This keeps the modern day messenger from being shot all while maintaining good business relationships. With proper wording and phrasing, your communications can enhance your reputation and the reputation of your business. When right margins are “ragged”- that is, without alignment or justification- they provide more white space and improve readability.

If you want to sound professional, avoid expressions such as snarky, lousy, blowing the budget, bombed, and getting burned. You writing will sound fresher and more vigorous if you eliminate these phrases for find a more original ways to convey the idea. Another way to create concise sentences is to delete unnecessary introductory words.

One of the best ways to ensure rapid comprehension of ideas is through the use of numbered or bulleted lists. Translated into writing, this means that concise messages save reading time and, thus, money. Email correspondence frequently contains unnecessarily ornate expressions such as please find attached or pursuant to your request. Just as these expressions would sound stilted in speech, they sound stilted in written communications. Replace them with more direct, natural language, as illustrated in the table below.

Do you frequently “circle back” because you have to “wordsmith” a couple of reports? Are you unable to “deep-dive into it” because you need to “touch base” with a coworker first? If you didn’t have trouble understanding these questions, someone from your team could be guilty of poor business communication. In case that’s you, corporate jargon might get the best of your ideas.

The best way to evaluate the success of your communication is through . Find opportunities for businesses owned by women and people of color. A version of this post previously appeared onFairygodboss, the largest career business messaging exe community that helps women get the inside scoop on pay, corporate culture, benefits, and work flexibility. Founded in 2015, Fairygodboss offers company ratings, job listings, discussion boards, and career advice.

That in turn suggests that what you have written is not necessarily all that original or important. In trying to combat wordiness, many emailers head the opposite direction, using so few words that the reader can’t understand what they are trying to say. Being concise doesn’t mean using few words; it means using as few words as are needed. If you end up having a five-message exchange, spread out over two days, because your original email was too terse, you haven’t saved anyone any time.