Business Writing Versus Classroom Writing
Many of us learned to write in school. All those essays, themes and reports played as our practice pad for stringing words on paper, for better or for worse. Once you enter the professional world, though, writing usually takes on a whole other dimension.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for people to get over is the difference between business writing and classroom writing. Sure, they both comprise of words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate ideas. Heck, they both benefit from the crafty guiles of a qualified grammar software. Yet, they do it with a different aim.
In school, writing usually accomplished one goal: to display your knowledge of a subject. The more arguments you make and the more information you fit in, the better the grades that you end up getting. Writing was an exercise to showcase your ability to research, present information and think in a critical manner.
Once you enter industry, though, the whole dynamic changes. Try using your writing as a platform to demonstrate how smart you are and you end up with a document that reads terribly. Can you imagine an engineering report laid out with this goal in mind? Chances are, you’ll end up reading dozens of information that barely push the subject forward. But, hey, that writer sure sounds like he knows his stuff.
As a takeaway, always keep in mind: business writing requires you to get to the point in as clear a manner as possible. That whole “smart” thing may have kept you afloat in school, but it won’t do you any good outside classroom walls.