Today’s business professionals read a staggering amount of information. Tolerance for bloated, unclear messages is diminishing as rapidly as new technology offers up more and more opportunities to communicate. Professionals who want their messages to stand out avoid the mistake of trying to sound important and look for ways to simplify their messages and ideas.
Make Each Word Work
If a word doesn’t work, get rid of it. This will immediately eliminate often-used but unnecessary modifiers, such as very (as in very poor writing), really (as in really very poor writing), and certainly (as in certainly very poor writing).
Here are a few other examples. Not how much stronger the sentence sounds when the modifier is eliminated.
- Quite (I quite agree.)
- Rather (I was rather disappointed.)
- Indeed (We are indeed grateful.)
- Frankly (Frankly, I’m puzzled.)
- A bit (Sales were a bit off this quarter.)
- Overall (Overall, things are looking up.)
- Largely (My background is largely in export-import.)
- To be honest (To be honest, my opinion is that…)
Edit Ruthlessly
Look for every opportunity to eliminate unnecessary words and phrases. By doing so, sentences become sharper and clearer, reflecting a professional tone and clarity that will command attention and get results. Examples:
