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CURRENT ISSUE VOLUME 19 NO. 3 MAY/JUNE 2008
 Communiqué
Mincing Words
By Eleanor Beaton
Doing it gives me a guilty, nauseous feeling. I only do it for the money, I tell myself, and when it's over, I make myself read something "smart" as penance. But nearly a decade after launching my copywriting career, the excuses for periodically writing plastic prose that alludes to a lot but specifies little are ageing gracelessly.
"Plastic prose?," you ask, with the horrified self-righteousness of the truly guilty. "What's that?" Read a few brochures, your competitors' websites, or grab a handful of your own past proposals and read them aloud to a discerning friend. Watch for the parts where her eyes glaze over in boredom and flit to her Blackberry. Both are signs you've either bored, lost, confused, annoyed or frustrated your audience - sure signs of language that has lost its moorings in true meaning.
Examples of clichéd, cloudy, imprecise or downright manipulative communications abound—we all have ink on our hands. But if you remain unconvinced, it'll help for us to get really high level before we drill down to the nuts and bolts of this very important issue. Maintaining dialogue is an important piece in building bridges and collaborating with our many partners. It helps us enhance our relationships with our valued customers and demonstrate that we are committed to delivering high quality results on time and on budget. We know how important it is to take a team-oriented, innovative approach to solving problems and meeting challenges head-on. We are very results-oriented and bottom-line driven individuals. It's all about accountability, transparency and strategic direction. Training the trainer—that sort of thing.
The above excerpt was taken from the most recent issue of Atlantic Business Magazine. Our complete editorial content is available in print form only. To receive a free subscription to Atlantic Business Magazine,
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