The A to Z of Plain Text

Category Archives: A to Z of Plain Text

With one entry for each letter of the alphabet, we share our thoughts, prejudices and advice on best practice in business writing. It’s opinionated, by no means comprehensive and occasionally irreverent. But we hope it will provide a useful occasional reference on topics as diverse as clichés, objectivity and writing for the web.

P – PUNCTUATION

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
“Even when the sense is perfectly clear, a sentence may be deprived of half its force — its spirit — its point — by improper punctuation.” Edgar Allan Poe Wage war on stores which flout the conventions of punctuation, for they bombard young eyes with low standards. WH Smith, a stationer, sells childrens birthday [...]
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O – OBJECTIVITY

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
“This is a unique opportunity to purchase a superb property in a sought-after location.” Any estate agent We should have sympathy with anyone (even estate agents) faced with the task of perpetually having to say the same things in different ways, or dress up dull information. After all, no-one [...]
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N – NETIQUETTE

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
The early internet — Usenet newsgroups, in particular — spawned standards for polite written behaviour online. Now we all write online, using email. Not all the rules of netiquette apply to email, and some companies have standards for composing emails. But all businesses could benefit from consistent online [...]
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M – MESSAGE AND MEDIUM

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
It takes time to understand the true potential of a new medium. At the birth of cinema, films were made by pointing a camera at a theatre stage because no-one had thought about moving the lens, or editing the movie. The earliest telephone systems were used to read books [...]
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L – LETTERS

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
In the age of instantaneous, digital communications, it may seem irrelevant to talk about the art of letter-writing. However, letters remain important. They are the only acceptable accompaniment to an enclosure such as a brochure. And they are the most civilised way of introducing yourself, your company or [...]
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K – KNOCKING COPY

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
A contentious area of business writing, knocking copy is defined as ‘advertising copy that attacks a rival’s product’. Some advertisers suggest that knocking copy is a necessary way of getting a forceful point into potential customer’s minds: ‘JunkAir is cheaper than TrashFlights’, for example. And it’s fair to say that [...]
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J – JARGON

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
Jargon is defined by Chambers dictionary as ‘the terminology of a profession’ but also as ‘unintelligible talk, gibberish; chatter, twittering’. Jargon has an important place as a ‘dialect’, so that people with common interests or expertise can communicate quickly and efficiently. As with any dialect, the problem comes when there [...]
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I – INTRODUCTIONS

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
We promise to double your salary — guaranteed. If you received a letter or saw an advertisement so claiming, would you read further? This example may be hype (see Hype) – deliberately evocative, almost certainly excessive, but it’s undoubtedly captivating. Powerful introductions improve the chances of your copy being read. If the [...]
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H – HYPE

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration used for effect. Much relied upon by advertisers, its short form — hype — means much the same thing. And whilst audiences expect a degree of puffery in advertisements, they demand honesty in business writing. Most dictionaries also define hype as ‘a deception or racket’ as [...]
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G – GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION

By timadmin | Published: November 30, 2009
“…of no importance as long as we make our meaning plain” George Orwell You could achieve grammatical perfection and produce a piece of work of dubious clarity. Churchill concurred with Orwell. Commenting on a cabinet paper in which the author had tortuously avoided ending a sentence with a preposition, he noted [...]
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