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For some reason, questions of writing style and correctness bring out people'smost mule-headed private opinions. A boss who doesn't know anything aboutcalculus or linear programming would never think of overruling a subordinate onone of those subjects. But just let that same subordinate do something contraryto what the boss's ignorant sixth-grade teacher said—some asinine ruleabout not ending a sentence with a preposition or not starting one withand or because—and the boss will pounce with fangs bared.Such a situation is much more political than it is intellectual, and the moralto be drawn from it is that if somebody is paying your salary, you should writethe way that person wants. Writing is far less often "right" or "wrong" than itis "appropriate" or "inappropriate." Obviously, if you write in a way thatirritates your boss, you're writing inappropriately.This manual sets forth some reasonable suggestions about decent businesswriting—suggestions you might want to follow if you haven't been given anyspecific rules to govern the particular task you're doing. Everything that issaid here, however, should be considered subject to being overruled by anyspecial requirements you have been given for a particular assignment.Just to make sure it's clear, let's say it one more time, a different way: Forthe love of mud, whatever you do, don't go wave this book in your boss's faceand shout, "See? You're wrong!" When your boss tells you one thing and the booktells you something different, do what your boss says.WHAT BUSINESS WRITING ISN'T AND ISBusiness writing isn't a different language with a separate set of words andphrases. In receipt of, as per your request, beg to acknowledge, andplease be advised are relics of the past. They aren't used anymore, orshouldn't be anyway.Business writing also isn't dull and stereotyped. Bad writing is dull; goodwriting is interesting. These statements are true for all writing, business orany other kind. If you are interested in a subject but find the report dull,something's wrong with the way the report is written.Business writing is just like any other writing except more efficient. Whereassome kinds of writing aim at being dreamy, witty, entertaining, spooky,outrageous, shocking, or sexy, when you're doing the kind of writing beingdescribed here you have only one aim: to persuade your reader, as efficiently aspossible, of the validity of your thesis.Think for a minute about who your audience is, and you'll understand the reasonfor insisting on efficiency. Businesspeople are intelligent, suspicious, andbusy. So when you write for them you have to be factual, persuasive, andefficient: factual because they are too intelligent to be fooled by vaguenessand bluffing; persuasive because you have to overcome the suspicion that alwaysaccompanies money matters; and efficient because you'll lose your reader if youwaste time.A few pages from now (page 9, to be exact) you will encounter adescription of the thesis-and-subheaded-structured-segments organization, thestandard pattern for organizing business reports. Even before you get there,however, you might do well to think for a moment about the whole reason fororganizing a business report differently from the way you organize a magazinearticle, a novel, or an advertisement. Try this explanation:The people who assigned you the report did so because they didn't have time todo the work themselves. They asked you the questions, and now they want theanswers. The answers are, therefore, the most important things in your report,and you must organize your whole report around those answers and wave them inyour readers' faces. State the answers at the beginning; elaborate on them oneby one in the rest of the report; include only things that pertain to theseanswers; and be sure that the pertinence is always clear. Reread this paragraph.Or, to be still more specific, don't say anything that isn't part of the answerto the question you were asked. Don't restate the problem, or announce that youhave finished researching it, or summarize the background, or spend timedefining terms, or tell about how you made your calculations or classified yourevidence. Just answer the bleeding question, starting at the very verybeginning. You may reread this paragraph too.To put it still another way, don't say something unless you're making some pointby saying it. If, for instance, there's nothing in the company's history thathas any relevance to the problem, then in the name of good sense don't go intothe company's history. On the other hand, if the company's problems are partlytraceable to the fact that it has always been family owned, then by all means dotell the history—making sure, every moment, that the point of your tellingit is clear.Help your reader every way you can. Be certain that the point of each paragraphis clear. After you've finished writing, go back and check each one of them tosee if you can state its point in a quick phrase and to see if each of thesephrases fits in with the thesis. Even if the report is short, use subheadingsnot merely (1) to demarcate the segments but more importantly (2) to let thereaders know what they're getting ready to read. And remember to include in yourreport only what your first paragraph promised. Never, for even a moment, letout of your sight the purpose of a business report: to convince your reader, asefficiently as possible, of the validity of your thesis. (More, as noted before,starting on page 9.)UNDERSTANDING THE ASSIGNMENTBefore starting to answer the question, you've got to know what the question is.A sizable portion of business writing troubles can be traced to a failure toidentify the assignment correctly. For example, although asked what to do abouta problem, an incompetent report writer might waste the entire report tellinginstead how the problem occurred, which isn't the same thing at all. As aresult, the reader has to suffer through the whole tedious report without everfinding out the answer to the question. Likewise if the boss asks a supervisorto recommend for or against promotion of an employee, but the supervisor insteadspends the whole report recounting the employee's work history and never getsaround to the yes-or-no recommendation, the boss will be furious—andshould be, too, because it's a bad report.The importance of this point can't be overstated: if you don't get theassignment right, if you don't answer the right question, then no amount of"good writing" or "extensive research" or "penetrating analysis" can salvageyour report. You're fired.Try writing out the specific question that you think your report is supposed toanswer. That way, if you don't have a clear enough picture of the assignment,you'll quickly sense there's a problem. Be especially wary when yourinstructions contain words like "look into" or "analyze" or "see what you canfind out about," because you need to know something more specific than just thatto do a good job.