Ken OQuinn - Perfect Phrases for Business Letters

Perfect Phrases for Business Letters

Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases
for Writing Effective Business Letters,
Memos, E-Mail, and More Ken OQuinn Copyright 2006 by Ken OQuinn. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-07-163090-0 MHID: 0-07-163090-2 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-145976-1, MHID: 0-07-145976-6. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark.

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Numerous people played a role, directly or indirectly, in the writing of this book, and I appreciate their support. Perhaps you find that the most difficult first step in writing is not giving birth to the first sentence but garnering the necessary discipline to sit down and commit yourself to the blank screen. Perhaps you find that the most difficult first step in writing is not giving birth to the first sentence but garnering the necessary discipline to sit down and commit yourself to the blank screen.

You avoid as long as you can:You think of other things you need to do and pretend that they are more important, you go get another cup of coffee, you stick your head in a friends office and chat, or you clean your desk and promise to get to the writing task tomorrow. This powerful force that seeks to distract us from writing and to kill our creativity and spirit is called resistance. It is a more difficult habit to break than drugs or liquor, says author Stephen Pressfield. Resistance is the enemy within. Recognizing resistance for what it is will enable you to ask why it is occurring. Are you worried about the readers response? Is your managers critical editing voice resonating in your mind? Is something unrelated to the writing task weighing on your mind? Perhaps you lack confidence, which sometimes is self-inflicted.

Writers, like athletes, often hamper their performance with what is called negative self-talk. An athlete leaves the field mumbling, I cant afford to make such stupid mistakes. Similarly when you say, I cant write, it is self-defeating, and you avoid accepting responsibility for what it is: a choice. As psychiatrists frequently tell drug addicts and alcoholics, we all make choices. The problem is not that you cant; it is that you choose not to. So avoid such negative words as cant, should, must, and have to.

They are counterproductive. Instead, inject a positive tone by converting those words to want, wish, desire, choose, and prefer. When we say, I should have written, I must develop, and I have to make this impressive, we impose pressure on ourselves and we feel guilty and incompetent for failing to achieve what might be an unreasonable standard. It is better to say, I can develop a strong proposal, or I want to make this impressive. Once the adrenalin is flowing and you are ready to start, you need to unscramble the array of thoughts swirling in your head so that you can create an orderly structure and have a sense of where you are going. Writing is similar to building a house.

Imagine if you hired carpenters to build you a new home and they showed up the first day and began building with no blueprints. No problem, they tell you. Well figure it out as we go along. You probably will not want to live in the house. Similarly, you cannot effectively write a communication of significance by thinking it through as you go. You might contend that you do not have time to organize your thoughts before starting, but when you reach the sixth or seventh paragraph and realize how haphazard the writing is, you will consume a significant chunk of time revising and rearranging the material to make it coherent.

Some of that time you could save by investing more effort in mapping your ideas before you start. A two- or three-sentence e-mail might not require extensive forethought, but many other messages do. Any substantive message, one that contains hard information pertaining to daily business activities or operations, deserves careful attention. Don Murray, a Pulitzer Prizewinning writer and a nationally known author and writing coach, introduced the concept of writing as a four-step process: planning, drafting, revising, and editing. Critical work is done in the planning phase, before you put down your first word. This is when you unscramble your mind, sort out your ideas, and establish a sense of direction.

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