How can I change my professional writing style?

October 12, 2022 11:37 PM

In my work life, I am a straightforward person who tends to keep professional communications quite matter of fact. I write short sentences and use simple vocabulary. However, it's clear to me that a more elaborate, literary style is preferred by my superiors. I find this very hard to put into practice. How can I change my professional writing style?

My superiors' preferred style includes the following elements:

- Long, elaborate, 'literary' words (sometimes used incorrectly, which is a serious bugbear of mine!)
- A lot of background information
- A number of rhetorical flourishes

I can try my hardest but I simply do not write this way. My mind does not work this way. Ironically, I actually write fiction in my spare time, but I think my style is extremely accessible (some may say pedestrian, what can I say?!) My style is:

- Putting the request to the forefront
- Trying to make things as clear as possible
- Not including a lot of background information
- Using a lot of line breaks and white space

I guess I feel like most people are so busy they will prefer a to-the-point request rather than a meandering, multiple-paragraph letter... And if they're interested in continuing the conversation then that's where you can put in all the background information and extra detail.

Personally, I hate wordy, elaborate writing in a professional context and I find the unnecessary usage of long obscure vocabulary to be classist and gatekeeper-y.

But it doesn't matter what I think tbh. I need to be able to write to my superiors' specifications and I find that hard because there aren't exactly templates for this kind of thing... It's just how my superiors prefer to write. Any tips on how to help me change the way I write?

posted by sockandawe to Writing & Language (28 answers total)

Your current writing style sounds great to me! Could you continue to write emails as you currently do and just tack on a flowery paragraph at the end which goes into detail?
posted by kinddieserzeit at 12:12 AM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Are you 100% certain your superiors want you to write that way? Have they explicitly given you that feedback on your writing? Or are you just looking at the way they write and figuring they must want you to write the way they do?

I teach other people in my workplace (peers and higher-ups) how to write effectively, and your described writing/document design style is perfect if your purpose is clear communication.

Your writing is probably very much appreciated by other people who read it—possibly also by your superiors, even though they may not be capable of articulating to themselves why they like your writing.

I guess what I’m saying is, don’t assume your superiors actually want you to write the way they do. I mean yeah, if they have specifically given you the feedback that you need to emulate their terrible writing style, then I guess you could try to do that. But I’d be absolutely certain that’s what they genuinely want you to do.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:17 AM on October 13, 2022 [15 favorites]

> they will prefer a to-the-point request rather than a meandering, multiple-paragraph letter...

Could you incorporate ways to make the key points stand out more to the reader? A bullet point summary in the beginning, section headings, select sentences in bold...

When I have to change my writing voice, it helps me to picture someone who sounded like the target style and "channel" that person. What would [Flowery Author] do? Or think of yourself as the scriptwriter for Flowery Author's biopic, or the actor playing Flowery Author, and monologue in that voice.

I have worked as a speechwriter and letter writer (including for people who most definitely do not speak or write like me), and each project was a mix of my writing and the client speaker's voice.

(This is taking the question at face value and assumes it is necessary to change styles. I share your preference for clearness and brevity. If the situation would be actively harmed by the choice of wordy style--e.g., a legal letter that doesn't contain effective and accurate language or content, an application that would cost your org the contract because it won't get read, a speech that would offend the audience--I might push back more on the bosses' demands.)
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 12:26 AM on October 13, 2022

Best answer: I presume you write dialogue for your characters that reflects their personalities, so how about imagining you are a slightly pretentious academic in one of your own books, and write your business communications in that persona?

I bet it would come almost naturally.
posted by jamjam at 12:34 AM on October 13, 2022 [7 favorites]

Oh gosh, I would strangle a person who forced someone to change their professional writing style from the simplicity and clarity you describe to flowery intellectualized time wasting. So please, try not to change your style for anyone other than your superiors.

The only thing that sticks out to me as an easy opening is that you say you don’t include a lot of background information. Could you write normally but then append some additional paragraphs of background and detail? You could even do footnotes, which a lot of ivory tower people inexplicably love.

Another thing you might do is engage with adverbs. It’s a problem that I have in my own writing that I try to watch out for, so I’m loathe to suggest it, but needs must. If you are verbing, you can adverbally verb. Like, you can write “Thank you for the forms, I will check them by Friday” but you could also write “Thank you for the forms, I will thoroughly check them by Friday.”

