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The Science of Strong Business Writing

• Bill Birchard

Lessons from neurobiology

Brain scans are showing us in new detail exactly what entices readers. Scientists can see a group of midbrain neurons—the “reward circuit”—light up as people respond to everything from a simple metaphor to an unexpected story twist. The big takeaway? Whether you’re crafting an email to a colleague or an important report for the board, you can write in a way that delights readers on a primal level, releasing pleasure chemicals in their brains.

Bill Birchard is an author and writing coach who’s worked with many successful businesspeople. He’s drawn on that experience and his review of the scientific literature to identify eight features of satisfying writing: simplicity, specificity, surprise, stirring language, seductiveness, smart ideas, social content, and storytelling. In this article, he shares tips for using those eight S’s to captivate readers and help your message stick.

Strong writing skills are essential for anyone in business. You need them to effectively communicate with colleagues, employees, and bosses and to sell any ideas, products, or services you’re offering.

• Bill Birchard is a business author and book-writing coach. His Writing for Impact: 8 Secrets from Science That Will Fire Up Your Reader’s Brain will be published by HarperCollins Leadership in April 2023. His previous books include Merchants of Virtue, Stairway to Earth, Nature’s Keepers, Counting What Counts, and others. For more writing tactics, see his website .  

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87 Advanced Business Writing Tips [That Actually Work]

Table of Contents

1. know your audience, 2. prime questions, 3. think first, 4. most time is planning, 5. drafting is easy, 6. editing time, 7. plan first, then draft, 8. woody allen is right about writing, 9. concept maps are essential for business writers, 10. develop headings, 11. start where it's easiest.

• 12. How to jump in and out

13. Back up when you get stuck

14. hire a coach, 15. paragraphs seven lines or less online, 16. dangling expressions are funny but avoid them, 17. use regular words to avoid non-sexist writing, 18. headings will allow your readers to scan easily, 19. make it easy for your reader to scan, 20. use format to indicate hierarchy, 21. write to express, not to impress, 22. concise writing is skilled writing, 23. use short words, 24. use staccato short words to grab attention, 25. winston churchill wisdom, 26. verbs = energy, 27. use precise verbs, 28. don't smother verbs, 29. verbs used right bring clarity, 30. how to cut 20%–25% of bloat, 31. "take" near a verb is smothered, 32. "give" near a verb is smothered, 33. "have" near a verb is smothered, 34. "make" near a verb is smothered, 35. "conduct" near a verb is smothered, 36. "come" near a verb is smothered, 37. "-ion or -ment" near a verb is usually smothered, 38. avoid wimpy verbs, 39. avoid redundancy, 40. don't start sentences with "there is" or "there are.", 41. active voice is better than passive voice, 42. use reader-focused wording, 43. avoid jargon, 44. be polite. it echoes., 45. own your work, 46. use standard grammar, even when challenging, 47. how to dodge awkward his or her dilemma, 48. the right amount of information helps the reader and writer, 49. equal respect matters, 50. avoid exclusionary words, 51. confident tone tip, 52. take a course, 53. an exclamation point is already superlative.

• 54. Use clear words rather than emphasis punctuation

55. Editing first step

56. editing second step, 57. editing third step, 58. break paragraphs frequently, 59. paragraph length is varied, 60. designate an editor for group documents, 61. planning eases editing, 62. editing can't compensate for poor planning, 63. how to proofread a colleague's document, 64. punctuation matters, 65. avoid run-on sentences, 66. avoid sentence fragments, 67. use hypens correctly, 68. me, myself and i, 69. use clause commas correctly, 70. grammar errors are individual, 71. wide-ranging grammar training won't help, 72. best grammar resource, 73. best grammar analysis, 74. best business grammar resource, 75. oxford comma yes or no, 76. grammar rules are inflexible, 77. grammar rules are flexible, 78. my recommendation on the prescriptivist vs. descriptivist divide, 79. best grammar and editing tool, 80. cut the bloat, 81. best tool you already have, 82. tone analyzer, 83. jargon detector, 84. free concept mapping tool, 85. how to easily learn concept mapping, 86. hire the better writer, 87. subscribe to our blog, bonus: 19 actionable writing tips infographic.

I'm excited to share these top 87 business writing tips with you. They were honed while I studied English Literature and Rhetoric, taught writing at the university level, and worked with thousands of individuals and hundreds of companies to help people write better at work. Many of these tips come directly from our award-winning online business writing courses . 

My hope is these tips help you enjoy writing, improve your business communications, get ahead in your career, and grow your business!

Business writing is all about your reader. Your reader is your focus point, not what you know.

Before you write anything, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Who is my reader? 2. What do I want this reader to know or do?

If you can’t answer these two questions, stop. Don’t write the document because it has no purpose.

Business writing is just as much about thinking as it is about writing.

You should spend approximately 50% of your time planning a business document or email.

Drafting a document is the easiest part and should require approximately 20% of your time.

Allocate 30% of your time to editing.

Accept that you want to draft more than you want to plan a document or email. Everyone does. Drafting gives us a (sometimes false) sense of accomplishment. And, drafting is easier than planning.

Woody Allen calls the planning portion of writing the “pace the floor” part. If you are an analytical thinker, which many business writers are, this is natural for you, but accept that sometimes it makes your brain hurt as your mind has to figure out all the interconnections.

Mapping the structure of a complex document will make both planning and drafting much easier.

When you plan your documents, write a heading for each main section of your document. Don’t worry about the wording of the heading as you are planning to document, but verify that you can encapsulate the content of that section into a heading. If you can’t, your content is murky so fix it now before you waste time editing the language when the real problem is disorganization.

You don’t have to begin writing a document or email at the first sentence. The first sentence is often the hardest sentence to write. Instead, look at your document headings and write the section that is easiest or most interesting for you. Once you begin writing, the interconnectivity of thoughts will ignite, and the rest of the document will be easier to write.

12. How to jump in and out  

In real life, business writers don’t have the luxury of a half-day of uninterrupted writing time. To maximize your efficiency, refer to the map or outline you created, decide which section you can tackle in the time you have, and start drafting. Having a map and headings will prevent you from having to re-engage your thinking all over again each time you exit and enter the document.

