Business Writing

Before I start talking about who and whom, I want to talk about pronouns. Way back in Business Writing Tip #1 I wrote:

In this post, I’m starting with some jargon. Discourse marker is a term used in linguistics. ESL teachers use it regularly when teaching students to write. So what is a discourse marker? In his book Practical English Usage, Michael Swan says they are words or phrases that can be used to:

There are times when we are comfortable asking for something in a direct style, and times when we want to soften our requests or comments. We use indirect language more when we want to be formal, or polite; perhaps when we don’t know someone very well. Or sometimes we use it to deliver bad news!

Again, as promised in my last post, here are some more useful phrasal verbs.

In my last post I promised you some more useful phrasal verbs. So let’s jump right in.

My English students aren’t crazy about phrasal verbs. There are so many of them!

In an earlier tip I wrote about what to take notes of during a meeting. Now the meeting’s over. What next?

I was thinking that I have posted about writing the minutes of meetings, but I haven’t yet written anything for you on how to write an agenda. It’s time to fix that, so here goes!

In this post I want to consider what happens when you are actually taking minutes at a meeting.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of using standard expressions and clichés when we write. Don’t get me wrong—some standard expressions are useful. The problem comes when the expressions are outdated, or use too many words to communicate their meaning.