Developing a Good Style - Episode 2 Video Lecture - Business Communication

hi this is Matt Alaniz business
instructor at the willow international
Center recording a brief lecture for ba5
business communications a class that I
teach here this is on developing a good
style one thing I will say a disclaimer
before I continue any further if you
have not listened to the first lecture
which is available on the YouTube
channel I do encourage you to go ahead
and take a listen to that it's very
brief I think about 15 to 20 minutes at
the very very most what you'll find is
that a lot of the content that we go
over is going to build upon what we
discussed in the previous week so it is
important that you have some
foundational type knowledge so that we
can build upon in subsequent lectures
and you can use this material and put it
into practice so I do encourage you if
you haven't listened to the first one
stop right now go back to the first and
then progress sequentially through the
series of lectures that we have here for
you this particular chapter is going to
take a close look at really the first
element of writing in plain English and
that is writing clear readable sentences
most students will probably be surprised
to find out just how different different
writing in plain English is from your
typical academic style writing from our
last lecture wait before what you'll
remember is that plain English is
different and that it doesn't sound so
stuffy it's more informal but has a
positive tone to it and so we're going
to give you some tools that you can use
to really put this idea of writing in
plain English actually in the practice
and these are things that you should be
able to use right away this isn't
something that you're going to use a
couple years from now maybe never this
is these are things that you can
instantly implement and put into your
writing that will help you become a
better and more effective writer all
right just to provide kind of a quick
overview of what we'll be covering today
at 1 we're gonna go over common words
will review contractions pronouns active
versus a passive type voice short
sentences proper tone and lastly we'll
go over grammar checkers and I'll pull
up a word document and show you how to
actually use a grammar checker very very
basic stuff but there's a
things that you may have to do if you're
using Microsoft Word to basically tell
your grammar checker to look for certain
things out of the box a lot of times it
gives you the basic things but you can
actually ask it to have a little bit
more functionality as I'll show you
later on in the lecture now one thing I
will notice just another disclaimer or
will say is that my assumption is that
you do have at least a proficient
understanding of they're proficient use
of English so when I go over some of
these things most notably past
participles pronouns and things like
that my assumption is that you already
have some type of understanding of those
things if for any reason that you don't
don't be too concerned you can always
look those up online researchers on your
own so you can get a little bit more
familiar but I'm not gonna spend a whole
lot of time going over the definitional
meanings of these types of things
because this isn't an English course
this is a course in business writing and
speaking so I'm gonna assume that you do
have some of that proficiency already
all right so let's go over common words
here a couple things on common words
obviously a big thing is that contrary
to popular belief you don't really need
to use big words to sound educated I
know that sounds interesting to me for
me to say especially for someone in the
world of academia because it seems like
that's really all we do is try to figure
out these big impressive words to use
that people are just so impressed with
how smart we are which is kind of
ridiculous and really the way you want
to communicate it is in a way that
people can actually understand I've said
that several times over the course of
the last lecture it's important to
really begin your writing in such a way
that people are going to be able to
comprehend it and so trying to use it
thesaurus and develop all these
interesting words and big words to be
used just so you can sound more
intelligent is really not the way to go
now one of the things I will mention is
that you can use common word don't be a
frown afraid of sounding less educated
by using them you want to use these
types of words because of the
that people can understand them and if
you're writing to a particular audience
particularly one that maybe doesn't have
the technical background that you maybe
maybe that you have you do want to use
words that people are going to
understand because remember in business
communication we're trying to convey
something we're trying to convince
someone of maybe our point of kind of
frame of reference or our point that
we're trying to make we're trying to
relay information and so you're not so
concerned about making yourself seem
more intelligent but you're more
concerned with trying to relay that
information and really ensure that
people are going to understand that and
so you don't have to keep communicating
over and over and over so don't be
afraid to use common words in your
writing a couple examples that I'll give
