The Business Writer's Handbook

Some notes from The Business Writer’s Handbook, Tenth Edition:

Overview: Preparation (purpose, audience, scope, medium), research, organization (sequential, chronological, cause-and-effect, etc.), writing, revision.

A/an - follow the sound.

Acronyms - use capitals without periods.

Abstract - purpose, method and scope, findings, recommendations.

Also - avoid opening with.

Apostrophe - possession or omission.

Because - quite acceptable, don’t hunt for synonyms.

Blogs - write in second person and active voice. 

Colon - capitalize the first word after using.

Business email - name then colon.

Continual is recurring, continuous never stops.

Dashes emphasize, parentheses deemphasize.

Quotes - commas and periods within, semicolons and colons outside.

Pseudo is false, quasi resembles, semi is half.

Via - only for routing. 

Avoid - affectation, clichés, overly-complicated synonyms, over-use of commas, similar sentence length, ‘absolutely’, 'a lot’, 'kind of’, excess qualification, 'consensus of opinion’, 'utilize’, 'very’.