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Archive for February, 2010

May or might?

Posted by Rob Ashton

When is it right to use may and when to use might?

Opinions vary, depending on what you read. Here are a few guidelines culled from the Economist Style Guide and the Oxford Guide to English Usage.

1. If the truth of the event is unknown, then may or might are interchangeable.

• I may/might go home early

• if I go home early, I may/might have to come in early tomorrow

• he may/might have come home early.

2. If you are stating a certainty, use may.

• I may be a linguist, but I don’t speak German.

3. If the event never actually happened, or you are stating something contrary to fact, use might.

• If I had come in earlier, my whole life might have been different

• if I had wings, I might get to work more quickly.

4. Use might when following a conditional subjunctive.

• If I were to go home early, I might have to come in early tomorrow.

If you have any questions about writing skills, you too can pose them on our forum.

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Posted February 26th, 2010 in Grammar | No Comments »

Reader-profile questionnaire

Posted by Catie Holdridge

That business writing should be centred on the reader’s needs is not exactly earth-shattering news. But putting this maxim into practice is a different matter altogether.

Reader-centred writing

If you’re like most people, you’re much more likely to be focused on your own needs – such as impressing your manager or getting the task of writing a report off your to-do list – than on those of your audience. So you need to take definitive action to switch yourself out of this default position.

Nor is it enough to identify the areas of the subject that are going to be most useful to the reader(s). You also need to gauge their likely level of interest. And, of course, if they have very little interest in the subject, you will need to work extra hard to grab and keep their attention.

You can find out more about grabbing and keeping attention on our courses. But for now, you can download our free reader-profile questionnaire to help you focus on the needs of your audience.

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Posted February 17th, 2010 in PDF downloads | No Comments »

Executive summaries

Posted by Catie Holdridge

No matter how well structured and well written your report is, some clients will feel they only have time to read the executive summary – and this is particularly true for senior management. So it is absolutely essential that you put a lot of thought into its structure and content:

* Make sure the summary can stand alone and that it contains real information, including hard facts and figures.

* If your report includes recommendations, make it clear what these are and include their implications, values and costs (if applicable).

* Stick to a maximum of two pages.

* Use headings and bullets (but not too many), and perhaps a carefully selected graph or pie chart, to get your main message across.

Back to High-impact business writing course.

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Posted February 12th, 2010 in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Power to the people

Posted by Rob Ashton

People power counts for a lot in writing. ‘One in a hundred people’ is likely to produce a much bigger reaction from readers of your reports than ‘one per cent’, even though they obviously mean the same thing.

Before you dismiss this as another example of general ignorance, you should know that experts are not immune to this effect. One study showed that it could trip up forensic psychiatrists, for example. They were twice as likely to refuse to release a patient if they were told that ’20 out of 100′ were likely to be violent after release than if they were told that there was a ’20 per cent chance’ of this happening.

One individual’s story is likely to override even the most powerful numerical evidence – at least if you’re writing for the general public. And even if you’re not, mentioning people (‘lawyers’, for example) rather than groups (‘the legal profession’) will give your writing much more impact.

Charities know this when they use heart-rending case studies to get your support for their causes. And governments know this when they use the term ‘collateral damage’ to play down accidental loss of life (by avoiding mentioning people at all).

You can use ‘people power’ to make your writing more effective. If you leave people out, you will almost certainly reduce its impact. Which do you want to do?

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Posted February 5th, 2010 in Choose your words wisely | No Comments »

Making Words Work