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Objective
and Professional: Third Person!
Write an objective, professional business paper.
The
best way to write a business paper is to keep it professional and objective.
That means no editorializing, no personal opinions, and no rants. Before
you send your paper to be graded, print a copy and take a red pen or a
yellow highlighter and scan your document for the word "I" or
"you." Every time you highlight one, tell yourself that Miss
Pammi will highlight this in red and take points from your grade! THEN
REWORD THE SENTENCE TO ELIMINIATE "I."
When
you use "you" in a business paper, it sounds like you are telling
the reader what to think or what to do. While that may work with your
children or employees, it won't work with colleagues. Your paper must
convince the reader in such a way that when he or she gets to the bottom,
he/she will come to the same conclusions that you did (without actually being
told what to think).
- Don't use words like that express emotions. Use
statistics and hard evidence to "make the case."
- Don't personalize your writing. Do not write in first
person (I/we) nor in second person (you).
- Examples:
- WRONG: I
read a research report that showed the importance of advertising for
a business.
- WRONG:
You can find many articles that support the theory that advertising
makes a significant impact on your business.
- RIGHT:
Research shows that advertising makes a significant impact on sales
for businesses in every sector of the private sector.
- Don't editorialize or give your own opinions.
- It's sad (and maybe a little insulting) but true:
At this stage in your business career, your opinion doesn't count for
much. Rely on the opinions of the experts and on the statistics
from research.
- No matter how much you like a company like Ben &
Jerry's for their good works, please don't share that information in
your paper. You can make the same point by showing what others
(experts) have said.
- Examples:
- WRONG: I
was impressed with the way Ben & Jerry's company expresses their
concern for the environment and for society by "putting their
money where their mouths are!"
- WRONG:
You can see how committed the Ben & Jerry's company is to social
justice and environmental issues when you look at the amount of
money they commit to worthwhile projects.
- RIGHT:
The business journals cite many examples of good corporate
citizenship by companies like Ben & Jerry's who donate 7.5
percent of their earnings to socially responsible
projects.
- Graduate School Here You Come: While you may
think that an undergraduate degree is the last formal educational experience
in your plans, you are likely to go to graduate school at some point in your
future.
- Graduate school is basically about writing papers from
research.
- This takes practice, but this is good practice for
graduate school.
Writing business papers is a learning experience.
Learn from your errors on previous papers and try to improve your writing as
you progress through the semester!
You can do it! :-)
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