Style
Style is a basic and distinctive mode of expression.
It describes the product’s look and feel to the buyer. It creates distinctiveness that is hard to copy.
For example, styles appear in homes (colonial, ranch, transitional), clothing (formal, casual), and art (realist, surrealist, abstract). Once a style is invented, it may last for generations, passing in and our of vogue. A style has a cycle showing several periods of renewed interest.
Style means using words effectively to appeal to the individual reader. If used properly this will help you communicate your message more successfully.
The style you choose to use in your business writing depends very much on your purpose combined with what you know about the recipient. Although you may not have actually met, you will probably be aware of reader’s status and you certainly know what you hope to achieve by writing to him/er:
- Is the letter for a client or a member of staff?
- Will the recipient understand technical jargon or not?
The primary rules of business writing style are:
- Keep the point.
- Be clear in what you say.
- Be brief (but never terse)
- Always aim to be polite.
No reader wants to wade pages of unnecessary information or, worse, flowery and meaningless phrases, trying to find out just why you have written to them.
It is more effective in business writing to use short, active words rather than long, abstract passive ones. Begin a new line of thought with a new paragraph and break up your ideas into separate parts using short sentences to convey each point. This will result in you communicating your thoughts more precisely, accurately and logically.
A reader should not have to struggle to follow your argument or suggestion because it is expressed in long rambling sentences. The vocabulary should be appropriate to the reader’s level of knowledge and education.
Webster Dictionary Meaning
- Hence, anything resembling the ancient style in shape or use.
- A pen; an author's pen.
- A sharp-pointed tool used in engraving; a graver.
- A kind of blunt-pointed surgical instrument.
- A long, slender, bristlelike process, as the anal styles of insects.
- The pin, or gnomon, of a dial, the shadow of which indicates the hour. See Gnomon.
- The elongated part of a pistil between the ovary and the stigma. See Illust. of Stamen, and of Pistil.
- Mode of expressing thought in language, whether oral or written; especially, such use of language in the expression of thought as exhibits the spirit and faculty of an artist; choice or arrangement of words in discourse; rhetorical expression.
- Mode of presentation, especially in music or any of the fine arts; a characteristic of peculiar mode of developing in idea or accomplishing a result.
- Conformity to a recognized standard; manner which is deemed elegant and appropriate, especially in social demeanor; fashion.
- Mode or phrase by which anything is formally designated; the title; the official designation of any important body; mode of address; as, the style of Majesty.
- A mode of reckoning time, with regard to the Julian and Gregorian calendars.
- To entitle; to term, name, or call; to denominate.
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