A curious thing happened last month. I was asked to teach a course on business writing to a local hospital's IT department. It seemed that the IT Director was sick and tired of reading illiterate memos, reports, and letters. Her biggest complaint was that her people had forgotten how to write a formal letter with concise paragraphs. In addition, spelling, punctuation, and grammar were in need of CPR.
The first step in fixing a problem like this is to get everyone to agree on a standard reference book. The book I chose to use as a text for the course was the Business Style Handbook, by Helen Cunningham and Brenda Greene. In addition, I like to use The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin.
Well, it took about six hours and we covered punctuation, grammar, spelling, formal and informal styles, writing exercises, discussion, discussion, and more discussion, especially about how to separate the new-speak of texting from the business-centric world of a professional life.
I'm hoping that the result of the workshop was that the participants came away with a commitment and confidence to write better. The feedback immediately after and a few weeks later was very positive.
In closing, everyone can benefit from learning (or relearning as the case may be) proper English usage. If we allow ourselves and our employees, managers, and coworkers to abuse the language, then we allow our society to descend into babble, where neither of us truly understands what the other is saying.
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