Part III: Chapter 16 Business Writing: Writing in Your Job Summary

Business writing has big problems. Professionals fall into the jargon of their profession when writing for people not in the profession, usually customers and investors. Corporate-speak and pomposity infects documents, and nobody seems to exist in the organizations. Zinsser describes how he helped people in a school district and a business to learn how to write well.

Zinsser lists his four articles of faith in regard to writing well—clarity, simplicity, brevity, and humanity—while trying to bring the professional educators closer to their true selves. He urges them to use active verbs and to avoid concept nouns. The problem of jargon usage is relatively simple to fix—translate the jargon into common English. The educators accept Zinsser's constructive criticisms and become writers, something...