Effective communication skills are key to success, and just about every profession you can imagine. So here's a quick overview of the six best tips in how to write business communications more effectively, as suggested by communication experts at the University of Chicago. And tip number one is to use resonant characters, and this is perhaps the most useful tool of all, to use lead characters as nouns familiar to your readers, and let those characters tell the story woven throughout your writing. It's like telling a children's story. If I were telling a bedtime fairy tale to my daughter, I might talk about a little girl walking in the woods looking for a magic pony, and that might win her attention because the characters resonate with her. So what if you were writing a memo for a company or a university or designing a new sales campaign? What characters would be resonant? Well, managers and workers would be good characters for a company memo. Student and teachers would be good characters for memos written for a university or college readers. And customers and clients would be good characters to mention in a new sales campaign. Remember, the best characters are flesh and blood. And in this wrong example, professional advancement is more of an abstract. Now, can you suggest a real person who may work better as a lead character in this sense? Well, how about managers achieve success through hard work? Managers, real people, somebody we could imagine going out to lunch with. Well, tip number two is to engage action verbs. And that's where we should use strong, active, visual verbs to propel your writing and your readers along. People like to see what is happening in their heads, and strong action verbs help to make this happen. Here's another wrong example. The memo is written well. Now, is is a rather weak verb, and memo isn't the best of characters. Remember, we should use flesh and blood characters in the lead role, if at all possible. Now, can you think of a better character and verb we might use in this sense? Well, how about the manager crafted the memo with resident characters and strong verbs? You know, crafted is a strong verb, and we can visualize someone sitting at a keyboard and actually crafting a memo. Well, tip number three is to perform the eight word test. And that's where we should keep our noun and our verb within eight words of each other, the closer the better. Don't make your reader work too hard to keep track of who is doing what? And yet another wrong example. The manager responsible for the daily assignments and worker allocation charts in our department is sick today. Now, if you count, you'll see there are 13 words between the noun and the verb, and the verb isn't really a very strong action word. So here's a better way to write that sentence. Our department manager called in sick today, so we are missing the daily assignments on the worker allocation charts. Here, the character and the verb are right next to each other, so we know right away who is doing what? Tip number four is to link with explicit connectors. And that's where we should link complex sentences and phrases with connectors to help our readers navigate through the text. So they can follow the flow of the writing smoothly and clearly see how the thoughts are joined together. Well, some effective connecting words are, for example, however, and therefore, and because. And they join sentences together. So your reader knows without too much work that what you're saying now is connected to something else. Here's a wrong example. The manager didn't treat the worker as well. Workers were poorly motivated and often quit. Now, we might guess that these two sentences are related to one another, but an effective connector will remove any doubt. Now, here's a better example. The manager mistreated the workers because of that, the worker suffered from poor motivation and often quit. And in this case, it's perfectly clear that the workers quit because of mismanagement. Tip number five is to lead our readers from all the information to new information. We can do that by establishing common ground in your message development, leading your readers from comfortable familiar territory to new ground. And we create common ground through old familiar information and shared experiences and common reference points. Now, people are frequently reluctant to try or learn something new. So rather than hit them right off with a new information, we work into it with something more comfortable and familiar. Now, once again, a wrong example, we will mix the new formula with the following steps. This will modify our old procedures. Now, rather than jumping right at our readers with new formulas and steps, we might try to work into it with a little common ground. Use this example. Our existing protocol calls for mixing the formula with established procedures. This new method will improve upon that in the following ways. And all it took was rearranging the paragraph a little, so the reader begins the paragraph with some comfortable and familiar territory. Well, tip number six is to use a problem solution action paradigm. One of the most frequent problems I hear from student writers is I just don't know where to start. And there sits a blank screen with that mocking cursor just blinking and blinking. So here's a good framework to follow. Number one, frame the problem, which in this case, we are losing valuable workers. And then pose a solution. Let's create a worker retention program. And finally end with a called action. So let's hire a consultancy for manager training next month. Now, if you use this framework, your message writes itself clearly and effectively. So here are the top six tips. Number one, use resident characters, characters that will resonate with your reader. Two, engage action verbs that will propel your reader through the text. Number three, perform the eight word text test between nouns and verbs. So it's clear who is doing what? Number four, link sentences and phrases with explicit connectors. So your thoughts have a clear flow throughout the document. Number five, lead your readers from old to new information, first establishing common ground and shared experiences before moving into new territory. And number six, frame a problem, pose a solution, then call to action as an effective way to structure your writing. So let's try our new skills revising a sample of bad writing. And here it is. Developmental success for everyone within an organization from top to bottom and all steps in between is ensured when good work is encouraged among the frontline people. Those responsible for leadership will get more loyalty and harder work from their team members if they treat them well. Well, what a mess. Even if you read this short paragraph several times, you may still not understand just what the message is here. But this is how most people write, especially if they're not sure of what they're trying to say or if they're trying to hide something. The characters and the verbs are weak. It fails the eight word test throughout keeping the nouns and the verbs close together. And the general structure is hard to follow. So let's see how this might be rewritten to convey the same information but in a more effective package. Our company's success is important to us all. Unfortunately, we have a costly turnover of valuable workers. However, our managers can remedy this by recognizing, respecting and rewarding the good efforts of our workers. Such responsive managers may win the loyalty and best efforts of our team. Therefore, we should hire a consultant for managerial training. Now, look how much more understandable this paragraph is. We start off with some common ground and a resonant character. Our company's success is important to us all. Then we move straight into a problem statement. We're losing valuable workers, which is good use of character and an urgent problem that will quickly win the attention of your reader. We then apply an effective connector of however, as we move into the solution statement, also with strong verbs such as recognize respect and reward. And we continue with strong characters of managers and teams as we wrap it up with a call to action for the problem, solution, action, paradigm. So if you skillfully apply these six writing tools, your message almost writes itself. And everyone will commend you for your fine communication skills. So here they are again, the top six business writing tips. Try them next time you write any type of communication, whether it's a business memo or a school paper or even a personal letter. And see how much better it works for you.