The best recommendation given to me during my years of rhetorical studies was: “The secret of writing is knowing when to back up. Don’t try to edit and polish before something is fully drafted. Don’t try to draft before your thoughts are clear. When you get stuck, back up!” As a business writer, this has saved me lots of frustration.

Hire a business writing coach and receive personalized feedback. One-on-one sessions will help you gain confidence in your writing and communication skills.

In email or other documents that will be read online, be certain your paragraphs aren’t longer than seven lines. (Lines, not sentences.) Any longer than that and readability studies show that your readers just see a big block of text and jump over it.

Dangling expressions commonly creep in documents in bullets and when copying and pasting. 

Example: David Corcoran wrote the project plan while traveling to Atlanta on the back of an envelope.  (Who knew one could travel on an envelope?)

Get practical instructor feedback that takes your business writing to the next level.

Enroll in our Effective Business Writing Techniques course, and master your bedrock business writing skills today.

Avoid awkward non-sexist constructions like his/her and s/he. Instead, write out the actual words - his or her.

Using headings in email to highlight the organization will allow readers to scan the email more efficiently.

Add white space to your documents by using numbered and bulleted lists .

Indent paragraphs to visually indicate it is a subset of the information above.

Related: How to Format Your Business Document

In business writing, your goal is to easily transmit ideas and information, not to flaunt a big vocabulary. 

Concise writing is harder to craft than writing that has no length limit. Blaise Pasqual stated, "I apologize for the length of my letter. I did not have time to make it shorter."

I’ve long admired Richard Lederer’s writing on language. In his 1991 book, The Miracle of Language , Lederer sings the praises of the short word:

When you speak and write, there is no law that says you have to use big words. Short words are as good as long ones, and short, old words— like sun and grass and home—are best of all. A lot of small words, more than you might think, can meet your needs with a strength, grace, and charm that large words do not have.

Two tips on clarity I always highlight in our business writing courses : 

• Never use a big word when a small word will do.
• Any time a word is not truly needed, cut it.

To grab your reader’s attention at pivotal moments in a document, such as the recommendation or conclusion, deliberately shift one or two sentences to all single-syllable words. A break in varied syllable length has the same effect on reading a document that staccato notes have when listening to music. The short, staccato words subconsciously alert your reader that something has shifted, causing them to pay more attention.  

Winston Churchill wisely stated, “Big men use little words, and little men use big words.”

Verbs are the pivot point of a sentence. Strong verbs have real punch. Compare:

The famous strong verb example by Julius Caesar: “Veni, vidi, vici.” I came , I saw , I conquered .

Business-speak: I was in attendance, and I conducted a review of the situation and culture, and I made recommendations for acquisition.

To bring clarity to your writing, use precise and evocative verbs. Business writers tend to muddle verbs because imprecise verb use is so common in business writing that it sounds normal to our ears.

A common clarity problem in business writing is “smothered verbs,” which are verbs that were changed to nouns (called “nominalization”). For example, the verb decide is nominalized into the noun decision . These nominalized verbs require helping words around them that smother their impact, muddle the clarity of a sentence, and increase sentence length.

Enhance clarity by using a specific verb, instead of a smothered nominalized word.

Example: The core verb in this sentence is “decide:" We need to make a decis ion about hiring either Kevin or Kira. - smothered verb We need to decide about hiring either Kevin or Kira. - unsmothered verb

Cutting smothered verbs reduces document length by 20–25% in most business documents. None of the smothering words have any value. Unsmothering verbs is a very powerful clarity technique.

Watch out for the word take near the verb in a sentence or sentence clause . If take is next to a verb or nominalized verb phrase, it is smothered. 

Example: We need to take the data findings into consideration if we expand the product line. We need to consider the data findings if we expand the product line.

Watch out for the word  give near the verb in a sentence or sentence clause . If give is next to a verb or nominalized verb phrase, it is smothered.

Example: Let me give consideration to your muddled writing. Let me consider your muddled writing.

Watch out for the word have near the verb in a sentence or sentence clause . If have is next to a verb or nominalized verb phrase, it is smothered.

Example: I have a suspicion some of your verbs are smothered. I suspect some of your verbs are smothered.

Watch out for the word make near the verb in a sentence or sentence clause . If make is next to a verb or nominalized verb phrase, it is smothered.

Example: We promise to make an adjustment to your account by tomorrow. We promise to adjust your account by tomorrow.

Watch out for the word conduct near the verb in a sentence or sentence clause . If conduct is next to a verb or nominalized verb phrase, it is smothered.

Example: We’ll need to conduct a review of the data before the decision can be made. We’ll need to review the data before deciding. (Two smothered verbs corrected)

Watch out for the word come near the verb in a sentence or sentence clause . If come is next to a verb or nominalized verb phrase, it is smothered.

Example: We came to the conclusion that prices had to increase. We concluded that prices had to increase.

Look for words ending in -ion and -ment near the verb in a sentence or sentence clause . If -ion or -ment is next to a verb or nominalized verb phrase, it is likely smothered.

Example: Are we i n agreement that clarity matters? Do we agree that clarity matters? Extend an invitation to Karen and Sunita. Invite Karen and Sunita.

Avoid wimpy verbs that need a helping word to enable the verb to do its job in the sentence. 

Example: 

Dolores walked into the room slowly and quietly with her head averted, hoping no one would notice she was late.

Dolores slinked into the room, hoping no one would notice she was late.

Evan planned and worked on the technical aspect of the project plan.

Evan engineered the project plan.

Avoid redundant verb modifiers.

Example: Damian shouted loudly at Clarrisa after she missed the deadline. Damian shouted at Clarrisa after she missed the deadline. (Shouting, by definition, is loud, so no modifier is needed.)

Weak sentences frequently start with “ There is ” or “ There are .” Instead, cut to the chase. Find the real subject and start there.  Read more about There, Their and They're here.

Example: There was a strong disagreement between the divisions about the reorganization structure. The two sides strongly disagreed about the reorganization structure.

Active voice is more dynamic and lively than passive voice, typically.

To increase reader engagement, shift appropriately from writer-focused wording to reader-focused writing. Be judicious. An entire document written with reader-focus wording can feel smarmy or too much like a marketing pitch. Used judiciously, it’s very effective.

Example: We have decided to upgrade the features of our training course. You will automatically receive updated features in your training course.

Jason Fried, the CEO of 37 Signals , stated: “Jargon is insecurity.” I agree.

