How To Sharpen Your Business Writing Skills, Second Edition

7Direct and Forceful Writing

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Name three techniques to make your writing powerful and precise.

• Cite three reasons for using active rather than passive verbs in writing.

• List and illustrate three appropriate uses of passive verbs.

• Define concrete nouns and abstract nouns.

• Change nouns that are hidden verbs into active verbs.

Straightforwardness is a hallmark of American English. We like to call a spade a spade, rather than a gardening implement, and we admire people who speak their minds without putting on airs. Direct, unadorned writing has characterized much of American ...