You could also try to vary your sentence structure a bit? I am notorious for run on sentences, but maybe these people like them? Try combining simpler sentences into complex ones with multiple clauses. Example: “The teapot design meeting is postponed. There has been a molasses flood in the main elevator. If anyone has virtual materials please send them to me so I can collate them for the rescheduled meeting.” This could turn into: “The teapot meeting is postponed, due to a molasses flood in the main elevator; if anyone has virtual materials please send them to me - I will collate them before we reschedule.” That’s a bit of an extreme example, but if you combine shorter simpler sentences with longer ones your writing will feel less utilitarian.
posted by Mizu at 1:08 AM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

What about doing what Ben Franklin talks about doing to learn a writing style in his autobiography? He picked someone he wanted to sound like (the editorial section of the paper, I think), and tried to copy out paragraphs from memory to see what it was like to compose them.

Maybe you could try this with writers along a sliding scale of floweriness. So if you wanted to go full flowery you could copy a bunch of Moby Dick passages about the soul or whatever. Or if you wanted to put on a more super-formal tone you could copy some Jane Austen stuff, and then presto you could begin phrasing things in terms of being "worthy of approbation" etc. I feel for you though as I too would prefer plain work language.
posted by johngoren at 1:43 AM on October 13, 2022

My experience with accompaniment music is that people who ask for more flourishes (sometimes they also call it improvisation) don’t like it if you interpret their request literally. They are really just looking for a couple of extra notes, often where they wouldn’t have thought to ask for them, in your usual style that don’t interrupt the flow or hinder the audience’s ability to follow along. I’ve noticed the same principle in writing and wonder if it would apply to your situation.

For background information, put it after your main memo and label it “Additional Background:” so you feel better about it and busy people know when to start skimming.
posted by michaelh at 2:02 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Maybe you can introduce some of these elements through variation. Keep the structural components that you describe (white space), and point first writing with short clear sentences up front saying what you mean. If you must add long sentences and words of excessive length, add them afterwards, perhaps in a separate paragraph. Vary the length of sentences between short and long. Use cues to the reader to show which are the important and unimportant bits.
posted by lookoutbelow at 2:11 AM on October 13, 2022

Just echoing everybody who says keep doing what you're doing unless they are directing you to change.

Your approach is consistent with my organisation's official writing guide.

This may (not) be relevant for your audience but anything other than your current approach also makes it more difficult for non-native speakers or people who are less literate to understand your writing.
posted by koahiatamadl at 2:54 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

I agree that what they prefer doesn't necessarily to what they'd like you to do. However, assuming your Ask is expressing an observation that you noticed this was impacting their rate and quality of response to you, I have a couple of thoughts on the below:

My superiors' preferred style includes the following elements:

- Long, elaborate, 'literary' words (sometimes used incorrectly, which is a serious bugbear of mine!)
- A lot of background information
- A number of rhetorical flourishes

Setting aside the literary words that they like to use, I would like to clarify with you if the next two points are related in their social dimension. What I mean here is:

- what is the purpose of the background information? is it as citation, or to provide credit/attribution, or a subtle way to establish ownership as a way to pass the buck?

- are these rhetorical flourishes scripts of thanks and acknowledgement?

if they are, then my suggestion, if it fits your writing pattern, is to incorporate more attribution/citation-type stuff, almost like a primer on who owns what or what's happened since the last update in this correspondence chain etc.
posted by cendawanita at 3:07 AM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

I find that when I read a literary novel my writing style naturally becomes more...literary? Fancier words, longer sentences. Maybe a brief immersion in an excerpt would prime your mind. I agree your style sounds great for conveying information. Sounds like what they want you to convey is...heft? Agree as well that's classist and exclusionary. A few heretofores and suchlikes sprinkled through may do the job, especially if they often use fancy words wrongly!
posted by london explorer girl at 3:24 AM on October 13, 2022

Best answer: If you really want to do this, try:

Using passive voice. (That is, ensuring passive voice is used in communications.)

Expand items into lists of synonyms. (Expand items, ideas, and topics into lists of synonyms, alternatives and redundant options.)

Create compound sentences by combining multiple sentences, even if they are separate ideas and don’t benefit from being combined, because longer sentences, with more complicated constructions, are often a trademark of academic discourse, for god only knows what reason.
posted by snofoam at 3:26 AM on October 13, 2022 [10 favorites]

This may not apply to your situation as it is for a specific field. This worked for me in biomed research science.

The first time I had to write an academic paper for publication on my own my boss was unhappy with it for the kinds of reasons you’re describing.

He told me to go read journal articles by a specific PI and use those as a guide. I read those papers and others and created a list of words and phrases. I then sprinkled those phrases into my draft. I did it at a level I considered parody. My boss loved it. I kept that list, added to it, shared it, and still occasionally refer to it all these years later.

Good luck.
posted by sciencegeek at 4:45 AM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

What is the context here? Are we talking about internal emails, or annual reports circulated to the public? Product descriptions? Blog posts?

The answer to that question REALLY MATTERS, because there are contexts where your bare-bones style would be better and others where it would be completely inappropriate. Especially your distaste for including background information - sometimes background information is absolutely necessary to include, depending on who you’re speaking to about what subject for what purpose.