you if you're taking this class over at
Willow you will have access to the
textbook that we have here and there is
a quite a comprehensive list of various
words that have you know the
bureaucratic format and in the common
form as well and I have a couple listed
here that I just kind of came up with on
my own here just to kind of give you an
example of these things but so in
bureaucratic writing you may use awards
such as acquiesce which is a very not
necessarily lengthy word but it
definitely is not common you would not
see the word acquiesce very frequently
and you probably would not use it in a
sentence so I would argue that you
probably shouldn't use it in your
writing
a more common word would be agree which
is essentially the meaning of acquiesce
to to agree to something essentially a
next we have desist so if you were
commonly seen a cease and desist letter
which essentially and more common lingo
means stop last example here is we have
frequently in writing I see a lot of
people use the word stated like
so-and-so stated something which just
sounds kind of stuffy and very very
formal to me it really is just the same
way of saying sad so you can see that
maybe some of the bureaucratic writing
especially stated it might be something
that you've used fairly frequently and
it isn't a common word so to speak so
there are ways that you can
take those words that sound more
bureaucratic sound more stuffy and
actually make them to sound more common
for the main point of actually being
able to convey your information to
ensure that people can ultimately read
that and comprehend it and then be able
to take that and perform something with
it if it's something instructional all
right contractions contractions are
always fun because if you use grammar
trackers if you have in the past you'll
notice that if you've programmed it to
check for grammar not just the spelling
portion is that grammar checkers do not
like contractions they'd like you to
actually spell out instead of don't
spell out do not which contractions are
totally fine um you should be able to
use those if you use them when you're
speaking right you don't say do not and
these types of things people typically
use contractions when they speak so
really why not use them in writing most
professionals use them people that have
written you know Pulitzer prize-winning
novels and things and receive numbers of
awards and best-selling books use
contractions so why wouldn't you use
contractions it only makes sense to
annual reports from different businesses
if you read through those like I have
hundreds of hundreds of them you'll note
that they use contractions so why
wouldn't you be able to use those in our
business writing essentially if
ultimately it's kind of the same thing
now what I find too is that using
contractions helps you use plain English
if you don't use contractions and you
actually spell the words out without
using the apostrophe then it causes your
writing to be more stuffy to be more
formal and rigid and it instantly kind
of puts you in the mindset of making
your writing sound more bureaucratic
which is what you don't want to do
essentially using contractions also adds
credibility and meaning to your writing
and what I mean by that is that people
can relate to it better because it
sounds more conversational remember that
you use contractions when you speak so
you should you though use those when you
write as well and that people will see
that it has a more calm
verse a tional style to it and it's much
more easy to read you gain more
credibility as a writer compared with
the mentality that well the more lengthy
sentences that I have here in the
lengthier words and the more difficult
words that are used the more intelligent
that I sound you know we don't write for
the purpose of just elevating ourselves
in terms of stature we write for the
purpose of conveying information so
that's extremely important there now a
couple of reputable sources to use
regularly with regards to contractions
first off I mentioned that most
professionals will use contractions
frequently so obviously if if
professionals that are actually doing
the work are using contractions it would
make sense that we would be able to do
that two best-selling authors I
mentioned that before also use
contractions fairly regularly business
produce annual reports as well we'll
also use contractions all right let's
talk about pronouns here real quick just
to kind of rehash obviously pronouns
people place things those types of
things and everything what I'm sorry not
pronouns pronouns being I we you those
types of things right reading off the
wrong notes here as far as pronouns
don't be afraid to use them I've seen a
lot of writing that is really afraid of
using words such as I we you those types
of things and it makes it really
difficult if you've actually tried to
write something without using those
words it just doesn't sound right it
doesn't come off correctly you have to
change the structure of the sentences
around and it just doesn't make a whole
lot of sense so don't be afraid to use
pronouns pronouns are not bad and I'm
not sure why we got into the habit of
really failing to use them so to speak
what I mentioned before is that if you
don't use pronouns there is a
