HBR Guide to Better Business Writing - Bryan A. Garner 2013

Be a stickler for continuity
Developing your skills

Smooth writing consists of a sequence of well-joined sentences and paragraphs, not a mere collection of them. This smooth sequencing requires good planning and skill in handling transitions, or links that help readers follow your train of thought.

Watch how a good writer on business ethics, Manuel G. Velasquez, does it with a series of paragraph openers (the links are indicated here by italics):

A Series of Paragraph Openers from Manuel G. Velasquez’s Business Ethics (2011)

1. How well does a free monopoly market succeed in achieving the moral values that characterize perfectly competitive free markets? Not well.

2. The most obvious failure of monopoly markets lies in the high prices they enable the monopolist to charge and the high profits they enable him to reap, a failure that violates capitalist justice.

3. A monopoly market also results in a decline in the efficiency with which it allocates and distributes goods.

4. First, the monopoly market allows resources to be used in ways that will produce shortages of those things buyers want and cause them to be sold at higher prices than necessary.

5. Second, monopoly markets do not encourage suppliers to use resources in ways that will minimize the resources consumed to produce a certain amount of a commodity.

6. Third, a monopoly market allows the seller to introduce price differentials that block consumers from putting together the most satisfying bundle of commodities they can purchase given the commodities available and the money they can spend.

7. Monopoly markets also embody restrictions on the negative rights that perfectly free markets respect.

8. A monopoly market, then, is one that deviates from the ideals of capitalist justice, economic utility, and negative rights.

The italicized transitional phrases steer us from one idea to the next. Normally, we wouldn’t even notice them. The transitions in really good writing are almost subliminal— but they’re carefully placed where readers will need them. These connections take readers forward in different ways. They can:

✵ Establish a time sequence: then, at that point, afterward, as soon as, at last, before, after, first, initially, meanwhile, later, next, now, once, originally, since, then, until, finally

✵ Establish place: there, in that place, at the front, in back, farther back, in the rear, at the center, to the left (right), upfront, way back

✵ Add a point: and, or, further, also, in fact, moreover, not only... but also

✵ Underscore a point: above all, after all, and so, chiefly, equally important, more so, indeed, more important

✵ Concede a point: although, and yet, admittedly, at the same time, certainly, even though, doubtless, granted, no doubt, of course, still, though, to be sure, whereas, yet, while

✵ Return to a point: even so, nevertheless, nonetheless, still

✵ Give an example: for example, for instance, in particular

✵ Provide a reason: because, hence, thus, for, it follows, since, so, then, therefore

✵ Set up a contrast: but, yet, and yet, conversely, despite, by contrast, instead, on the other hand, still, then, while

✵ Set up a conclusion: so, as a result, finally, in conclusion, in short, in sum, on the whole, therefore, thus, to sum up

Use subheads as transitions

No matter how smooth your transitions are between sentences and paragraphs, time-pressed readers will zone out if you place a solid wall of text in front of them. Break up your documents (even e-mails that are longer than a paragraph) with some signposts to lead people from section to section and help them quickly locate the parts they’re particularly interested in. A “summary” subhead, for example, tells readers where to find just the highlights. And subheads that concisely yet clearly lay out your key points allow people to skim and still get the gist of your message.

Make your subheads as consistent as you can. For instance, if you’re leading a task force that’s recommending ways to forge direct customer relationships through social media, you might write each subhead in your body text as a directive, along these lines:

Use LinkedIn to Get Feedback on Current Products

Use Facebook to Test New Concepts

Use Twitter to Facilitate Chats About Live Events

The parallelism will help your document hang together both rhetorically and logically.

Recap

✵ Use well-placed transitional phrases to guide the reader to your next idea and indicate its relationship to what came before.

✵ Break up documents with concise, descriptive subheads to increase readability and help readers quickly locate the information most important to them.

✵ Use a “summary” subhead to point your readers to the document’s highlights.

✵ Use consistent style and parallel syntax in your subheads to reinforce the document’s logical and rhetorical cohesion.