Sometimes communication is, in fact, clearer and more accessible for having all these “flourishes” you see as only ever wastes of time. But there isn’t enough, if you’ll pardon me, background information in the question to know whether that’s the case here.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:09 AM on October 13, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best answer: I make my living as a novelist and for years I was also an advertising copywriter. If I'm not following a given brief, my default style is very pared back. The last time I had an office job, my manager took me aside to express concerns my report writing style (not emails, blogs, or other more conversational communication) was "too cold". Privately I thought her complaint was ridiculous and probably gendered - I thought her expectations of a man would be a little different - but I treated it as a matter of house style. You've already noted how your superiors' style differs - *that* is your template. You're not changing how you write so much as temporarily using a different code. I second the suggestion further up to treat this as an exercise in character voice, which also might give you a bit of psychological freedom to write in a way you personally dislike and feel is wrong.

I share your preference for requests that are to the point and respect people's time. Unfortunately, it isn't universal - many people really do prefer some waffle, because they find it comforting. They want the discourse markers. They want some jargon. I suspect brain wiring plays a role in these preferences too (I'm not neurotypical).
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 5:37 AM on October 13, 2022

I sympathize. I often have trouble keeping a document from devolving into a list. And your question reminds me of the stunts that have shown you can get pure nonsense accepted for publication if the writing is florid enough.

My suggestion is that you work on your document style as much as your prose. The classic style of an academic paper offers some hints. It starts with an abstract outlining the thesis and the conclusion. In business, I guess this would be called an executive summary. It's a great place to stick some business jargon and references to the business context of the issues involved.

Then proceed with the simplicity and clarity you prefer.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:46 AM on October 13, 2022

First: I tend to write like what I read, at least a little. So pick a writer you like who has a more discursive style and spend some time reading their work to get that voice in your head. Then write a memo in that style as a template.

Second: write a checklist of flourishes you're supposed to include in your memos.

Third: draft your memos as per usual. Then go through an editing pass, referring to the products of the first and second steps above, to transmogrify them into a boss-compliant form.

FWIW, I think including background information is a good idea, unless the shared context is really well established.
posted by adamrice at 6:00 AM on October 13, 2022

I think it's possible that, if your coworkers are really requesting beefier prose from you, what they really want is:

- An understanding of why you do/recommend/critique things in exactly the way you do. If you say you'll get back to me next Thursday, even if you say it's because you're working on another project that's more urgent, I don't know if I can or should push back; I need to get a sense of how pressed you feel and how important that other project is, and that is sometimes most efficiently conveyed through emotional words, word and phrase choice, and even the rhythms in the prose you write.

- A constant small feed of your emotional state, which can also come from subtext more efficiently, precisely, and authentically than if you just said, "I will do this thing."

- *** This one is huge for me: *** Evidence of contextual awareness: A little commentary here and there that shows that your thinking is informed by a complete understanding of the context in which you are working. This lets me trust that you know as much as I do, or more, and thus I can trust your decisions. I know I don't need to give you more information, or which specific information you're lacking. If you're too concise, you're leaving this sort of ancillary evidence / commentary out of your message. People in an organization need to constantly work bit by bit to make sure they aren't accidentally working against each other, or making organizational mistakes because one person has to act with incomplete information.

- Fun. This is actually really important, and it doesn't mean "ha ha hand buzzer funny hat Dilbert". It sounds like this might be an environment where people just enjoy flexing the word muscles. By engaging with this, even just a little, you are able to connect with your coworkers a little bit more, which means that you'll be more able to help each other when emotions might get tense; this also can help you stay motivated, which is incredibly important right now. Always, I suppose.
posted by amtho at 6:40 AM on October 13, 2022 [8 favorites]

Yes, it would definitely help if you could explain the context of how you've been told you need to change your communications style. What you might do to maintain smooth relations with an external audience is different from what you might do to engage your bosses more.

One point that does stand out to me, since you mention background information: are you assuming that your superiors remember every detail of the tasks you're writing to them about? Unless you're working with them on a task on a day-to-day basis, they probably don't. When I'm sending a document to my grandboss for review, I usually include a brief summary of what the document is, its purpose in the grand scheme of the project, any context needed to evaluate any ways in which the document varies from the office standard, and any information on timelines. Basically, I try to write the email so that they don't have to look anything up elsewhere, but can just read and review the attachment as it is. I think my superiors have generally appreciated this.
posted by praemunire at 7:37 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: And if they're interested in continuing the conversation then that's where you can put in all the background information and extra detail.

I think it would help to reframe this a little bit. The background information is what helps catch your readers attention and ground them. Especially since you mentioned it's higher ups who seem to want this, I suspect they have a bunch of projects rattling around their heads, so your short emails aren't giving them enough information to remind them of exactly what is going on and they're not sure if they should be interested in more information or not.

