While many overseas companies excel at written communications many domestic companies are allowing their written communication standards to fall short. The laxness at maintaining high standards of written communication by domestic companies can be attributed to the following two reasons. Reason one is because most native school systems no longer put strong emphasis on teaching proper English grammar anymore. Reason two is because of the proliferation of email as a preferred method of business communication and people tend to be more lax in their writing when using it.
Why exactly overseas companies are better at formal business writing has still not been completely addressed. Exactly how do these overseas companies manage to have almost perfect structure etiquette in their business communications? The true answer to this question isn’t mysterious or complex by any stretch of the imagination. The letters which originate from overseas are most likely composed by someone whose native language is not English; they had to spend significant time and effort on grammar to learn English as a second language. In fact, many people at overseas companies often are in shock that a business communication from a company that is located in a native English country is so poorly written and constructed.
One of the biggest mistakes most modern companies commit is their reliance on over familiarity. It’s quite easy for a deal that has been negotiated for months verbally to be lost because of a poorly written business letter. For example, if Fred has been speaking to and negotiating with Francisco over the course of several months, if Fred feels too over familiar and addresses a letter to him trying to be humorous “Dear Paco” this can have disastrous consequences. While something this obvious should be common sense more and more companies are starting to realize that they shouldn’t let just anyone be responsible for writing their official business letters.
What else can a business writing class help with? Business letters and pro-forma applications need to be set out in such a way that there is no ambiguity in either the words used or the phraseology. Although you might be dealing with a domestic company, it is possible that words could be used that have different meanings or connotations.
One very famous incident that could have turned out very differently was the use of the word ‘wicked’ in a letter from one young executive to another. Although the phrase ‘Thomas you are so wicked’ was meant to be high praise, Thomas did not understand. Hardly surprising, I suppose, but a good business writing course would certainly warn against the use of colloquialisms.
Any quality business writing course would encourage the students to refrain from using words which can have multiple and ambiguous meanings. If clear and concise English is used consistently than a lot of unnecessary and excessive communications could be drastically reduced. If the message is clearly stated there will be no misunderstanding and no further communication will be needed for clarification.
One holdover that still rears its head even in business communications is the use of the terms “ult” and “inst” when referring to dates. It can be very confusing to interpret what the meaning of a written correspondence that says “I received it 6th ult.” It is much simpler to say “I received your letter dated 6th May, thank you very much.” Something like this should be addressed by a quality business writing course.
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