Blog
Writing with Clarity: Stay Low on the Abstraction Ladder
At the top of the abstraction ladder are obscure terms and concepts that leave you in a fog; at the bottom is concrete language that people can visualize. You see a promo for a "virtual knowledge transfer event" and then realize it's a webinar. You discover that a...
read morePunctuation Challenge: Using Commas Before “So”
Knowing where to use a comma before the word "so" is often challenging. Sometimes you need it; other times you should omit it because the context is different. The comma is the most common punctuation mark and the one people wrestle with the most, particularly when it...
read moreGetting Off to a Strong Start: Summary Paragraphs Engage Readers
Summary paragraphs are helpful to readers, but while many people have heard of them, few people actually write them. In an email of several paragraphs, a formal memo, or a report, the opening paragraph should give the reader a window into what the entire memo is...
read moreTaking Advantage of the Halo Effect: Using Positive Labeling to Persuade
A Wall Street Journal story about the increasing demand for foods that say “protein” on the packaging, http://on.wsj.com/ZsMZhK, highlights the careful use of words for a persuasive effect. For nearly a century, marketing people and politicians have carefully chosen...
read morePersuasive Writing: Make the Message Relevant
If you are trying to persuade someone in a written message or speech, they need to carefully consider your position. And for them to take the time to do it, the issue must be personally relevant. Social psychology experiments show that persuasion does not occur when...
read moreTo influence an Audience, You Need to Get People to Read It
If you want to influence people in a written message, they first need to read it carefully. So how do you induce people to invest the effort? Social psychologists Robert Petty and John Cacioppo found that two factors determine whether someone will think carefully...
read moreExpository Writing – It’s about Informing, Explaining, Simplifying
Expository writing might sound like a lofty term for some kind of literature, but it's what we do every day in business: inform, clarify, simplify. In high school, I thought the word prose was an academic term, but it actually applies to any sentence you write....
read moreWhen Being Persuasive, Personalize Your Appeal for Best Results
You want to persuade your team members to provide ideas or feedback, so you write an email to one person, with everyone else's name in the "cc" box. You get no response and wonder why your persuasive appeal failed. The problem is that when multiple individuals are...
read moreBy Ken O’Quinn
As a contributing author in this book on leadership, Ken offers insights and tips for managing difficult conversations, providing effective feedback, and being authentic. Order here.
Perfect Phrases for Business Letters (McGraw-Hill)
Provides the right words and phrases for any situation - quickly. The book was reprinted in Japanese because of high-volume sales there.
TD at Work — Business Writing for Managers
The Association for Talent Development invited Ken to write this 22-page booklet for the TD at Work series.
Current Blog Post
Passive Voice is Not Always Wrong
The passive voice remains an easy target of business writing critics, but sometimes it is preferable to an active sentence. …