Using plain English to write in the Business Genre

In the workplace, it is important to write in Plain English when writing Business related documents. This means that you must ensure that your communication follows these principles:

You may be expected to write a document to a colleague, a manager or a customer. Knowledge about your audience will help you to make choices about the words you will use and what you need to say. To used specialised language that only specialists understand can cause confusion. You may use a thesaurus to choose different words, to make sure that your communication is clear. You can look up the word you would like to use and check the Thesaurus to see the other types of words that mean the same thing. Be careful though – sometimes the word choices presented in a Thesaurus can be too far away from what you really want to say!

You can also check the Dictionary to make sure that your choice is the correct word to enable your meaning to be expressed clearly and without confusion.

• The communication process
• Listening skills
• Giving and receiving information
• Respond to incoming telephone calls
• Drafting simple correspondence