Bad writing skills can hold you back

By Janet Rorholm

A master Twitterer Amy Stevens admits she will probably never be.

Stevens can’t bare to abbreviate words, which is so prevalent among texters and Twitterers because the 140-character limit is too confining, she said.

“I feel spelling reflects who you are and your organization,” said Stevens, director of Alliance Claims Solutions in Cedar Rapids.

Stevens said many people don’t seem to agree. She said she’s seen fewer applicants and employees with the business writing skills needed for the business she manages, which is why she became a business writing instructor at Kirkwood Community College’s Continuing Education program.

Other employers also are worried by the informal writing trend that has seeped into the workplace today. Bosses are urging or flat-out telling employees that they need to attend the class. Some students have admitted that they’ve been passed over for promotions because of their poor writing skills, Stevens said.

So much of being a manager is about writing — writing performance reviews, proposals, documentation and investigations — that it pays to be a good writer, Stevens said.

Some of the most common writing problems include informal writing, poor grammatical skills, writing that is too verbose, or writing where the point is lost.

“What I really think has happened is that very few people write letters anymore and even in e-mails, you are seeing the English language dumbed down. I blame a lot of it on texting,” she said.

Writing fast is not always conducive to writing well, she said. So often people write something fast and send it off.

“We don’t realized that writing, especially good writing, requires time,” she said.

That’s one of the reasons why Jennifer Bollig of Cedar Rapids found the class valuable. Bollig, a military veteran and an office assistant who has been temping in the recession, took the class to help set herself apart from other applicants. The class is required as part of the office professional certificate that she is seeking.

“It’s definitely worth it to invest in yourself,” she said.

Her best advice for writing well? Get right to the point and proofread.

“(The class) can apply to everyone. All people need to learn to write well,” she said.

Stevens said it isn’t that most employees have never taken writing classes. Most people received it in college, but they’ve lost it because they haven’t had to use it, Stevens said.

Because of the nature of her business, Stevens said communication between her staff and customers can end up in court. So those back-and-forth e-mails had better be completely professional, without smiley faces or abbreviated words like “btw” for by the way, which is so common in texting.

For that matter, Stevens said too many people misuse e-mail.

“E-mail was designed for quick and fast questions and answers. Now people use it for everything,” she said.

Stevens said you shouldn’t use e-mail to document conversations or to converse with someone who is only a few feet away. Any conversation meant for documenting should be done in letter form that can be attached to an e-mail if necessary.

Other business writing tips:

• Don’t use emoticons (those silly faces people like to stick in their e-mails). They are not professional e-mail etiquette.

• Take time to use the writing tools available, like grammatical or spell check.

• Use the proper tone and style depending on who the audience is. For example, a letter to an attorney should have a different tone and style than a quick e-mail to a colleague.

• Evaluate the proper tool for the communication. Is an e-mail appropriate, or should it be a formal letter, attached to an e-mail?