So often, I hear people within an organization parrot each other with phrases that have been used so much they have become meaningless.

• Lots of moving parts
• Think outside the box
• View more jargon examples to avoid

Bonus Tip: You can also use our free Jargon Grader to check your writing for over 700 jargon words and phrases.

Everything we write at work has a larger echo. This echo is both a worry and an opportunity to advance your career. For example, you may have to deny a funding request to present research at a conference, but the larger echo requirement is maintaining the drive to innovate and research at your company. Don't win a battle and lose the war.

Avoid “I think …” or “I suggest …” or “I wonder if we should …"

Instead, confidently write “I recommend ...” or omit the “I” lead statement and simply write “Merge the divisions.”

Subjects and verbs need to agree in number. In an attempt be non-sexist, some business writers recommend writing, “Each person did their work quietly.” Each is singular. Their is plural. It’s grammatically incorrect.

To dodge the awkward his or her dilemma, shift the subject to plural when possible: A manager is trained to support his or her employees. Managers are trained to support their employees.

A little extra information provided can resolve repeated questions: As noted on page four of the instruction booklet, photocopying on both sides requires two steps.

Use consistency naming people. Mr. Jones and Arlene Kelly should be referred to consistently as David Jones and Arlene Kelly or as Mr. Jones and Ms. Kelly.

Use neutral job titles that do not imply gender - chairperson, not chairman or chairwoman.

To instill a confident tone to your writing, shorten your sentences and avoid the common overuse of “, and” in sentences. Which statement sounds more confident to you?

Training with us is easy , and you can hand us the job and just walk away.  You won't worry about a thing , and you can get back to what you do best.  Relax knowing your project is moving seamlessly to completion , and you can simply calculate the savings. OR Training with us is easy.  Hand us the job and just walk away.  You won't worry about a thing. Get back to what you do best.  Relax knowing your project is moving seamlessly to completion. Simply calculate the savings.

Do you hear the difference in confident tone? The second statement sounds much less out-of-breath or desperate to please and more confident and competent. It is calmer and assuring.

Continue to hone your skills by taking an effective business writing course . A structured course can help you develop effective business writing techniques [ Learn More ].

Never use more than one exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

When I studied rhetoric in graduate school, my favorite professor shared this funny statement about using too many exclamation points in general.  “Too many exclamation points make a document feel as if it has been written by an unfocused over-caffeinated cheerleader.”

54. Use clear words rather than emphasis punctuation  

Exclamation points are often used in business writing to generate enthusiasm when the real problem is imprecise information. More accurate, clear information will generate reader engagement far better than trying to spice a murky document with exclamation points.

The first step in editing is verifying that content matches reader needs - not too much, and not too little.

The second step in editing is making sure the document is as easy to scan as possible. Add headings, bullet lists, appropriate bold text, and lots of white space.

The third step in editing is correcting grammar, sentence structure, and eliminating bloat.

Every new thought needs a new paragraph. When in doubt, break the paragraph.

A one-sentence paragraph is both correct and emphatic. Don't be afraid to write a one-sentence paragraph.

When a group writes a document, designate one writer as the final editor to ensure a coherent voice.

If you are spending too much time editing, you probably rushed the planning of your document.

Editing should need a dusting, not an editorial massacre.

If a colleague asks you to edit their document, you must ask them about both the purpose of the document and about the audience. Without this information, you can only clean grammar.

A woman without her man is nothing. A woman: without her, man is nothing.

The most common grammar error we see in client writing during business writing training is fused or run-on sentences.

The second most common grammar error we see in client writing is sentence fragments.

The third most common grammar error we see in client writing is hyphen errors.

The fourth most common grammar error we see in client writing is me, myself, and I errors. 

The fifth most common grammar error we see in client writing is introductory clause comma errors.

Everyone makes different grammar errors. Therefore, to improve grammar, the first step has to be an accurate diagnosis of an individual’s entrenched grammar errors.

A review of many grammar rules is ineffective in actually improving business writing sentence structure. More effective is focusing on what is incorrect.

By far, the best grammar resource on the Internet is Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab . It includes explanations and exercises. 

Grammar Girl is an excellent resource for current grammar use and rationale.

Instructional Solutions’ Business Grammar category in their Business Writing Info blog is an excellent resource for business-specific grammar use.

Grammarians will never agree about whether or not to use the Oxford Comma (also called a Serial Comma). I recommend that business writers use it because of its consistency and clarification advantages.

Grammarians who believe a grammar rule should never be broken are called prescriptivists.

Grammarians who believe language is more flexible, and grammar rules may be broken, are called descriptivists. 

In business writing, it’s best to stick with established grammar rules because a client or potential customer could see what they perceive as an error and believe your work is simply sloppy.

For all the best business writing tools check out our full article here . 

Grammarly is our top business writing tool recommendation. Use it as the last check before you send anything. It will also detect plagiarism. Don't forget plagiarism applies to text as well as images.

Hemingway is a free app that detects bloat in your writing.

Microsoft Readability Measurement Tool, already embedded in Word and Outlook, provides helpful  business writing clarity measurements . Grammarly is better.

Tone Analyzer assesses the tone of your business writing .

Unsuck It is a rude, but useful, tool that assesses business writing jargon .

Freemind is free mind mapping software that is very easy to use.

This tutorial will teach you to use Freemind in ten minutes.

In his insightful book, Rework , Jason Fried stated:

All things being equal, hire the better writer. Good writers know what to include and what to omit. They understand people and motivation. They can express complex information in a way it can be shared. Whether the position is sales, engineering, software development, or HR, always hire the better writer.

I agree with Jason Fried. However, business writing is a skill that can be honed. Since 1998, my company, Instructional Solutions, and I have helped thousands of individuals and hundreds of companies write better at work.

We wanted to add one last tip! If you liked this article you can subscribe to our blog here . We often write articles focused on helping you become a better professional writer. 

For a deeper dive into business writing and for even more tips, read our full Guide to Business Writing .

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WRITER > GUIDES

You’re a professional — make sure you’re writing like one too

How is business writing different from any other writing?

