You know how they say that first impressions count? Well you may have the most effusive personality, a killer smile and be naturally engaging, but sometimes you don’t have the opportunity to meet face-to-face to make that important first impression. Sometimes you have to do it through the written word and this often stops people cold in their tracks.

The art of writing may not be one of your strong points. Younger generations seem to be far more adept at expressing themselves through abbreviations – idk, LOL, imho and so on. Indeed, as we are always on the go our society may be used to sending and receiving messages through SMS and in truth, many of our attempts to send e-mails that should be at least a little more formal are far from perfectly formed and presented.

We have to understand that the business world is competitive and complex these days and so clear and effective writing is paramount. If you’re trying to make that very important first impression for whatever reason you need to understand that you are effectively selling yourself. If your writing is not properly presented you may not get a second chance.

Let’s consider just a few writing tips that can help you if you are sitting there with the proverbial clean sheet of paper in your hand, which these days of course is a blank Word document with a flashing cursor.

Firstly, begin with an objective firmly in mind. A lot of people find it is a good idea to jot down some notes in advance to help them focus, so that they do not deviate off track.

Secondly, never forget that every communication should have certain characteristics in mind and be able to convey a certain amount of information – where, what, who, why and when.

Don’t try and be too smart. You should use relatively simple everyday words and not feel that you have to turn to a thesaurus or a dictionary to make your piece more colorful. Concentrate on short sentences and plenty of paragraphs and avoid using jargon. You probably know that if you’ve ever tried to read words that are all jumbled together in a really long paragraph it just gives you a headache. You reader may be tempted to turn the other way.

You need to get to the point and be very positive. Write in active voice and in the first person, never wandering away from the point or being evasive.

Lastly, always proofread your work carefully and make use of the built in and very effective spellchecker features within today’s word processing software packages. Only send your communication when you are absolutely happy with it.

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