Chapter 6 - Revising Business Messages

Chapter 6 - Revising Business Messages

Revising for conciseness

a.Eliminating flabby expression

Flabby expression is extra words that make your writing seems unclear, weak, rambling, and unstructured. It often contains overused words which seem meaningless to the reader.

It is required to eliminate the unnecessary words in order to make your writing reach a higher level.

b.Limiting Long Lead-Ins

This means you need to delete unnecessary introductory words.

c.Dropping unnecessary there is/ are and it is/ was fillers

d.Rejecting Redundancies

Redundancies are expressions with repeating meaning or including unnecessary words (redundant. For example,  the word unexpected surprise can be changed into surprise because unexpected carries the same meaning as surprise.

e.Purging empty words

Empty words and phrases: case, degree, the fact, factor, instance, nature and quality.

Revising for clarity

1. KISS

KISS stands for Keep It Short and Simple. KISS formula is using active-voice sentences that avoid indirect, pompous language.

2.Cliches and Slang

Cliches are expressions, words, and phrases which are overused. For example, you say “below the belt” instead of “last but least”.

3.Unburying Verbs

(buried)Conduct a discussion of - Discuss (Unburied)

(buried)Create a reduction of - reduce (Unburied)

(buried)Give consideration to - consider (Unburied)

(buried)Make an assumption of - Assume (Unburied)