Good business writing doesn’t happen accidentally. Much like how the content of business communication is deliberate and thought-out, so too is the process to become a good business writer. Business writing consists of all the written communication that has to do with the professional workplace. From internal emails to guidebooks to client proposals, it’s important to master the written word in this setting. The way you write reflects on the way your company presents itself. Your ability to deliver clear information in a concise manner is crucial to upholding a solid reputation and making a positive impact on clients. While academic writing focuses more on factual, researched content and takes on a more formal tone, business writing has the leg room to be more relaxed. It’s okay to use the more personal “I” and “you” versus a third-person writing style. But, just as you’d never want to turn in an academic paper full of grammatical issues and confusing sentences, your business writing should also be free of any errors or inconsistencies. They should both go through rounds of revising. There are four different types of business writing. Each is for a different targeted audience, has a different purpose, and therefore needs a different writing style.

Instructional Instructional business writing tells the reader how to complete a specific task by giving them proper instructions, just as the name suggests. This type of business writing can be used internally for employees or outward-facing for clients. It’s important for instructional writing to be clear, concise, and easy-to-follow. Use plain language when creating copy that falls under this category.

• How-to articles
• User manuals
• Employee handbooks
• Business memos

Informational Rather than instructing the reader, informational business writing aims to inform the reader. Often, you’ll write in this manner when you’re recording specific information for record or to reference later. This writing needs to be to-the-point, accurate, and composed of facts.

• Financial reports
• Meeting minutes
• White papers

Transactional The professional communication that takes place day-to-day is considered transactional. Most of it occurs internally, with a lot of it coming from human resources. It’s crucial that this is done with healthy and effective communication if employers want to maintain a good work culture.

• Business letters
• Dismissal notices

Persuasive Just as instructional writing informs the reader on how to complete an action, persuasive writing convinces the reader to take action. This is the kind of writing typically associated with sales. Proper thought needs to go into how you want to encourage readers that the content you’re presenting them with is necessary.

• Newsletters
• Press releases
• Project proposals

How to develop an effective business writing style

Know who you’re writing for and why.

You should never write blindly. Always, always, know who you’re writing for and what it is you want them to know. ✅ Identify your target audience Your audience will dictate how your message is conveyed — you must understand who they are and what they need. ✅ Define the purpose of your writing When you figure out what main point you’re trying to get across to your audience, the piece will begin to take shape. The overall purpose of your content will inform your sentence structure, your voice, your language, and other key fundamentals. A part of this writing process involves identifying what type of business writing you’re producing. If you can recognize that it’s persuasive and client-facing, you’ve done half the work of figuring out how you need to write the copy.

Focus on clarity over quantity

Clarity is easily muddled when it comes to the written word, but there are a few ways to easily and quickly address this aspect of business and professional writing. ✅ Avoid jargon and overusing acronyms Jargon can easily creep into both your written and spoken words. While it can make conversations flow better when speaking with others who are well-versed in your field, business jargon can create confusion with those who aren’t. Again, you have to be aware of whom you’re talking to, and make a judgment call. ✅ Shorten and simplify sentences Editing the length of your sentences is one of the most effective ways to hone the clarity of your business communications. It’s easy to go on and on about an idea, but making your work concise is a crucial, somewhat overlooked skill. While you’re at it, be sure to look for holes in the context or message — like places where you took a logical leap, or forgot to include information about how something is relevant to the main topic. Each sentence and paragraph should support the others in creating a coherent message.

Streamline structure and organization

Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to begin with business communications, especially if you’ve got pages and multiple decks of business research, analysis, and creative ideas. Say what you need to say in the first sentence and make the rest of the copy easy to follow. ✅ Lead with the important stuff Set expectations for the reader and get to the point without delay. Our attention spans are more limited than ever, and it’s vital that your audience can tell from a quick glance if your content is worth reading. ✅ Break lengthy copy into smaller sections Just as we’re doing in this guide, organize business writing into a scannable fashion. Include formatting such as line breaks, headings, and short paragraphs to make lengthy copy easy to skim. You’ll want to take a top-line approach to the organization if you want your words to be more absorbable. Visually friendly formatting is especially important when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t necessarily have to listen to you, like a prospective client who may not have a lot of time to devote to reading emails. Making it easier for readers to understand your writing will help you achieve your goals.

Fine-tune your tone and business writing style

The way that a piece of business or professional writing makes a reader feel is important, too. A professional and friendly tone helps foster a sense of congeniality between yourself and your clients and coworkers. ✅ Formal is not necessarily the same thing as professional The way you say the things you need to say is important, and it can dictate everything that follows. If you’re not sure how your writing will be perceived, try reading it aloud — what would you think if someone sent you the same statement?

Example of formal phrasing: “Report to me at your earliest convenience.” Example of professional, yet less formal, phrasing: “Stop by when you have a minute to chat.”

Both of these statements convey the same general message, but the tone is different, due to word choices and their connotations. The first statement relies on formal phrasing, and potentially implies a difficult conversation ahead. ✅ Lean on templates for consistent communications If you’re regularly delivering the same message, go ahead and create an approved template for that business document. This will ensure consistency and allow you to really hone your business writing style. (Check out Writer’s snippets for easy-to-use, customizable templates.)

Write like you speak

There’s no need to make your writing sound like someone you’re not. People prefer relatability, transparency, and personality — even in business writing. ✅ Use the active voice over the passive voice Every English teacher has preached about the virtues of writing with an active voice — and they’re right. Just as academic writing prefers the active voice, so too does business writing. As a quick refresher, active voice is when the subject of a sentence acts on the verb. Passive voice is when the subject is acted upon by the verb. Using an active voice helps with clarity, and is a more effective way to convey information in business communications. It sounds more natural, too.

Example of using active voice in business writing: “She wrote the business report.” Example of using passive voice in business writing: “The business report was written by her.”

In these examples, “she” or “her” is the subject and “wrote” or “was written” is the verb. Not only does the active voice example sound more like a real human talking, it’s easier to understand. ✅ Avoid “robotic” business language People prefer business writing that sounds like it was written by a human being, not a robot. Use contractions and stick to your usual vocabulary. You might think it’s necessary to elevate your prose in order to sound more professional, but your words can easily come off as stilted. Instead, write in plain language . Having a term bank on hand or a tailored style guide can help you avoid the drab, monotone writing we’re warning you about. AI writing assistants exist today to assist anyone who writes, on any medium of their choosing, with their business writing skills.

