Keep your writing sharp and professional with this list of pointers

Whether you're composing an e-mail or a large report, these tips will help make the results polished and effective.

Your job focus may be very technical, but you can't completely escape the burden of writing tasks: e-mails, status reports, performance evaluations, RFPs, and system documentation, to name a few possibilities. But if your writing experience has been limited, you could probably stand to brush up on those skills--especially if you're a manager or aspiring to become one.

This list contains basic suggestions to keep in mind when you're working on a business document. It includes fundamental advice and examples such as:

Avoid redundancy. Many repetitive phrases can be tightened into one word. For example: history, not past history; plan, not plan ahead; result, not end result.

Vary your sentence structure. Mix up simple, compound, and complex sentences. Use both short and long sentences to keep your writing interesting.

Make company names singular. For example: Ernst & Young ordered some computers for its new office.

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