Fall in love with full stops

Pen writing
In business writing, people typically do not use the full stop enough. (Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay.)

The full stop is such an important and powerful punctuation mark that it has been incorporated into spoken English. When dumping a lover, you might say, “I never want to see you again. Full stop.” That means never, ever. The spoken full stop adds emphasis.

The written full stop can do this too. On social media, splitting phrases into one-word sentences is a popular way of making a point.

“Short sentences are clear, compelling and authoritative”

If you end relationships by Tweet (and we’re told some people do), you might Tweet your ex, “I. Never. Want. To. See. You. Again.”

In business writing, people typically do not use the full stop enough. It’s almost as if they think that short sentences are unprofessional.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Short sentences are clear, compelling and authoritative.

If you are writing about a technical topic, long sentences make it harder for your readers to follow what you are saying. That’s one of the reasons why they are so popular; they provide cover for you, the writer.

In short sentences, there is nowhere to hide. You must command your material.

“A good piece of writing usually contains a mix of very short, short and longer sentences”

Of course, you don’t want all your sentences to be very short. That can feel like machine-gun fire.

But a good piece of writing usually contains a mix of very short, short and longer sentences. So, the next time you find yourself writing a string of long, rambling sentences, stop.

Then reach for one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s toolkit. The full stop.

Why do we write?

Unless you are writing a literary work, which is a form of artistic expression, your purpose in writing is usually to inform or persuade your audience. Often, you want to do both.

In the fund industry, certainly, informing and persuading the intended audience is the aim of almost every piece of writing that is produced. It’s good to remember this when you sit down to write.

“The purpose of writing is to inform and persuade your audience”

If you remind yourself that the purpose of writing is to inform and persuade your audience, you can avoid many common writing mistakes. The first and perhaps most lethal of these is to ignore your audience.

If you want to convince your readers, it’s obvious that you should have some idea who they are. It’s equally obvious that you should think about what interests them and that you should try to avoid confusing them or boring them to death.

“A lot of business writing is not suitable for the intended audience; sometimes, it’s not suitable for any audience”

These points are obvious, but writers often don’t address them, particularly in a business context. A lot of business writing is confusing and boring. Often, it’s not suitable for the intended audience; sometimes, it’s not suitable for any audience.

Perhaps it is encrusted in arcane jargon. Perhaps it is lifeless because all the sentences are structured in the same way. Perhaps it fails to engage the reader because it is too impersonal.

These are all problems that can be fixed. The first step on the way – and the best way to avoid these problems in the first place – is to remember why we write.