The future is now — AI writing assistants improve how people write at work

Whether you realize it or not, AI has become part of everyday life — auto-correct when you’re texting, Google’s suggested edits in Gmail, etc. AI writing technology has improved since Grammarly first launched, and companies like Writer are leading the way with AI catered specifically to business writing. Professional AI writing assistants not only help people write better at work, but scale their writing processes, save time, and publish their content confidently. Sometimes the right word isn’t coming to you. We don’t all have time — especially in a fast-paced business setting — to find that right word. AI writing assistants are perfect for giving your text a final proofread, suggesting any changes to your writing voice, or helping you repurpose your content into different formats.

Take your business writing to the next level with Writer

Writer has everything you need to improve your written communication in the business world. Whether you’re drafting an email and need to up your transactional writing game or need help abiding by the writing tips we mentioned, we’ve got you covered. Create your own approved snippets and make sure your business communication is always meeting the highest standards. Formulate a living, breathing style guide so that all of the business writers in your company are following the same guidelines. Produce a term base that keeps track of the terms you’ve approved and the terms you’ve denied. Emails, social media posts, Google Docs — you name it. With Writer, and with whatever medium your company uses, you can make sure everyone is adhering to a single source of truth. In-text suggestions will make sure you’re favoring active voice over passive voice and avoiding confusing jargon. You get the picture.

Illustration by Natalie Nelson

Start communicating like a professional today. Get Writer for all your business writing needs.

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Business Communication  - Business Writing Essentials

Business communication  -, business writing essentials, business communication business writing essentials.

Business Communication: Business Writing Essentials

Lesson 6: business writing essentials.

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Business writing essentials

At some point in your professional life, you may need to write something. It’s nothing to be intimidated by, though!

Business writing is any written communication used in a professional setting, including emails , memos , and reports . It’s direct, clear, and designed to be read quickly. With time and practice, you too can become an effective business writer.

Watch the video below to learn some tips for business writing.

The basics of business writing

Good business writing shares crucial information and keeps the concerns of the audience in mind. So before you write anything, ask yourself these two questions:

What do I need to say?

Who is my audience?

Your answers will influence what and how you write, so take a moment to understand exactly why you’re writing. If you can’t clearly answer these questions, you’ll probably have trouble communicating effectively.

Most business writing needs a call to action , which is information that instructs and encourages a response. Let your readers know what they should do, where to go, and so on. Provide your contact information (such as your phone number or email address) in case anyone has questions. Essentially, make sure everyone knows what their next move should be, like in the following example.

Writing craft

Get to the point quickly. Do you need to tell your employees about a change in work schedules or an update to company policy? Tell them what they should know upfront, and don’t leave them guessing.

Make every sentence as short and clear as possible. Simplify your word choices, as you shouldn’t use complex words when simple ones will do. Also, cut any rambling thoughts. A company-wide memo about a health insurance change is not the best place to mention your recent fishing trip. In short, always omit needless words .

Although you’re in a professional setting, remember to speak to others how you would like to be spoken to. Consider using a brief greeting or conclusion, especially if you’re sharing unpleasant news, and remember that saying please and thank you goes a long way. And whenever you’re in doubt as to whether something is appropriate to write, don’t include it.

Aim to keep your paragraphs brief, as they will add focus to your message while making it easier to scan and remember. The example below is an efficient read, thanks to short paragraphs, clear sentences, and a polite, professional tone.

Good writing comes out of revision , so read over your first draft and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Clarify sentences and organize the loose structure until everything flows in a logical order. Don’t be surprised if it takes a few revisions until your document is ready to go.

As part of your revision process, try reading your work aloud, which may reveal problems you may not have noticed before. You can also get someone you trust to provide feedback on your work. Hearing their perspective can lead to new insights and issues you never knew were there.

Proofreading is another key part of revision. After you use a spell checker, read over your work again and look for spelling and grammar errors the spell checker may have missed. Also take a moment to ensure the information you’re writing about is accurate and up to date. If you submit incorrect information or sloppy writing, you may not be taken seriously. Does the following example look professional?

Remember, you won’t master business writing overnight. Effective writing is a skill that takes a lot of time and practice to develop. But once you get comfortable with it, you’ll possess an incredibly valuable job skill.

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Business Writing

What this handout is about.

This handout explains principles in business writing that apply to many different situations, from applying for a job to communicating professionally within business relationships. While the examples that are discussed specifically are the application letter and cover letter, this handout also highlights strategies for effective business writing in general.

What is business writing?

Business writing refers to professional communication including genres such as policy recommendations, advertisements, press releases, application letters, emails, and memos. Because business writing can take many forms, business writers often consider their purpose, audience, and relationship dynamics to help them make effective stylistic choices. While norms vary depending on the rhetorical situation of the writer, business writers and audiences tend to value writing that communicates effectively, efficiently, and succinctly.

If you have been assigned a genre of business writing for a class, it may help to think about the strategies business writers employ to both gather and produce knowledge. A business communicator or writer may use the following forms of evidence: statistics, exploration of past trends, examples, analogy, comparison, assessment of risk or consequences, or citation of authoritative figures or sources. Your knowledge of and relationship to your audience will help you choose the types of evidence most appropriate to your situation.

Who is your audience?

To communicate effectively, it is critical to consider your audience, their needs, and how you can address all members of your audience effectively. As you prepare to write, think about the following questions:

• What are your audience’s priorities and expectations?
• What does your audience need to learn from your document?
• How will you grasp the attention of readers when you are competing for their attention?
• How will you help your reader move through your document efficiently? When is it effective to use bulleted lists, visuals, boldface, and section headers to guide your reader’s attention?
• What does your audience most need to know?
• What is your audience expecting? Is your goal to satisfy their expectations, or do you want to surprise them with a new idea?
• How will you communicate about setbacks? When is it appropriate to spin bad information with a positive outlook? How will stakeholders, customers, or employees respond to bad news?
• In general, how can you tailor the organization and style of your writing to address your audience’s considerations and needs?

When answering the last question, don’t overlook the following considerations:

Title. Is it appropriate to address your audience by their first name, or is a salutation needed? Are you addressing someone who prefers to be addressed by a formal title such as Dr. or Professor? If you are writing about a third party, do you know what title and pronouns to use? When the name of the person you’re writing to is unknown, then it is customary to address your letter “To Whom It May Concern.” But this may be impolite if the person’s name is known or easily discovered. You can find more information on titles, names, and pronouns in our handout on Gender-Inclusive Language .