significant effect on your writing a
significant negative effect on your
writing I might add because you do have
to change a lot of the sentences around
for it to actually make sense because
you can't use I or we or you you have to
write it in such a way that you can
avoid using those war
but you make the same point and
typically what you have to do is your
sentences have to be more lengthy to get
to that same point so why not do less
work right this sounds kind of funny I'm
telling you to do less work but it's
true and ultimately convey the same
message in a more effective manner
one thing I mentioned too is it's
important to write like you're sending
an email when I've noticed when I sieve
emails from students and they're
typically wrote written in a very
informal type tone more conversational
maybe too conversational and too
informal to a degree but at the same
time students seem more comfortable in
writing emails and not just students
everybody in general typically writes in
a different style in an email versus
something that's physically on paper and
so try writing like you write in an
email keep things conversational use the
same words that we you would use in a
face-to-face type conversation you know
instantly when people sit down and
actually have to draft a letter or memo
they start to use longer words and
longer sentences and change the sentence
structure and avoiding pronouns and
avoiding contractions which doesn't
really make sense so when you're writing
things stick to the mentality of an
email in the terms of making it more
informal making it easier to use one of
the things I will also mention with
regards to pronouns is that pronouns are
really some of the most common words in
language and if you take out some of the
most common words that are used in the
English language you really don't have a
whole lot left to choose from which thus
makes a very drastic effect on your
writing avoiding pronouns also will
basically reduce or you will suffer a
loss of what's called fluency and what I
mean by that is that there's no sense of
flow to the actual argument because it's
becomes very choppy so to speak and also
avoiding pronouns you're subject to use
what's called passive writing which
we'll go over here in a few slides if
not the next slide and we'll discuss
what that looks like
all right active versus passive writing
here now using an active voice is very
important and is the key absolute most
important thing to writing clearly
passive sentences don't necessarily
leave out key or they do have to leave
out key information most notably the
actor the person that's doing something
as you'll find out so what happens is
that readers have less information to go
off of in passive sentences than
inactive ones and they have to struggle
to find out what the sentence is
actually trying to say or who is
referring to so let's go over a couple
things here with regards to active
versus passive voice now there are
several common voice identifiers well
really before I actually get into this
I'm kind of getting ahead of myself let
me provide you with a brief example of
what is an active versus a passive voice
here so first off I'm kind of
definitional terms an active voice what
you would do is that the subject in the
sentence is actually doing something
okay and when I give you the example of
the sentence this will make a little bit
more sense in a passive sentence the
subject in the sentence isn't doing
anything at all okay so keep those two
things in mind when I read you these
four sentences the first sentence the
car is washed by Fred okay this would be
an example of a passive sentence because
Fred isn't necessarily doing anything or
the car I'm sorry isn't necessarily
doing anything the car is the subject in
this sentence because it precedes it
Fred so the car is washed by Fred the
car is just sitting there it's not
performing anything it's not doing
anything
it's thus a passive sentence an inactive
sentence if I were to rephrase this
would be Fred washes the car you'll
notice that Fred is actually doing
something in this sentence he is
actually washing the car and thus it's
an active sentence okay so those would
be the two differences now a couple
other things that you can do to identify
passive voice and
sentences are a couple things first you
will look at for the form of the warp of
the form of the verb to be and these
could be am are is was were be been
being and those are common forms of the
verb to be if you see those verbs in a
sentence that chances are although it's
not hundred percent but the chances are
is that the sentence is written with a
passive voice so that could be a key
indicator there okay you'll notice in
that sentence but the car is washed by
Fred okay next a past participle is
usually present okay past participles
usually end with en or I'm sorry it's en
or edy I have a typo listed on the slide
so edy or en would be a past participle
so if you see those things those
normally could be an indicator that
there is a past participle and thus
written in a passive voice in our case
we had the car is washed by Fred washed
being edy so that would be a good
indication in addition to a past
participle and using the verb to be you
can also look for a prepositional or
prepositional phrase beginning with by
