WritingGoodEnglish.pptVIP

Antai College of Economics Management Shanghai Jiao Tong University Business English (Wang Mantian) Antai College of Economics Management Shanghai Jiao Tong University Business English (Wang Mantian) Writing Well in Business Your messages create the image the public has of you and your business Wanted: Good Writing The Wall Street Journal has said that 80 percent of businesses surveyed believe that their employees’ biggest problem is written communication. Grammar Some of the most frequent grammatical errors made by non-native English speakers include Inconsistency between pronouns and verbs. Indefinite pronouns such as anybody, everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, no one, and nobody are always singular. Use he and she in a wrong way. Punctuation Do not break sentences in two and do not use comma to combine two sentences, for example: I met them on a train several years ago. Coming home from Liverpool to London. × I met them on a train several years ago, they are coming home from Liverpool to London. × Vocabulary Some simple rules are Prefer a familiar word to an uncommon one. Prefer concrete to abstract words Prefer a single word to a lengthy phrase or roundabout way of saying it Prefer the short word to the long word Style Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic. Omit needless words. Avoid repetition. “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” “Never… has so much been owed by so many to so few” “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” ----- by John F. Kennedy “Never… has so much been owed by so many to so few” ----- Winston Churchill Active rather than passive when there is a subject Toyota sold two million cars last year. Two million cars were sold by Toyota last year. × Put statements in positive form. He was not very often on time. He usually came late. He did not thin