Language . If you’re writing in English, ask yourself: Is English the first language of all your audience members? Are you using idioms or other expressions that might not be clear to someone with a different background in English? For example, are you using expressions that require U.S.-specific cultural knowledge?

Culture . Does your audience have different customs and cultural norms? How might these customs and norms impact the way they receive your message?

Once you understand your purpose and your audience, you can begin to consider more specific elements, like organization and style.

What is your purpose?

To get a better sense of how the purpose of your writing will impact your style, it can be useful to look at existing messages and documents from the organization with the following questions in mind:

• What type of document is it (e.g. email, cover letter, social media post, memo, etc.)?
• What is the general length of the document?
• How is the document organized?
• How long are the paragraphs or sections?

How is business writing organized?

A common organizational pattern used across genres in business writing is OABC: Opening, Agenda, Body, and Closing. While the exact content of your opening, agenda, body, and closing may change depending on your context, here is the overall purpose of each component of the OABC pattern:

• Opening: This section introduces the reader to the purpose of your document or the subject matter you’ll be discussing. It lets them know why you are communicating with them and why the information is important to your reader.
• Agenda: This section lets the reader know, more or less, what to expect from the rest of the message. You can think of it like a roadmap for your document.
• Body: This section is where you make your main points and communicate your overall message to the reader. This section is often the longest part of a business document.
• Closing: Here, you reiterate the main points for the reader and include any follow-up actions or recommendations as necessary. In most cases, you may request a meeting to discuss your ideas further.

What style considerations are common in business writing?

Business writers tend to prioritize clear and concise communication. When writing in business, carefully considering the following style elements, along with your purpose and audience, can help you communicate more effectively:

Active voice. One skill in business writing is how to tactfully take ownership or distribute blame for certain actions. Active voice refers to a sentence structure that places the actor of the sentence as its grammatical subject. In general, active voice comes across as clearer, more direct, and more concise than passive voice, which are all elements of good business writing. However, the passive voice can be a useful tool in legally-sensitive writing, because the passive voice can convey what has occurred without naming names.

Jargon. Generally, your audience will prefer plain, straightforward language over jargon, because it allows them to read your writing quickly without misunderstandings. However, you may encounter what looks like jargon. Ask yourself if this language may be functioning as shorthand or whether it’s helping establish expectations or norms in business relationships. Understanding your audience and why they may choose to either use or avoid jargon will help you determine what is most appropriate for your own writing.

Tone. While business writing should be clear and concise, “concise” does not necessarily mean “blunt.” As you write, think about how your relationship to the reader and about how your audience may interpret your tone. Consider the following examples:

Nobody liked your project idea, so we are not going to give you any funding. After carefully reviewing this proposal, we have decided to prioritize other projects this quarter.

While the first example may be more direct, you will likely notice that the second sentence is more diplomatic and respectful than the first version, which is unnecessarily harsh and likely to provoke a negative reaction.

If you are wondering how your audience will respond to your writing, it may also be helpful to have a disinterested reader provide you with their impression of your message and tone after reading the document. What is the take-home message? Does any language stand out as surprising, confusing, or inappropriate? Where is the writing more or less persuasive? If you would like more ideas, see our handout on getting feedback .

There are many circumstances in which business writing is your opportunity to make a first impression, such as in a cover letter. In these scenarios, attention detail is especially important. A useful strategy for revising a piece of business writing is to use the acronym CLOUD: Coherence, Length, Organization, Unity, and Development. Contemplating each of these elements can help you to think about how each section communicates your ideas to your audience and how the sections work together to emphasize the most important parts of your message.

Going through the CLOUD acronym, you can ask yourself questions like:

• How coherent is each individual component of your document?
• Does each component follow length guidelines (if provided) or otherwise convey your message concisely? Our handout on conciseness gives 7 common writing patterns that make writing less concise that you may want to keep in mind when writing for business.
• Is the information clearly organized ?
• How unified is the message conveyed by all of the components taken together?
• Are your ideas fully- developed , or might your reader find themselves with any important questions?

As you answer these questions and start revising, revisiting your purpose, audience, style, and structure can help you address the concerns you’ve identified through CLOUD. Once you’ve considered these elements, soliciting feedback from another person can help you ensure your draft is clear and your ideas are fully-developed . Proofreading can help you identify errors and assess the tone of your document, while reading your draft aloud lets you hear your words and estimate your own tone.

Examples of business writing

Now that you’re ready to start writing, you may want to see some examples of business writing to guide your drafting process. Below, you can learn more about and see examples of two business writing contexts: cover letters for applications and cover letters for sending information. For more examples, explore the University Career Services’ Resumes and Letters portal .

Cover letters for applications

Maybe you have been asked to write an application cover letter for a job or a scholarship. This type of cover letter is used to introduce yourself and explain why you are qualified for a given opportunity, and your objective is to catch the reader’s attention and convince them that you are a qualified candidate for the job. Although this type of letter has some unique considerations and conventions, it still follows the OABC organization pattern and is generally 3-4 paragraphs in length.

• Opening: In the opening section of your letter, indicate your reason for writing. This generally includes mentioning the job title (if applicable) and how you heard about the position. Be specific about how you learned of the job.
• Agenda: In a cover letter, your agenda section sets the stage for a discussion of your qualifications by first summarizing your interest in the position, company, or organization. What sets you apart from your competitors? Why are you interested in working in this particular position or company? This section may be combined with the first paragraph.
• Body: This is where you highlight your qualifications for the job including your work experience, activities that show your leadership skills, and your educational background. If you are applying for a specific job, include any information pertinent to the position that is not included in your resume. You might also identify other ways you are a good fit for the company or position, such as specialized skills you have acquired. Illustrate how the experiences and skills from your resume qualify you for the job rather than merely repeating information as it is presented in your resume.
• Closing: Now that you have demonstrated your interest and fit to the reader, it is time to request an interview and, if necessary, refer them to your resume. State how you can be reached and include your contact information for follow-up. Be sure to close the letter by thanking the reader for their time and consideration before typing and printing your salutation and name.