by is very very important and what I
mean by by is it's a preposition for
that matter is an indication of location
and most importantly not just physical
location but it could also be a location
in time so if you if you refer back to
the sense that I gave you the car is
washed by Fred bye
is a call so a key indicator that this
is written in a passive voice so and in
our case here we have a couple of things
most notably a past participle and a
prepositional phrase that would indicate
that this is actually written in a
passive voice so those are key
indicators that you will look for to
make that determination now one thing I
will know is that it's not always bad to
use a passive voice there are certain
situations in which a passive voice is
actually good to use and is actually a
pro
bring it to use and there's three common
things the first one is if you don't
know who is actually performing the
action if you don't know that actor so
to speak if you don't know Fred
obviously is washing the car then you
can use a passive voice because it isn't
very important to relay to the reader
the next thing you can look at is if
somebody knows who perform the action if
it's considered to be common knowledge
that Fred washed the car then maybe we
don't need to put him in the sentence
because everyone already knows it
doesn't add any value to the sentence so
that would be another example of a
sentence that where you can actually use
a passive voice and it would be okay the
last one that you can look at is if you
don't want to emphasize the actor or if
doing so no one would really be confused
if if Fred isn't there essentially so
those would be the three reasons that
you would use a passive voice over an
active voice other than that I would
really use an active voice because like
I said it helps you write in plain
English and it really is the key to
writing clearly next let's talk about
using short sentences now one of the
things I will say is that I don't
necessarily recommend you use a lot of
short sentences because the problem with
that as you probably already know is
that it causes your writing to look very
choppy if you have just a lot of short
sentences that really need some length
of your sentences to really add some
type of value and kind of mix things up
so to speak now one thing I will say is
that you don't necessarily want when you
write you don't need to be you know kind
of measuring your sentences in terms of
words per sentence and saying okay well
I wrote one with nine words per sentence
oh now I need to write one with six and
now I need to write one with nine and
then six that's not what I'm saying I
don't need you to be you know constantly
monitoring your writing in that way but
I do think that you do need to use some
short sentences sporadically throughout
an actual paper typically I would say
inner woven you know maybe about three
to four per
age and it's just a way to break things
up a little bit to make it you know
sound a little more fluid if you're
reading lots of lengthy sentences
it really gets difficult to read me if
you've tried reading any type of
academic article or journal or anything
for that matter a lot of times they're
written with very long sentences and it
can be very difficult to read and
frankly exhausting because there are so
many words in the sentence without any
pauses and it gets very difficult to
read now short sentences have fewer than
nine words so that would be a good good
gauge of whether you're writing with a
short sentence so fewer than nine words
like I said you don't need to use every
sentence doesn't need to be a short
sentence but you do want to kind of
sporadically kind of put these
throughout the page like I said three to
four probably per page would probably be
a nice addition now one thing with
sentences is you don't want to exceed 17
words in your average sentence now once
you go over 17 words you're really
getting into the the phase where it can
be broken up probably into two if not
three other sentences depending on what
you're trying to communicate so try not
to go over 17 words it definitely kind
of changes the tone of your writing if
you're trying to use plain English and
write over 17 words in a sentence it
gets really difficult to do that okay
next thing let's talk about is tone
obviously plain English allows for a
full range of tones it's very versatile
as you'll call it because plain English
you can write in a very formal tone or a
very informal tone I should say you can
write more in an appropriate type tone
but with bureaucratic writing you can
only write in a formal tone you all can
only write in one way it it kind of it
doesn't make sense to write in a
bureaucratic style and it'd be informal
so writing and playing English you can
be more versatile you have more options
so to speak which is very very important
I mentioned the bureaucratic style being
very formal your plain English you can
be overly informal and obviously you can
have an approach
style tone as well we've all seen the
overly informal tones typically in
emails where people get a little bit too
loose lip so to speak and you know kind
of a little too informal now we've all
seen those types of emails before there
is a good example of one actually in
your book I don't remember the page it's
