Improve Your Business Writing Skills With These 5 Simple Tools

As anybody who has ever had to piece together a proposal, write a grant application, business plan or formal letter will tell you, ‘business English’ is, essentially, a slightly different language to that which we use on a day-to-day basis. What’s more, professional business writing requires an in-depth knowledge of formats and standards, accepted structures and pieces of jargon which might at first be difficult to learn and utilize.

These things take practice, however, and we can all do with a helping hand from time to time. As such, we’ve compiled this handy list of seven business writing tools – with the help of these sites and apps; you can rehearse your business writing technique, and boost your skills to help you pass as a pro!

1. MailMentor

This is a fantastic tool for giving instant feedback on the readability of your text, and for knowing how long it will take for somebody to work their way through it. Business writing at its best is snappy, concise, and wastes no time in getting to the point, and if you’re prone to rambling or going off on tangents, MailMentor will help you practice your writing skills to stay on track and achieve that professional tone.

All you have to do to use this tool is to copy and paste your text into the site. Immediately, MailMentor will scan your document, and let you know how much time it will take a reader to digest your text. What’s more, it will also let you know how your text might be improved – typical results point to shortening sentences, including paragraph breaks, or avoiding repetition.

2. Daily Grammar

Nothing looks less professional on a business document than poor grammar. It’s a surprisingly common problem, as more and more of us lack the grammatical precision and understanding in our writing to make it stand out and tick all the right boxes. However, to sharp, professional eyes, grammatical errors stand out like a sore thumb on any business document. So if you feel you lack in this area, tools like Daily Grammar can help make a difference.

The idea behind Daily Grammar is to help you little by little – the site claims that just ten minutes per day are studying on the site, and trying out a couple of their exercises regularly, will make a dramatic difference to your grammatical usage and precision.

3. EssayPro

Sometimes, when you have a critical essay, document, project or thesis to write, it’s best left to the professionals. It’s all too easy to drive yourself into a blank wall of frustration when faced with too much-written work, and we’ve all experienced the burnout you can get when you’re a college student overloaded with writing projects to complete. EssayPro is the perfect solution – it connects students to expert academic and business writers, who have perfected the skills you need to ensure success.

It’s easy – all you need to do is post details about the document or essay, etc. you need to be written, and within minutes, expert writers will begin bidding to take on your work for you. Before long, you’ll have a perfectly-written, and well-researched text typed up for you, and you can be assured it will be delivered by the deadline, and to the standard, you need to ensure success.

4. Stoodle

The best way to learn any new skill (or to improve your existing skills) is through collaboration and teaching. This is the concept behind Stoodle, an online learning interface which connects you with tutors; experts who can help you highlight the areas you need to improve.

This tool is fantastic for when you’re struggling with a business project or text, and need an expert eye to look at what you’re writing, identifying ways to help. It also allows you to collaborate with other members of your team, should you need to share ideas and assist each different when it comes to creating documents.

5. Thesaurus

Business writing must not be repetitive – this is something we all learn right at the very beginning of our business education. Using the same words over and over again result in your document looking amateurish, and lead to the reader only switching off and losing their focus in your writing.

The Thesaurus will allow you to seek out synonyms to use in your text, and be more expansive with your vocabulary. The result? More colorful, exciting and dynamic writing, which comes across as considerably more professional and business-like.