Two sample letters of application are presented below. The first letter (Sample #1) is by a recent college graduate responding to a local newspaper article about the company’s plan to build a new computer center. The writer is not applying for a specific job opening but describes the position he seeks. The second letter (Sample #2) is from a college senior who does not specify where she learned of the opening because she is uncertain whether a position is available.

6123 Farrington Road Apt. B11 Chapel Hill, NC 27514

January 11, 2020

Taylor, Inc. 694 Rockstar Lane Durham, NC 27708

Dear Human Resources Director:

I just read an article in the News and Observer about Taylor’s new computer center just north of Durham. I would like to apply for a position as an entry-level programmer at the center.

I understand that Taylor produces both in-house and customer documentation. My technical writing skills, as described in the enclosed resume, are well suited to your company. I am a recent graduate of DeVry Institute of Technology in Atlanta with an Associate’s Degree in Computer Science. In addition to having taken a broad range of courses, I served as a computer consultant at the college’s computer center where I helped train users to work with new systems.

I will be happy to meet with you at your convenience and discuss how my education and experience match your needs. You can reach me at (919) 233-1552 or at [email protected] . Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Raymond Krock

6123 Farrington Road Apt. G11 Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Dear Ms. LaMonica Jones:

I am seeking a position in your engineering department where I may use my training in computer sciences to solve Taylor’s engineering problems. I would like to be a part of the department that developed the Internet Selection System but am unsure whether you have a current opening.

I expect to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from North Carolina State University in May and by that time will have completed the Computer Systems Engineering Program. Since September 2019 I have been participating, through the University, in the Professional Training Program at Computer Systems International in Raleigh. In the program I was assigned to several staff sections as an apprentice. Most recently, I have been a programmer trainee in the Engineering Department and have gained a great deal of experience in computer applications. Details of the academic courses I have taken are included in the enclosed resume.

If there is a position open at Taylor Inc., please let me know whom I should contact for further information. I look forward to hearing from you soon. I may be reached at my office (919-866-4000, ext. 232) or via email ( [email protected] ). Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Rebecca Brock

Cover letters for sending information

Some cover letters simply provide a record of the transmittal of information—say, sending your resume to a recruiter or submitting your project for a class—and may even take the form of an email. Although they are short, to-the-point, and often only one or two brief paragraphs in length, these messages still follow the basic guidelines of business writing by using the OABC organization pattern in a more condensed format:

• Opening: Briefly explain what you are sending and why.
• Agenda: In an optional second paragraph, you might include a summary of the information you are sending as an agenda for your reader. A letter accompanying a proposal, for example, might point out sections in the proposal that might be of particular interest to the reader.
• Body: You could then go on to present a key point or two explaining why your firm is the best one for the job.
• Closing: You might end your letter with acknowledgements, offer additional assistance, or express the hope that the material will fulfill its purpose.

The following are examples of these kinds of cover letters. The first letter (Sample #1) is brief and to the point. The second letter (Sample #2) is slightly more detailed because it touches on the manner in which the information was gathered.

Your Company Logo and Contact Information

Brian Eno, Chief Engineer Carolina Chemical Products 3434 Pond View Lane Durham, NC 27708

Dear Mr. Eno:

Enclosed is the final report, which we send with Eastern’s Permission, on our installment of pollution control equipment at Eastern Chemical Company,. Please call me at (919) 962-7710 or email me at the address below if I can answer any questions.

Nora Cassidy Technical Services Manager [email protected]

Enclosure: Report

Brian Eno, Chief Engineer Ecology Systems, Inc. 8458 Obstructed View Lane Durham, NC 27708

Enclosed is the report estimating our power consumption for the year as requested by John Brenan, Vice President, on September 4.

The report is the result of several meetings with Jamie Anson, Manager of Plant Operations, and her staff and an extensive survey of all our employees. The survey was delayed by the transfer of key staff in Building A. We believe, however, that the report will provide the information you need to furnish us with a cost estimate for the installation of your Mark II Energy Saving System.

We would like to thank Billy Budd of ESI for his assistance in preparing the survey. If you need more information, please let me know.

Sincerely, Nora Cassidy New Projects Office [email protected]

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Baker, William H., and Matthew J. Baker. 2015. Writing & Speaking for Business , 4th ed. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Academic Publishing.

Covey, Stephen. 2002. Style Guide for Business and Technical Writing , 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Franklin Covey.

Locker, Kitty, and Donna Kienzer. 2012. Business and Administrative Communication , 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

O’Hara, Carolyn. 2014. “How to Improve Your Business Writing.” Harvard Business Review , 20 Nov. 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/11/how-to-improve-your-business-writing .

United States Government. 2011. “Federal Plain Language Guideline.” Plain Language, March 2011. https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/ .

University of North Carolina Writing Program. 2019. The Tar Heel Writing Guide , rev. ed. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Writing Program.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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More From Forbes

25 writing tips for business owners and content marketers: part 3.

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Use these tips on visual presentation to enhance your content creation even more.

Welcome to our series on writing tips for business owners and content marketers. In the first two parts, we laid a strong foundation for creating readable and authoritative content , and we explored techniques to captivate and persuade your audience .

Today, we're shifting our focus to the visual side of content creation—an often overlooked but crucial component that can amp up reader engagement, emotion, and understanding.

Mastering visual consistency and content skimmability

Imagine a potential client landing on your blog post or landing page. In those critical first few seconds— 50 milliseconds to be exact —they decide whether to stay and explore or move on. How fast is 50 milliseconds?

To put that speed into perspective:

• The blink of an eye lasts between 100 and 400 milliseconds.
• One beat of a hummingbird’s wings takes 20 milliseconds.

People make decisions about your content FAST—faster than the blink of an eye.

Ghost Of Tsushima Is Already Flooded With Negative Reviews On Steam

Biden-trump debates: what to know as trump pushes for 2 more faceoffs, a storm of 3 000 ukrainian bomblets blew up four russian jets at their base in crimea.

Bottom line? People viewing your content decide whether to stay or go faster than the blink of an eye and just a hair slower than a single beat of a hummingbird’s wings.

Skimmability and visual consistency are the keys to grabbing and holding immediate attention. From formatting for easy scanning to using visual elements that highlight essential information, the way your content looks can make all the difference.

In this installment, I’ll share five tips for improving the visual appeal of your content:

• Format for skimmability—structure content so readers can quickly grasp main points.
• Use callout boxes, charts, and tables—improve understanding and engagement.
• Use whitespace to give readers a visual rest—make your content more approachable.
• Choose fonts and colors wisely—enhance readability and brand identity.
• Maintain visual consistency—reinforce your brand and build trust.