on but I know that it is in chapter 2
somewhere that you can look at to
provide an example just of how informal
something can be and obviously you don't
want to come across like that so to
speak but like I mentioned before is
that your plain English will allow you
to vary your tone I'm so you can't
accommodate a particular audience and
that obviously is important that you
understand who your audience is so that
you can vary your tone in order to
better reach them alright lastly we are
gonna finish up with grammar checkers
and I'm gonna give you a little brief
kind of tutorial on how to actually use
a grammar checker how to change some of
the options I'm using the latest version
of Microsoft Office here so hopefully
you have something similar but they
usually are pretty similar in terms of
the functionality and how to change
things in everything so grammar checkers
one thing I'll mention first is that
they are not perfect one of the things
is that they do not recommend that you
use contractions which as we know after
listening to me ramble ramble on and on
that contractions are okay use them when
you speak so use them with you when you
write but grammar checkers will
obviously flag those contractions and
recommend that you not use them but they
are totally okay now don't be so
concerned with the grammar aspect when
using them a lot of people will email me
and say you know the grammar checker is
flagging every couple were every
sentence and you know I really don't
know what to do and I'm trying to change
it but it keeps flagging it I'm not so
concerned with the actual grammar
checker the reason is is that it's
essentially if a sentence doesn't make
sense to you it probably doesn't make
sense okay you're very intelligent
you've had some background obviously
education formerly formal education with
regards to English and that sort of
thing if a sentence makes sense to you
it probably does make sense and even if
the grammar
is telling you that it doesn't it's a
computer program it was designed by
people to pick up on certain things it's
not a perfect system so don't be so
concerned with the actual grammar
portion I'm more concerned with using it
for a couple different things which
we'll go over there are four main things
that grammar checkers are very very good
at and this is what I want you to key in
on the first of which is determining
your average sentence length or words
per sentence so to speak this gives you
an indication of how lengthy your
sentences are and obviously as we know
from short sentences we want to keep
them below 17 words per sentence on
average you wouldn't want to go over
that because you're getting into the
point to where it's getting more
bureaucratic not playing English so to
speak so grammar checkers will tell you
what your average sentence length is
that way you don't have to go ahead and
calculate it on your own because that
would take forever the next thing is you
can determine how hard your sentences
are to read which are basically
characters per word now this isn't a
perfect system because the computer
can't tell you if the word is common
like if you use the word Mississippi in
a sentence it's gonna maybe throw the
numbers off a little bit because
Mississippi is a long word but it's
common right it's not something that you
wouldn't see all the time or anything
like that so the computer can't
differentiate between common versus
uncommon words but still it will tell
you roughly how long your words are that
you're using on average and it is an
average so obviously some of the common
words that are lengthier will balance
out with some of the common words that
are shorter assuming that you're using a
fair dose of them now just kind of some
best practices so to speak what to look
for when you use these is try to stay
below 5 characters and I don't mean 5
characters for every word I mean on
average five characters okay so that is
important I don't want you you know
trying to figure out how to write every
single sentence in your in a report with
only five words or so make sure that you
can actually do that the next thing is
that like I said before keep in mind
that computers don't necessarily
the ability to identify common words so
you keep that in mind when you're
running these types of things third you
can actually determine the percentage of
your sentences that are using a passive
voice it will actually tell you this
upfront and although it's not a perfect
system like anything it does give you
some indication for how many sentences
use a passive voice or at least the
percentage so that you can go through
and possibly change those with regards
to passive voice I recommend you stay
below 10% preferably lower but at 10
percent on the high end would be would
be adequate so to speak like we
mentioned before passive voice isn't all
that bad you can use it in certain
situations but it's not very common
alright next grammar checkers are very
good for determining what's known as
your readability index okay your
readability index essentially tells you
how easy it is for your work to read
it's basically it very simple there are
two statistics that will be given to you
or to you know kind of numbers that will
be given to you by a grammar checker the
first is the Fleisch Kincaid grade level