You're intending to be efficient by providing only what you think is needed to minimize the time they spend reading extraneous information. But if they're interested and want more information, they have to stop, try to remember what they know about the topic (if anything) and then email you back to get more information. That's an extra step for both you and them.

Even if they're ultimately not interested, without extra background, they may not be sure that they don't want to know more. So even if it doesn't go anywhere, there may still be another round of emails. And each new email can be like a task switch, which means they're stopping to refocus and pull up what they know about the topic.

With my boss, who currently gets a lot of emails, fewer emails is more efficient (for us), so I consolidate a bunch of things at once for her when I'm updating her. She can read one email and get updated on a bunch of things, and then send me her response to a bunch of items. My goal is to minimize the number of times she need to hit reply.
posted by ghost phoneme at 8:32 AM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

It's possible that they are using it as a status marker, something that validates and reinforces their superiority. If so, they may take umbrage if you encroach by imitating their style.

So, unless someone gives you direct feedback on your communications, don't worry about a thing.
posted by dum spiro spero at 8:38 AM on October 13, 2022

Look, your straightforward, direct style here is dripping with judgment and condescension (or at least I read it that way).

The use of “superiors” seems overwrought. You mention flourishes and scold their incorrect use of language. And then you do the whole, “aw shucks, I’m just direct and simple but actually smarter than these not-actually-superiors” thing.

So if this is the feeling they’re getting reading your writing, maybe they want you to step down from your high horse and be a bit warmer and friendlier.

Cheers!

(See how I did that? This is why so many women add extra context and use exclamation marks: to make it seem warmer and friendlier.)
posted by bluedaisy at 8:58 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks all for the comments! Some helpful info here. Just to note:

- I'm not questioning whether I need to change my style. Yes, I don't like their preferred style, but my question is how to change mine, not whether I should change it. I love the idea of writing it in character! I will try that.

- They haven't specifically told me to change my writing style, they just edit my drafts to read very differently.
posted by sockandawe at 9:16 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

they just edit my drafts to read very differently.

In this case i would take advantage of actually having examples of what they prefer, and place the versions next to each other, literally copy and paste in a document with two columns, and analyse the differences, turns of phrase etc. This should give you a good idea how to change your writing. Next i would practice, by taking a piece of your own writing and edit it into their style. If possible get someone to read both and give you feedback if you are in the right track.
posted by 15L06 at 9:24 AM on October 13, 2022

You might try reading some 19th century novels to pick up the narrative style, which sounds like what your correspondents are looking for. I'm currently re-reading Dracula and Seward or Harker would make good models. (Maybe don't read any PG Wodehouse; I found Bertie Wooster's writing style infectious and had to work to keep it out of my e-mails.)
posted by SPrintF at 9:38 AM on October 13, 2022

"Editing drafts" suggests to me that they're going elsewhere, not just random emails to supervisors. In that case, you would be well advised to consider whether your supervisors might have a better sense than you do of your audience(s)'s needs and expectations. Don't think of it as making your writing worse; think of it as meeting specific requirements for specific people.
posted by praemunire at 10:35 AM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

They haven't specifically told me to change my writing style, they just edit my drafts to read very differently.

One additional thought: it's way easier to delete rather than add. You may want to way overshoot on background and let them widdle it down.

It's possible they haven't remarked on it because if this is for a third party you don't know, how on earth could you be expected to provide the right amount? That's unreasonable. They don't think you're style is incorrect, it's just not quite right for it's ultimate purpose.

You could even mention it next time you send a draft. "I tried adding more background since most of the time I seem to skimp on that. Let me know if I over corrected." Or, since no one has said anything, just go ahead and do it.
posted by ghost phoneme at 12:58 PM on October 13, 2022

my question is how to change mine, not whether I should change it

Would you find it easier to follow their style if you know the reasons behind it?

If you told me "Use 50% more adverbs," it would feel like a pointless chore, like I was throwing darts at the page and sticking adverbs wherever they landed.

But if you told me, I don't know, "Our readers really care about informational nuance. Use adverbs like obviously, surprisingly, probably, definitely, and apparently to convey that," then I'd have an easier time. I wouldn't be throwing darts. I'd be working towards an actual goal — maybe a weird or annoying goal, but at least a goal I understood.

I wonder if you could ask your supervisors to explain the thinking behind some of the edits. The trick is, you need to do this without defensiveness (you're not here to prove them wrong, you're here to understand), and you need to do it without provoking their defensiveness. That might be challenging, especially if you've chafed at their edits before. But if you can do it, you'll probably get some valuable information on what their goal is, and then you can work towards that goal in an informed way.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:19 PM on October 13, 2022