Plain Style: Techniques for Simple, Concise, Emphatic Business Writing

By Richard Lauchman

Good writing is good business. Simple, straightforward writing saves time, creates good relationships, and prevents expensive misunderstandings. But why is it so hard to achieve? This incisive guide suggests ways to think about writing -- what it should look and sound like, as well as what it should accomplish -- that can simplify how writers choose to express their ideas. It examines the reasons why many businesspeople with good skills tend to write strange, needlessly complicated sentences -- and shows them how to break the habit. Plain Style offers 35 practical techniques that foster simplicity, conciseness, and emphasis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Oct 22, 1993
• ISBN: 9780814424292

Richard Lauchman

RICHARD LAUCHMAN through his company The Lauchman Group, has been training professionals, in the area of writing, for over 25 years.

Book preview

PART ONE

The

Practical

Writer

The Problem With Style

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.

—Humpty Dumpty, in Through the Looking Glass

Mr. Dumpty would find style to his liking. The word has been used so promiscuously that it now signifies nearly every aspect of writing—and when a person uses it, you can never be sure what he’s talking about.

Style can mean whatever you want it to mean. Customer Service Departments give employees style sheets that suggest phrases to be used and phrases to be avoided (so certain phrases must be part of style). Most style sheets indicate the preferred format and typeface to be used as well (so format and typeface must be part of style). Corporations and government agencies distribute style guides that dictate the use of numbers, hyphens, capitalization, and just about any other aspect of standard usage you can imagine (so standard English must be part of style). The Chicago Manual of Style covers punctuation, grammar, and mechanics, so these must be part of style as well.

Style surely covers convention, too. The great majority of style guides feel an almost evangelical call to remind us, for example, not to split infinitives. A major telecommunications company’s Proposal Preparation Guide puts the matter this way:

A split infinitive occurs when an adverb appears between to and the infinitive it governs. NEVER USE SPLIT INFINITIVES!!!

Style can apply to spelling, as some authorities insist that cancelling, travelling, and focussing are correct style, while others prefer canceling, traveling, and focusing. Some newspapers have dropped the letters ue from words like demagogue, catalogue, and dialogue; The Washington Post dropped the final e from employee (employe was their style of spelling) and then, in response to a surprising amount of mail, put it back on.

Style covers everything from abbreviations to symbols. Nothing is sacrosanct; no aspect of writing escapes. Style reaches out and lays its clammy fingers even on the number of a noun! A Fortune 100 company’s Editorial Style Manual claims, for example, that personnel is singular. An example of its correct use—the example in the style guide—is this:

All personnel is required to report to work by 8:30 A.M.

In my word processing software, style doesn’t refer to any of these; it refers, instead, to my options of italicizing, underscoring, boldfacing, subscripting, or doing a number of other things to make the words stand out. So graphics must be part of style.

What isn’t style? And how useful is a word that encompasses phrasing, format, typeface, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviations, the use of numbers, the use of hyphens, the meanings of words, the correctness of words, the spellings of words, whether you split an infinitive, whether you use personal pronouns, all of the above, none of the above, some of the above? When you say style, it means just what you choose it to mean—neither more nor