Style Guide for Business Writing

Style guides come in many shapes and sizes, usually focused toward scientific or academic use only. However, business writing is a space occupied by many individuals that has not been given the attention it deserves. The Style Guide for Business Writing , Second Edition, is designed specifically to assist business writers in both the public and private sector, including those publishing with English as a second language; authors of academic papers; business book authors; financial journalists; and writers of reports, proposals or even just e-mail and memoranda.

This book provides a comprehensive guide to clear and precise writing that will help develop basic communication skills for the beginner, and refresh the basics for the experienced business writer. Major topics are arranged alphabetically and the cross references and index enable quick and easy access to information.

Michael C. Thomsett is a market expert, author, speaker, and coach. His many books include Stock Market Math , Candlestick Charting , The Mathematics of Options , and A Technical Approach to Trend Analysis .

Auteur

Michael C. Thomsett, Business and Investment Writer, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Contenu

A 1

A or an 1

Abbreviation 1

Abridgement 6

Abstracts 6

Accessibility 7

Acknowledgments 8

Acronyms 8

Active and passive voice 9

Adnouns 12

Afterword 12

Agreement 12

Alphabetizing 17

Annotations 21

Annualization 22

Anonymous publication 23

Anthology 23

Antonyms 24

Appendices 25

Appositives 25

Apps 26

Archive 26

Articles 27

Artwork 29

Attribution 30

B 33

Backmatter 33

Baseline 34

Bibliography 36

Blogging 37

Budgets and forecasts 37

Bullet points 39

C 41

Callouts and sidebars 41

Capitalization 41

Captions 44

Case studies 45

Casual assertions and inferences 46

Charts and Graphs 48

Circa (ca.) 57

Circular arguments 57

Citations 58

Clauses 64

Cleft sentences 65

Cliches 66

Coinage of words 73

Colloquialism 73

Compound Words 74

Conclusions 75

Copyright 76

Cross reference 77

D 81

Dangling modifiers 81

Data analysis 81

Databases 85

Data collection methods 85

Data matrices 86

Dates and times 87

Decimals, fractions, and percentages 92

Definitions 96

Denotation and connotation 98

Derivative work 99

Descriptive statistics and inference 99

Desktop publishing 100

Dictionaries 101

Double negatives 101

Dysphemism 101

E 103

Editing and proofreading 103

e.g. and i.e. 106

Electronic mail (email) 106

Electronic mail formatting guidelines 108

Emphasis 109

Empirical approach 114

Endnotes 115

et al. 115

Euphemism 116

F 117

Fact checking 117

False subjects 117

Figure of speech 118

File naming 119

Financial reports 120

Flowcharts 122

Footnotes 124

G 127

Generalizations 127

Gerunds 128

Glossary formatting 128

Graphics 129

H 131

Headings 131

Highlighting in text 132

Homonyms 135

Hyperbole 135

Hyperlinks 136

Hypothesis formulation 136

I 139

Ibid. 139

Idiom 139

Imperative sentences 140

Indexing 141

Introductions, forewords and prefaces 143

Irony 145

J, K 147

Jargon 147

L 151

Legends, titles, and labels 151

Letters 152

Lists 163

M 169

Manuscripts 169

Mathematical symbols 171

Means testing 175

Measurement strategies 175

Memos 177

Metadata 179

Metaphors 180

Money and currency 180

N 183

Nominative, objective, and possessive pronouns 183

Numerals and numbering 184

O 191

Obfuscation 191

Objective and goal statements 192

Online etiquette 194

Op. Cit. 196

Organization charts 197

Outlining 199

P 203

Paradox 203

Paragraphs 203

Parallelism 207

Parentheses and brackets 209

Participles 213

Parts of speech 213

Patents 234

Peer review 234

Photographs 235

Planning documents 236

Possessives 239

Presentations 240

Problem statement 242

Procedures manuals 243

Proposals 246

Punctuation 248

Q 269

Quotations 269

R 273

Redundancy and repetition 273

Relative clauses 274

Reports 275

Rhetorical questions 278

Rhythm in sentences 278

Roman numerals 279

Run-in quotations 280

Run-on sentences and sentence fragments 281

S 283

Salutations 283

Sampling 285

Sarcasm 286

Scaling 287

Scientific method 289

Screen shots 290

Sentences 291

Sexist writing 296

Signs and symbols 298

Similar words 299

Similes 317

Singular and plural 318

Spacing 321

Spelling 323

Statistical references 329

Style and tone 329

Suffixes 332

Summarizing 333

Superscript and subscript 334

Symbolism 335

Synonyms 336

T, U 339

Table of contents 339

Tables 340

Technical writing 341

Tenses 342

Titles 343

Trademarks 344

Transitions 345

Translations 349

V 351

Variable measurements 351

Variable relationships 351

Video best practices 352

W 355

Webinar and conference call etiquette 355

Webpage references and citation 356

Websites 356

Word processing 357

X, Y 361

X and y axes 361

Z 363

Zombie nouns 363

Index 365