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...

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...

Some sentences leave you gasping for breath. Try reading aloud this extract from the minutes of a recent meeting of West Lindsey District Council, for example: The Support Services Manager submitted Report 213 advising of progress made in respect of the key tasks...

The pressure on Barack Obama as he makes his inaugural speech later today will be almost unimaginable. As 'Dubya' dons his spurs and rides into the Texan sunset, the world will turn to the former law professor to provide hope on every issue from climate change to...

Recruiters say grammatical sloppiness is depressingly common among young job seekers – but could you do any better? By Emma-Jayne Jones and Robert Ashton Rhythm really has your two hips moving. The car was stationary. Paper is stationery. Sound like...

New research reveals that an inability or reluctance to use plain English – or to keep it short and simple (KISS) – is still the single greatest barrier to good business writing. The findings by Emphasis, who have been training business people how to write...