Good writers in the business world know how to choose their words. The communication must achieve its aim or time and energy are wasted. If you want to be a good writer, good grammar and spelling are necessary but not enough. Your words must be chosen with care and tested for their suitability for each particular writing task. Good writers can write upwards or downwards without offending their readers. They use the most suitable words for their position and particular business.

The idea of tone is very important to the business writer. Since readers can be insulted or offended not by the message but by the manner of expression, an otherwise perfect email could quite possibly cause a breakdown of communication. It is therefore important for you to be able to analyse your relationship with your reader(s) and then to choose appropriate language and tone for your email message.

In this lesson, we''ll be looking in more detail at how to vary the tone of more formal internal email messages.

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