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Rules of Writing: For Business Documents

The document outlines key criteria for successful business documents, including being easy to read, well structured, clear, concise, and containing reliable information. It provides tips for meeting these criteria, such as using short sentences and subheadings, including a table of contents for lengthy documents, and structuring documents with labeled sections. Graphical elements like tables and figures should also be used to augment textual information. Proper referencing is required to avoid plagiarism and establish the reliability of information. The standard of presentation should include an absence of errors, appropriate formatting of pages, headers, footers, and cover pages.

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Sónia Coelho
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42 views4 pages

Rules of Writing: For Business Documents

The document outlines key criteria for successful business documents, including being easy to read, well structured, clear, concise, and containing reliable information. It provides tips for meeting these criteria, such as using short sentences and subheadings, including a table of contents for lengthy documents, and structuring documents with labeled sections. Graphical elements like tables and figures should also be used to augment textual information. Proper referencing is required to avoid plagiarism and establish the reliability of information. The standard of presentation should include an absence of errors, appropriate formatting of pages, headers, footers, and cover pages.

Uploaded by

Sónia Coelho
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Rules of Writing

For Business Documents

Key criteria for success in writing business documents include:

 Easy to read
 Well structured
 Clear meaning
 Concise
 Reliable information, capable of being substantiated
 Does not plagiarise other people’s work
 Conforms with expected standards of presentation

See below for advice for achieving the above criteria.

Easy to read

The readability of your document will improve if you:

 Use short, well-constructed sentences. Sentences over 15 words probably should be


split into two or more sentences. In general, the longer a sentence that harder it is
for the reader to understand it.
 Use sub-headings to assist the reader to see at a glance what the document is about
 Add a table of contents if the report is lengthy. This is very helpful to the report
writer as it helps to develop the report’s structure. It is also very helpful to the
reader as it enables them to find information in the report more easily.
 Strive for economy of words as more and more words can mean less and less meaning.

Document structure

Reports should be well organised in the way they present information. You should break the
document into major sections that each have a specific purpose. Each section should have a
heading and sub-headings can be used to further break up the text.

Example sections of a report include:

 Cover page
 Contents page
 Terms of reference
 Introduction
 Findings (The information you have researched)
 Analysis and Comment (Your analysis of the information you have researched.
 Conclusion
 References

How to present information


Take a look at business reports and you will see that information is presented in a variety of
ways including tables, charts, diagrams and pictures as well as text. It really helps the reader's
understanding if textual information is augmented with graphical information.

When you are adding graphical elements the should all be labelled e.g. Figure 1, Table 1, etc.
Then you can refer to these graphical elements in the text more easily by adding "see Figure 1
on page 4" for example.

All the time you should critically review your report and judge whether what you have written
makes good sense. This is especially important when you are discussing difficult concepts. A
good practise is to get another person to read your report and comment on areas where there
is:

 Poor explanation
 Poor grammar or spelling
 Confusing terms

One aspect of report writing that some people find easy while others seem to have little idea
is creating a balance between white space and report contents. A page should not be tightly
crammed and nor should there be acres of white space. Modern word processing software allows
pictures and other graphical elements to be inserted into a page and text to "wrap around".
Some tips for optimal space usage on a page include:

 Set paragraph spacing so that there is one line (or 12 points) between paragraphs
 Set font size to between 10-12 points
 Set text wrapping to "square" for pictures and other graphical elements to enable text
to flow around the element.
 Avoid wasting paper by starting each major heading on a new page.

Reliability of information

If you are providing your own opinions in your report, try to balance them by also adding in
alternative points of view (other people’s opinions).

Avoid statements that begin with "People say..." or "Experts believe...". This lowers the
credibility and value of your report, and conveys the possibility that you have conducted
appropriate research. Your report should state which people or which experts (see plagiarism
below)!

You should take care to avoid making simple errors in presenting figures e.g. saying 73% of
people were not satisfied when you meant to say 37%.

Avoid plagiarism

You must, as a rule, properly acknowledge the sources of all your information. To use other
people’s work without acknowledgment is called plagiarism.
The method by which you should acknowledge your sources is called referencing – learn
the Harvard Referencing system.

You will need to reference your sources briefly in the main body of the report and then more
fully in a section called the Bibliography. This is mandatory! It is something you will need to
learn.

It is also recommended that you take ownership of every page by adding your name as author
in the footer of every page.

Document presentation

The standard of presentation of your document is a key criterion for success. The standard of
presentation is improved when:

 There is an absence of errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar


 The font style is easy to read and the font size is set to between 10 and 12 points
 The title of the report is added to the header
 Page numbers are added to the footer
 Your document has a well formatted cover page (but ensure you never use clip art!)
 Use colour sparingly, particularly if the report is to be photocopied in black. You can
use colour in headings. For example, headings can be in a dark blue and this makes
for a more attractive document. If you have the exertise, charts and tables can add
some colour also.

Use the spell checker but do not always accept the computer’s suggested spelling. Sometimes
the computer will suggest a completely wrong word in a spelling check.

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