic areas.

Each topic area should consist of one of your main ideas and may also include a number of secondary points that you can develop. Draw up a plan for each topic area and start to think of the order in which you want to present them. The order will depend on how the topic areas relate to each other and on how you wish to develop your message.

Each topic area and any related secondary points will usually form a paragraph. Moving on to a new paragraph shows your readers that you are focusing on a new topic area. The paragraphs themselves can be organised in different ways: you may want to present the information chronologically or you may prefer to present points in order of importance.

Alternatively, you may wish to balance negative and positive points or compare and contrast different ideas. You can now give your full attention to the language that you are going to use. Prepare a first draft of the complete document and then read through it to see which sections need to be improved or rewritten.

Final draft Before you present the final draft of your text, you should read it through several times, eliminating repetitions and changing ambiguous phrasing. You can also make long sentences shorter or connect short sentences together. When you are happy with the wording of your final document, you should do a final check for any spelling and punctuation mistakes that you may have overlooked.

Notice how in the final draft, sentences and wordings have been changed and linking expressions and paragraphs have been tsed. Useful phrases and notations J expressions Using the right linking expressions will allow you to connect your sentences and your paragraphs together smoothly and will show your reader how your message fits together.

Use linking expressions to show contrast: However On the other hand In addition To sum up. To conclude As a result Performance: Products complete, processes incomplete First draft Our Environmental Action Plan was launched two years ago to respond to changes in our industry. The investment community needed more information and tighter regulation and controls eco labels were being introduced in markets.

The plan was in three phases: the evaluation of our products, and processes, recommendations for changes and implementation. These are now complete for products, where we have improved sustainability by eliminating some production materials.

For processes, our goal to introduce guidelines and procedures for the group's activities worldwide has not yet been achieved. But we have introduced standard supplier and logistics management processes and made substantial savings. We are proud of what we have achieved and hope to complete the plan next year.

This wil enhance our reputation as a business which can meet environmental challenges. Both our customers and the investment community were requesting more information about the environmental impact of our products.

On the product side, this is now complete and we have reduced the number of production materials, thus making our products more sustainable. However, for business processes, we have not yet completed the introduction of group-wide policies athough we have successfully implemented standard supplier and logistics management processes and made substantial savings. Very often when sentences or texts are difficult to read or do not seem to make sense, it is because they contain errors in punctuation.

The full stop, or period US Eng , marks the end of a sentence: The firms expect Brussels to approve the deal within three weeks.