It’s not always true that your readers will want to read everything you’ve written – particularly if it’s a 300-page document. Even if you’ve done all you can to break it up and make it as readable as possible, the demands of time we all face may mean they can only...

When the naturalist Charles Darwin outlined natural selection, he almost certainly didn’t have business people in mind. But his idea, that the species best suited to their environments are the ones who survive, has never been truer in the world of work....

Business-writing expert Gary Woodward explains: Why intros and endings are so important How to grab a reader's attention How to conclude effectively. Click here to listen.

For most actuaries, it’s a love of maths, statistics, probabilities and risk analysis that draws them into the profession. However, once they’ve been fully trained in these hard skills, working life throws up new challenges. If you’re a consulting...

Whether you’re setting up a new business venture or want the go-ahead for a project, there’s one essential document you need. Robert Ashton gives a step-by-step guide to writing a good business plan. There’s a memorable conversation in the famous...

Managers are failing to update their staff just when they need to most, it seems. The training manager of a blue-chip multinational was telling us recently how many managers had gone curiously quiet. It seems that their tongues (or their keyboards) have gone west...

Look out for the latest innocent-sounding financial buzz-phrase that hides some very big news indeed. This one sounds more benign than ‘sub-prime loans’. Yet its effects could be just as far reaching, if not more so. That phrase is ‘quantitative...

Your words could say more about you than you realise. New research suggests that changes in vocabulary could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease. The study by scientists at Southampton university focuses on the speeches of former UK Prime Minister Harold...

Beware the 'yawn factor’ when selling your organisation in writing. Attention spans are short and lots of clichéd customer-service terminology won’t do you any favours. Take this example from the Olympus website: Under the umbrella of Olympus Europa we in the U.K...

Start with the reader in mind Do they know much about the topic? Do they understand your jargon or acronyms? How important is this information to them? How interested are they in it? (That’s not the same thing.) Be sure of your core message before you start...

Plain language need not mean dumbing down. Clear, well-drafted advice makes things easier for clients, raising the chance that they will call on you more frequently. The moment you become overly reliant on a thesaurus or get carried away with archaic terms is the...

Corporate jargon and management buzzwords are persistent pests. We train around two thousand people a year in business-writing skills. But we've yet to meet anyone who likes phrases like 'paradigm shift' or 'blue-sky thinking'. ‘Raising the bar’ and...