Style Guide for Business Writing

Michael C. Thomsett, Business and Investment Writer, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

• A  1 A or an  1 Abbreviation  1 Abridgement  6 Abstracts  6 Accessibility  7 Acknowledgments  8 Acronyms  8 Active and passive voice  9 Adnouns  12 Afterword  12 Agreement  12 Alphabetizing  17 Annotations  21 Annualization  22 Anonymous publication  23 Anthology  23 Antonyms  24 Appendices  25 Appositives  25 Apps  26 Archive  26 Articles  27 Artwork  29 Attribution  30 B  33 Backmatter  33 Baseline  34 Bibliography  36 Blogging  37 Budgets and forecasts  37 Bullet points  39 C  41 Callouts and sidebars  41 Capitalization  41 Captions  44 Case studies  45 Casual assertions and inferences  46 Charts and Graphs  48 Circa (ca.) 57 Circular arguments  57 Citations  58 Clauses  64 Cleft sentences  65 Cliches  66 Coinage of words  73 Colloquialism  73 Compound Words  74 Conclusions  75 Copyright  76 Cross reference  77 D  81 Dangling modifiers  81 Data analysis  81 Databases  85 Data collection methods  85 Data matrices  86 Dates and times  87 Decimals, fractions, and percentages  92 Definitions  96 Denotation and connotation  98 Derivative work  99 Descriptive statistics and inference  99 Desktop publishing  100 Dictionaries  101 Double negatives  101 Dysphemism  101 E  103 Editing and proofreading  103 e.g. and i.e. 106 Electronic mail (email) 106 Electronic mail formatting guidelines  108 Emphasis  109 Empirical approach  114 Endnotes  115 et al. 115 Euphemism  116 F  117 Fact checking  117 False subjects  117 Figure of speech  118 File naming  119 Financial reports  120 Flowcharts  122 Footnotes  124 G  127 Generalizations  127 Gerunds  128 Glossary formatting  128 Graphics  129 H  131 Headings  131 Highlighting in text  132 Homonyms  135 Hyperbole  135 Hyperlinks  136 Hypothesis formulation  136 I  139 Ibid. 139 Idiom  139 Imperative sentences  140 Indexing  141 Introductions, forewords and prefaces  143 Irony  145 J, K  147 Jargon  147 L  151 Legends, titles, and labels  151 Letters  152 Lists  163 M  169 Manuscripts  169 Mathematical symbols  171 Means testing  175 Measurement strategies  175 Memos  177 Metadata  179 Metaphors  180 Money and currency  180 N  183 Nominative, objective, and possessive pronouns  183 Numerals and numbering  184 O  191 Obfuscation  191 Objective and goal statements  192 Online etiquette  194 Op. Cit. 196 Organization charts  197 Outlining  199 P  203 Paradox  203 Paragraphs  203 Parallelism  207 Parentheses and brackets  209 Participles  213 Parts of speech  213 Patents  234 Peer review  234 Photographs  235 Planning documents  236 Possessives  239 Presentations  240 Problem statement  242 Procedures manuals  243 Proposals  246 Punctuation  248 Q  269 Quotations  269 R  273 Redundancy and repetition  273 Relative clauses  274 Reports  275 Rhetorical questions  278 Rhythm in sentences  278 Roman numerals  279 Run-in quotations  280 Run-on sentences and sentence fragments  281 S  283 Salutations  283 Sampling  285 Sarcasm  286 Scaling  287 Scientific method  289 Screen shots  290 Sentences  291 Sexist writing  296 Signs and symbols  298 Similar words  299 Similes  317 Singular and plural  318 Spacing  321 Spelling  323 Statistical references  329 Style and tone  329 Suffixes  332 Summarizing  333 Superscript and subscript  334 Symbolism  335 Synonyms  336 T, U  339 Table of contents  339 Tables  340 Technical writing  341 Tenses  342 Titles  343 Trademarks  344 Transitions  345 Translations  349 V  351 Variable measurements  351 Variable relationships  351 Video best practices  352 W  355 Webinar and conference call etiquette  355 Webpage references and citation  356 Websites  356 Word processing  357 X, Y  361 X and y axes  361 Z  363 Zombie nouns  363 Index  365

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