During the last few years our efforts to teach as many people as possible how to write faster and better have paid off. Learning how to write well for today’s business world has become rather trendy as organisations (and individuals) realise how good it is for business to write clearly and quickly.
Most organisations have writing style guides to support the idea of writing clearly and concisely in a style that is suitable for your readers (not for yourself!), even though not everyone follows their own guidelines!
The best guide we’ve seen so far is Rio Tinto’s writing guide “In our own words”. For those who are into American literature: it suggests the Rio Tinto tone of voice should be “more Hemingway than Faulkner”.
The Rio Tinto team has done an excellent job with this guide and we wish it was available to anyone who’s interested in good business writing. Sadly, it is not.