On Series by Sai Dhanak

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On writing

Business writing should be

valuable⁠

, otherwise it's just text. To be valuable, business writing has good clarity of thought, structure, and sentence mechanics.

To think well is to write well.

Logic is at the heart of good decision-making. Based on

Information Theory⁠

, one’s level of literacy is directly related to one’s level of logic and thinking ability:

Logic might be imagined to exist independent of writing—syllogisms can be spoken as well as written—but it did not. Speech is too fleeting to allow for analysis. Logic descended from the written word, in Greece as well as India and China, where it developed independently. Logic turns the act of abstraction into a tool for determining what is true and what is false: truth can be discovered in words alone, apart from concrete experience. Logic takes its form in chains: sequences whose members connect one to another. Conclusions follow from premises. These require a degree of constancy. They have no power unless people can examine and evaluate them. In contrast, an oral narrative proceeds by accretion, the words passing by in a line of parade past the viewing stand, briefly present and then gone, interacting with one another via memory and association. – James Gleick, The Information

Who will read it and when.

Ask how much time the reader will likely have to read your document and whether they will be reading it in a dedicated time-block, between meetings, or on-the-go. This will inform the medium and length of the text. Use the tools below to adapt your document accordingly.

Start with the problem you are solving for the reader.

Begin with the most important answer to the reader’s most important question. In some cases this will require stating the problem, but not always.

Apple today introduced AirTag, a small and elegantly designed accessory that helps keep track of and find the items that matter most with Apple’s Find My app. Whether attached to a handbag, keys, backpack, or other items, AirTag taps into the vast, global Find My network1 and can help locate a lost item, all while keeping location data private and anonymous with end-to-end encryption.

Apple knows you are reading this to find out what AirTag is (problem), so the first sentence gets straight to the point.

President Biden says slowing climate change will create jobs. Tension between unions and environmentalists shows it’s not so simple.

The writer immediately identifies a potential gap (problem) in your understanding and teases where the solution will lie.

Shorter sentences deliver more points (but at the expense of emotion).

Sentences have a stress at the end. Shorter sentences require less linguistic ability and can deliver content faster with greater clarity. This is what people often refer to as ‘concise’ or ‘succinct’. Especially if the reader will be easily distracted, or is reading for enjoyment:

April labor market report⁠

underscored those concerns. Economists expected companies to hire one million people, but data released on Friday showed that they had added only 266,000, even as vaccines became widely available and state and local economies began springing back to life. Many

analysts thought labor shortages⁠

might explain the disappointment.

Longer sentences create a hierarchy with smaller points (malice, religion, care) that support the most important point (peace). This creates a narrative with a sharper and emotive single point:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Use plain language.

Less words the better. Read each sentence over until you are sure you have

distilled⁠

to the absolute minimum number of words. For business writing,

plain language⁠

beats superfluity and redundancy:

In order to → to

Take action → act

In the event of → if

Equally as → equally

Advance plan → plan

For the purpose of → to

At this point in time → now

Remove fluff:

We are an innovative, forward-thinking organization that make cutting-edge telecommunications solutions and industry-leading equipment.

We make telecommunications equipment.

Allow the narrative to stand on its own.

Anticipate follow on questions and preemptively answer them, whether it is a contextual question, technical term, or an acronym. Address counterarguments and anticipate drill-down questions.

Optimize specificity.

Use quantitative adjectives or specificity where available and avoid false precision. If possible, let the data and facts speak for themselves.

Avoid “weasel” words like “might”, “often”, “generally”, “usually”, “typically”, “probably”, “some”, “soon”, “many”, “significant”, etc.

Extreme words such as ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘obviously’, and ‘extremely’ are rarely specific or relative. Avoid using them aside from special circumstances.

Use consistent nouns and connected pronouns.

If something has multiple names, stick with one (ex: use either ‘Latch Manager Web’ or ‘Manager Web’, not both). Reference the noun in each new paragraph and see if any following pronouns can clearly be traced back to the noun. Don’t use ambiguous pronouns when there are several nouns being discussed (you don’t want your readers to ask who is “we” or “they”).

Use a consistent tone and tense.

Ensure the voice matches the audience’s expectations of tone (elevated emotion vs neutral) with consistent past, present, or future tense. Each tense can have

four functions⁠

(simple, perfect, continuous). For business writing, the simple function is usually the most succinct and to-the-point.

Ensure consistent and aesthetic formatting, structure, and adequate white space.

Ensure there is a clear narrative arc (introduction, middle, conclusion), with aesthetic formatting (font, line spacing, headers, sub-headers) and plenty of white space to create cognitive breaks.

Use PRFAQs to organize your thoughts, easily bring others up-to-speed, and identify blindspots.

Products are for people, so start with why the world should know about it. Secondly, designing and building products requires the coherent formation of multiple disciplines (research, design, engineering, marketing, financials, sales, and operations).

PRFAQs⁠

help identify things you forgot about, such as how much it costs or how to buy it. Ask what is the problem, opportunity, and the most important benefit. Ensure FAQs address all the counterarguments and ask whether a friend or family member could read this with no context and get it.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.

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