and the second is the Flesch reading
ease index cavies are both indexes and
they measure two different things okay
one thing is it's a rough estimate so
it's not exact but it will give you some
idea at least kind of a ballpark figure
of how easy it is for your writing to
read now the first one the flesh Kincaid
grade level index is basically you want
to stick to twelve or less and this is
grade level so this is writing at a
twelfth grade level and I know through
your formal education and coming up
through high school and even before that
you know you were kind of taught that
writing at a higher level is good right
if you can read at a 12th grade level
and you were in ninth grade you were
advanced so that would make sense that
if I can write at a 12th grade level and
I'm in ninth grade wouldn't that be
great so we should try to aspire to
write at a higher level
remember with business communication we
want people to be able to read it
there's no point in writing
something that no one can understand
because you're not accomplishing
anything right business is about
accomplishing things not about creating
more work and so try to stick to an
index 12 or less with the second with
the reading ease index this actually
higher is better okay so it's not
necessary like golf like the grade level
index is higher is better in this case
so you want to be forty or higher with
regards to the reading ease level index
okay so let's go ahead and we'll show
you how to run a grammar checker real
quick so let me kind of tab over here to
this document that I created
it's basically taken from your textbook
I think it's one of the exercises in the
back of your taking the class business
communications and have access to the
book here but it's a quick memo you'll
notice by just kind of glancing at it
real quick that obviously it's not
written written in plain English which
is by design because you do want to test
the actual grammar checker here so the
first thing that we're gonna do is we're
actually going to click this spelling &
grammar checker and I've already
programmed it so that it actually will
run all these different things here and
you'll notice a couple different things
that are given I'll kind of move this
over here so we can see both well what
you want to pay attention to is the
averages here so first off you have
sentences per paragraph which we don't
necessarily care about a whole lot
unless it gets too long I mean obviously
you need to move on to a new paragraph
but words per sentence we have 12.6
words per sentence which isn't
necessarily bad right remember that 17
that average was kind of high 9 or fewer
is considered to be not too too bad so
12 you know we're kind of in the
ballpark that isn't really too bad here
characters per word though or we want to
stay on average 5 or less on average and
we have six point three and so we are
using more formal writing more
bureaucratic or probably picking less
common words to kind of explain our
points so we have some opportunity here
to kind of dumb this down a little bit
maybe that's the wrong word to say dumb
this down kind of has a negative
connotation but make it easier to read
essentially is
point that I'm trying to convey and
obviously we have readability so the
first thing we'll look at here passive
sentences 66% this entire document for
the most part or at least two-thirds of
it is written in a passive passive
format which is very very you know kind
of difficult to read you know obviously
it's not the best way to write an actual
document at least for business
communication purposes so we have some
opportunity here for some revision as
well for the Flesch reading ease index
we have 17.7 number that we wanted to be
above 40 and we are nowhere near that so
this document you wouldn't consider to
be very easy to read and this is
probably it has something to do with the
fact that we're using a significant
amount of passive sentences and lastly
the flesh Kincaid grade-level index is
at 13.4 so our written writing at a you
know 13 to 14th grade level index so to
speak
which isn't too too bad it's not too
much higher than that 12th grade level
that we were trying to aspire to before
but it is obviously outside of that
particular realm so we do have some
opportunities there to actually rework
this so that's that's a good example of
what you can do and what the that
grammar checker is actually used for
remember we're not so concerned with you
know the actual grammar piece and all
those different types of things but
these indexes although they're not
perfect will give you a little bit of a
pulse on how your writing is if you're
being overly formal and may have
problems with people actually
understanding or if you're writing in
plain English which obviously is is
something that we actually want to
aspire to write in alright well that
concludes this brief lecture just on
developing good style I hope some of the
information that we went over here is
going to help you and you can put this
into practice right away and increase
the effectiveness of your writing for
whatever whatever writing it is that you
do if you have any questions comments
concerns obviously my information is on
this slide feel free and let me know and
it'd be happy to assist you otherwise
thank you for joining and we'll see Ann
time