ABSTRACT
Marketing brochures, proposals, business plans and the like share similarities with technical writing-they both seek objectivity and clarity-but they incorporate two important differences. First and foremost, business writing is aimed at an external audience of potential clients, lenders, and members of the public who will be affected by the architect’s actions. Unlike engineers, code officials and contractors, this audience is likely to be unfamiliar with much of the technical jargon of the industry and therefore will be alienated by use of extremely discipline-specific words. Achieving a confident, yet friendly, tone should be the goal. A balance must be sought: overconfidence may be perceived as boastful, authoritarian or selfabsorbed while an overly friendly tone risks being perceived as ingratiating or too folksy to be taken seriously. Emanating from this recognition of the difference in the intended audience is the second important difference: understanding that in this context you are writing for people who have the power to enable or hinder your actions. Therefore, you are frankly seeking to convince them of something, perhaps that your business model is sound and therefore you deserve a loan, or that the building you propose will benefit the community and therefore the planning board should approve it, or that you have the necessary experience and are the best person for the job. In this context of persuasive writing, expressing one’s idealism is allowed but it should always be illustrated with tangible examples. Business writing succeeds best when the reader comes
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with a comforting sense of the author herself. Those in the position of granting a loan, approving a project, or hiring a firm will be reassured in their favorable decision if, along with approval of the plan, they also gain trust in the person putting it forward. Your business writing will often be the first opportunity a client, a loan committee, or a planning board has to evaluate the person doing the writing.
