Business Writing

When Should I Use Ellipses? Never.

Yesterday I led a business writing class for a group of sales managers and other sales professionals near Portland, Oregon. As in other classes, these questions came up: "What about dot dot dot? When should I use that?" The answer: Never. Well, almost never. These days business messages are filled... Read more →

Does "Free" Work in an Email Subject Line?

Last week in my monthly e-newsletter, I listed a few email subject lines and asked subscribers to identify which ones answered the question "So what?" for readers. Here are the first five subjects: February Insider Potatoes Free Infoline Attached The Secret to "On Time and Under Budget" Essay Contest! Opportunity... Read more →

Don't Make This Mistake in Your Marketing Messages!

A friend sent me an example of a marketing message that bombed. Here is how the email started: Subject: directed me to you Liz, I was recently in contact with , who referred me to you. suggested that you would be in charge of evaluating a web conferencing service that... Read more →

A Gentle Way to Point Out a Mistake

Over the weekend a reader Susan from Queensland, Australia, let me know about a mistake I had made on my most recent blog post. Here is Susan's email message: Hi, Lynn. I just visited your fabulous business writing blog and noticed a minor typo. As a professional writer, I thought... Read more →

Words to Capitalize in Titles and Headings

Lately I have been seeing a lot of odd capitalization in titles, headings on websites, and subject lines. So I would like to be helpful and provide some easy rules. Here is what to capitalize: All words of four or more letters, no matter what or where the words are... Read more →

When "Customer Service" Letters Undercut Bankers

To whoever writes the customer letters for "Deposit Operations" at our large bank: Please stop writing letters that contain: Requests for documentation without saying what the necessary documentation is (especially when the customer has already provided documentation). 24/7 phone numbers to call, at which the service representatives do not know... Read more →

Don't Work So Hard Taking Meeting Minutes

Last week I taught Meeting Notes Made Easy online. One attendee named Rhett said his biggest challenge in taking meeting minutes was facilitating the meeting and taking notes at the same time. To Rhett and everyone else I say, "Don't work so hard!" The meeting facilitator should not be the... Read more →

Noisy vs. Energetic: The Language of Reviews

I received a survey request for my feedback on a restaurant, and I noticed the categories I could pick from regarding the noise level: Quiet . . . Moderate . . . Energetic Did you notice the absence of the word noisy? I spotted it right away because I had... Read more →