ABSTRACT
Language work goes by a number of names, tone of voice, plain English, customer focus, writing for the reader, but it comes down to the same thing. Plain language could also help organisations save money. People who are not professional communicators tend to go straight to the solution and skip the analysis and the strategy. More and more organisations use ‘tone of voice’ as a kind of verbal brand. The enemies of effective communication are acronyms, jargon, gobbledygook, technical terms and ‘business-speak’. Communication without a logical structure is like shopping in an unfamiliar supermarket. The same purchases take at least twice as long in an unfamiliar market. For most people, the toughest thing about writing is getting started. Organisations start defining their tone of voice by focusing on their objectives and on the image that they want to project to their customers, staff and suppliers.
