The 5 Cs of Effective Business Writing

For busy travel professionals who do much of their work speaking on the telephone or in person, writing may not seem to be an important part of the job. In fact, your writing skills are one of the measures frequently used to evaluate your competency as a travel professional. Here are five tips to help you!

1. Conciseness means writing the message in as few words as possible. A concise message is not necessarily brief, but it does avoid excess words, redundancies, and long words when short ones would suffice. Avoid wordy and redundant phrases. Using more words than necessary to convey a thought muddies your writing, obscures your point, and wastes your reader’s time. Use simple words. Choose words to express ideas, not to impress your readers. When a small word and a large word say essentially the same thing, choose the simpler word for more straightforward writing. Also, it is good practice to avoid taking a strong verb and converting it to a weak noun (e.g., don’t change recommend to make a recommendation that).

2. Clarity, the ability to write clearly, is one of the most noticeable characteristics of a good writer. Clarity can be improved with effective use of language and presentation. As in speaking, the words with which you communicate reflect your competence as a professional. Use jargon only when appropriate. Jargon is a specialized language used by people who share a similar profession. Because words like “open-jaw” and “PNR” are understood only by those who work in the travel industry, you should avoid using such specialized terms when writing to your clients. If you must use jargon and aren’t sure your readers will understand your meaning, define the word the first time you use it.

3. Courtesy. Writing with courtesy means showing consideration of your reader’s interests and feelings using a professional demeanor. You can promote professionalism with style and tone. Style is the way words are used to slant the document in certain ways. For example, using slang or other casual phrasing will make a message less formal. Tone is the overall impression the reader gets of the document based on the style used. The tone of the letter in which slang was used, in general, may be unprofessional.

Focus your attention on the reader. Instead of describing what you did, for instance, focus on the benefits to your client. Clients are not interested in how much work you did on their behalf (isn’t that why they are paying you?). If you diligently and carefully craft a trip tailored to your clients’ specific needs and desires, your work product will speak for itself.

4. Completeness involves presenting all the facts your reader will need to understand and respond to your message. Provide specific information so that you don’t leave your readers wondering what you mean, or force them to call you for clarification. If, for example, you send an email announcing a meeting, be sure to include the date, time, and place of the meeting. If you’re sending out a flight itinerary, make sure you’ve included the airline, flight numbers, arrival and departure dates and times, phone numbers to call for assistance, and any other information your client will need.

We can’t leave the topic of completeness without mentioning incomplete sentences. Though you already know that sentences must contain at least a subject (in the case of commands, the subject is understood) and a verb to be complete, you may occasionally let a sentence fragment escape. While there are some instances where incomplete sentences may be appropriate, such as in lists and text messages, you should strive for complete sentences in your regular writing.

5. Correctness means ensuring that what you’ve written is accurate. In other words, you should proofread for grammar, language, and content accuracy. Many of us still cringe at the mere mention of grammar. To be a good business writer, though, you cannot escape the rules that govern the use of language.Because the rules are many and varied (and the exceptions can be just as numerous), only a few simple suggestions for business writing grammar are mentioned here. The rest is up to you, and we strongly recommend that you keep a few grammar reference books handy when you write. Because your reader’s perception of your professionalism is based on your writing style, don’t hesitate to look up the correct solutions to your questions concerning grammar.