Concision and Precision Defined
Concision and Precision are two important business communication goals.
- To be concise is to communicate information in as few words as possible.
- To be precise is to communicate all required information.
To achieve concision and precision in writing, writers need to be cognizant of word choice and sentence structure.
Precision
Include clear subjects in sentences. Avoid the following.
Avoid using ambiguous “they”, “it”, “you” pronouns.
| Ambiguous – to be avoided | They need the costing information by the afternoon. | When you use the costing application, you sometimes get an error message because you haven’t saved the most recent input. | It will mean that management may have to lay off some employees. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Improved | The controller needs the costing information by this afternoon. | Users sometimes get error messages when using the costing application because they haven’t saved their most recent input. | The merger will mean that management will have to lay off some employees. |
Present facts clearly.
Use precise language.
| Ambiguous – to be avoided | A while ago we received some complaints about our sauces. | A lot of union members indicated that they would ratify the agreement. |
|---|---|---|
| Improved | In April, we received about 15 complaints about the re-heating instructions on our Ole Mole sauce label. | About 65 percent of union members indicated that they would ratify the agreement. |
Use Plain English: Avoid overly formal words, foreign words, cliches, and slang.
| Overly formal words, foreign words, cliches, and slang – to be avoided | Hank Fuchs apprised me of the poorly performing Facebook shares. | The conference will commence at 10 a.m. | We are really going to have to tighten our belts this quarter. | Critics argue that Google’s raison d’etre is to provide businesses with an endless stream of customers. | Ian bounced as soon as the meeting was over. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Improved | Hank Fuchs told me about the poorly performing Facebook shares. | The conference will start at 10 a.m. | We are going to have to reduce spending by 10% this quarter. | Critics argue that Google’s goal is to provide businesses with an endless stream of customers. | Ian left as soon as the meeting was over. |
Use job-related jargon only if your audience is familiar with the jargon.
The sentences below are effective only if the reader understands the italicized terms.
- The PAC was pleased with the improvement in prospective employees’ communication skills.
- The HR department is completing its bi-annual CPQR report.
- Edalat began the content curation for our webpage yesterday.
- The bounce rate on our Twitter account is almost 76%.
Concision
Eliminate wordy or redundant phrases
Avoid unnecessary words such as “true fact” of “refer back”. A fact is true, so “true fact” is redundant. Refer means to go back, so “refer back” is redundant.
Click on the following link to see a list 50 common redund