Professional writing skills are essential in commerce and the workplace. Professionals and business persons rely on professional writing to inform and persuade others to adopt specific ideas and resolutions. The writing style emphasizes professionalism, clarity, conciseness, objectivity, respectfulness, and formality. While all categories of people use professional writing, it is popular among colleagues, employers, clients, and employees.
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Professional Writing Definition: What You Need to Know
Professional writing follows strict guidelines, unlike creative writing, which can take any form or design. While the definition of professional writing varies across sources, there is an accentuation of conciseness, formal tone, and workplace context across all the sources. Professional writing is important for informing, persuading, instructing, and encouraging others. The texts can also be used to affirm shared goals and beliefs. For example, a surgeon can remind nurses to be more vigilant and committed to their course using a memo. An engineer can write a short paper to the marketing department explaining how her new invention beats the competition.
What is a Professional Writing Sample? Find Some of Them Here
You are likely to interact with professional writings at the workplace daily. Below are some of the common examples of professional writings.
1. Business letters
Companies write business letters to other companies, employees, shareholders, or customers. Business letters include sales, complaints, orders, adjustments, inquiries, follow-ups, and acknowledgment letters. Any interaction between a business and its stakeholders is done formally and filed as a business letter.
The main components of a business letter include the sender’s address, date of writing, recipient’s address, salutation, body, closing remarks or recommendations, and signature. Although most business letters are short, there are a few exceptions where businesses write longer letters. From my experience, businesses avoid long letters to save their target audience’s time and maintain their interest in the subjects of the letters.
2. Reports
Reports are writings that evaluate particular issues, for example, a company’s or project’s financial performance, major incidents during a specific period, or organizational operations, procedures, or processes. Reports are detailed and provide specific feedback that guides stakeholders’ decision-making. Reports are invaluable tools for assessing a company’s performance, especially against its competitors. The annual financial reports issued by companies help investors to know the performances of their companies while at the same time providing projections for future growth.
Reports can be extremely voluminous. Therefore, report writers and compilers must prioritize only essential information. For example, when preparing an environmental assessment report, it is important to include only factors with the greatest impact and those that present the most significant future threats.
Some reports can be extremely time-consuming and demanding. It is okay to consider a professional essay writing service to take some burden off your shoulders. A company such as CustomWritings.com provides personalized, well-researched papers and reports for various contexts and audiences. Having worked with them before, I can guarantee they provide original, customized, professional, and affordable writing for students and professionals. Most importantly, their writers are highly qualified, ensuring you get the highest possible quality on time. You’ll be amazed just how quickly their turnaround can be. One of their experts delivered my 1500-words essay within 12 hours. The work was written from scratch and was error-free. Try them, and you’ll not be disappointed.
3. Emails
Emails remain the most frequently and widely used business communication. The increasing rate of internet penetration and smartphone adoption and use have made emails crucial to everyday business communication. Employees and bosses rely on emails to coordinate business operations, share and create knowledge, and spread product and service hacks.
Mailing lists have enabled companies to streamline emailing services, ensuring that categories of employees, customers, and other stakeholders can be emailed at the click of a button. For example, customers added to the emailing list can be reached effortlessly in one batch. Employees can also be listed in different groups, i.e., top management, directors, and low-level clerks, ensuring that each group can be targeted with specific messages.
Even though emails are common in business contexts, they require vigilance and proper writing etiquette. A wrong email to the wrong group or person can be costly. People have lost their careers and livelihoods for sending inappropriate emails. Before clicking send, ensure that:
- You’ve proofread the email several times.
- Written a clear and concise subject.
- Tagged the right recipients.
- Attached the right documents, if any.
- Used an appropriate salutation.
4. Press releases
Press releases can help disseminate information about new products or services. At the same time, they can be invaluable instruments for extinguishing raging fires in an organization. For example, an organization that has been caught in a storm or scandal can issue a press statement to clarify the circumstances of the case. In such a case, a few leaders may take the fall to save the organization’s image and reputation.
Conversely, press releases can be used for traditional public relations (PR) roles or marketing. For instance, an organization may invite media houses to cover the unveiling of a new product or a new milestone. Coverage from the event may go a long way in improving the organization’s image and public relations.
As a rule of the thumb, press releases should be concise and engaging.
5. Cover letters and resumes
Unlike the other professional writings published by organizations, cover letters and resumes are written by individuals for organizations and businesses. Searching for a job can be hectic, especially in the current economic situation. However, a good cover letter and resume can be the difference between landing a job immediately after graduation and tarmacking for months, even years. A good cover letter shows your potential employers your skills and motivation, improving your chances of getting employed significantly.
Most job seekers’ biggest mistake is writing one cover letter and sending it to multiple companies. A personalized cover letter gives you a higher standing against other applicants. Therefore, you must link your skills and qualifications to specific job descriptions for optimal impact. Furthermore, remain formal and concise.
6. Response to customer complaints
All organizations deal with customer complaints in their operations. However, how they handle the complaints may be the difference between organizational success and failure. Professional handling of customer complaints improves customer retention and satisfaction rating. Social media platforms have empowered and emboldened customers. For instance, a single negative review on Google can affect an organization’s traffic and other customers’ perception of the business. Yet, positive responses are often ignored.
In case of a conflict with a customer, a mature and well-articulated response may help diffuse the situation. Most importantly, avoid being emotional, combative, defensive, or abusive in your responses. Instead, be understanding and polite. Responses can be written online or through the mail.