Let's dive in so you can make your next piece of content a visually appealing, reader-friendly masterpiece.

Tip 11: Format for skimmability

When readers first arrive on your website, or open a piece of content, they might scroll to take it ... [+] all in. Techniques that make skimming easy help readers consume your content.

Does your content capture a reader’s attention in 55 seconds ? Research confirms that may be all you have because more than half of all page views don't last longer.

It makes sense. Think about your experience when you land on a page. Do you dive right in and start reading what’s in the first fold and then continue down the page? Or do you scan the page length first, looking for signposts and signals of how long the experience might last?

I do the latter. And for your readers who do the same, consider making your content skimmable. Structuring your content for skimmers hooks your reader faster. It also gives your organic standing a nice bump because content that's easier to digest keeps readers around longer and interacting more. And when it does, search engines know it.

The critical elements of skimmable content include:

• Headings and subheadings—think of these as signposts. Clear, compelling headings help readers navigate your thoughts, pulling them deeper into the most essential parts.
• Bullet points and lists—perfect for distilling complex ideas into bite-sized, easy-to-chew pieces. Lists are your go-to when conveying steps or highlighting core features.
• Short paragraphs and varied sentence lengths—Each paragraph should hit one idea hard and fast. Mix your sentence lengths to keep the reader's brain engaged.
• Bolded and italicized text—Guide your reader's eyes to the essential nuggets in your text. A little bold here and some italics there will make your key points pop and stick.

Highlight with highlights

Highlights are another way to help readers know what you find essential in a piece of content. Yellow highlights, green highlights, pink highlights—it doesn’t matter. You’re good as long as readers can see the text through the highlight.

Medium is an excellent example of how highlights point to what you—or, in this case, others—find most potent on a page. The following screenshot from my article about great editing shows how one reader highlighted what they enjoyed or felt was important.

Colored highlights help skimmers quickly consume key pieces of information.

Thanks, Carole! I appreciate the vote.

Hyperlinks and where you place them affect skimmability, too

The last thing I want to mention about skimmability comes from a fascinating study in the National Institutes of Health’s database. It reveals how hyperlinks in text ramp up perceived importance .

In other words, sentences sporting links capture more attention, especially links placed higher up on the page. This nifty trick makes sentences stickier, particularly for skim readers. Today, when everyone’s scanning, strategically placing those hyperlinks can make your content seen—and remembered.

Tip 12: Use callout boxes, charts, and tables

When weaving a tapestry of words, you sometimes need to highlight a pattern, make a knot stand out, or frame the piece just so. That’s where callout boxes, charts, and tables come into play. These visual elements improve understanding and engagement without cluttering the narrative.

Callout boxes: Your content’s spotlight

Imagine callout boxes as spotlights in a darkened theater, drawing the audience’s attention to actors—or, in your case, pieces of information. Callouts are perfect for emphasizing significant points, quotes, or statistics because they act as visual rest stops that invite readers to absorb essential messages.

The following is an example of a callout box that highlights a quote. The quote from Benjamin Zander is one of my favorites. It doesn’t directly relate to the focus of this article, but it indirectly points to the power of inspiring readers—making their eyes shine.

Callout boxes are great for showcasing quotes, statistics, and other crucial pieces of information.

Nestle callout boxes at natural pauses in your article to complement the flow rather than disrupt it. Although mine did not, your callout boxes should echo the context of the surrounding content, acting as organic extensions of the narrative.

Make callout boxes pop with a dash of contrast—think a subtle color shift or a distinctive border—but keep them tied visually to the theme of your page. Inside, keep the text brief and potent.

Charts and tables: Simplifying complexity

Charts and tables transform complex data jungles into neat, navigable gardens. They're invaluable for presenting trends, comparisons, and statistics in a visually digestible format so readers can quickly grasp what might otherwise require lengthy explanations.

As with callout boxes, position charts and tables close to their related text so readers can easily correlate the visual data with its narrative without flipping pages or scrolling back and forth to look between the visual and its text explanation.

Design these visuals to be as straightforward as possible. A clean, uncluttered presentation with limited color use and clear, readable labels makes your data accessible at a glance.

Speaking of accessibility, make your visuals accessible by adding clear captions and alt text for screen readers to help all people understand.

Sprinkling callout boxes, charts, and tables into your content gives you extra points for aesthetics. But it also sharpens clarity, boosts engagement, and keeps your readers cruising smoothly through your narrative.

13. Use whitespace to give brains a visual rest

When you use negative space well, your marketing content will look clean and professional.

Think of whitespace—the borders around a Google Doc, the space around images in an ebook, and even the line breaks between paragraphs—as visual breathing room .

Use whitespace to separate elements and group related items. By grouping associated items and separating distinct sections with whitespace, you create a visual hierarchy that guides the reader’s eye, helps them navigate more intuitively through your content, and—my favorite—improves readability.

Think about it: Reader perception is everything. If readers think your piece looks easy to read, then, to them, it is easy to read —at least until they begin digging into the words. At that point, your writing must carry the load.

A study by Lin found that the proper use of whitespace between lines of text and around blocks of text can increase comprehension by up to 20% . Whitespace makes content more scannable and reduces the amount of text the eyes must read at once.

Google's search page is a classic example of using whitespace to focus the reader’s attention. The minimalist design—pretty much all whitespace—directs our focus to the main functionality of the page, reducing distractions and simplifying the search task. The clean-looking page also minimizes cognitive load, what I think of as the tax on your brain caused by visual and verbal clutter.

Google's search page is clean, helping visitors focus on the task at hand—which is to search.

Now consider the start page on Microsoft’s Bing search page. It’s a world of difference, and not in a good way. The cognitive load is heavy.

Edge's new-tab search page is another matter. It's cluttered, flickering, and busy—but only because ... [+] I haven't changed my search page settings.

Whenever I open a new tab on the Edge browser, I’m distracted by flickering stories in the upper left that call out to my eye, not to mention the cornucopia of ads, offers, and more stories, most related to things I’ve been doing around the web. Granted, you can opt for a cleaner experience if you want. I just haven’t yet wanted to.

14. Choose fonts and colors thoughtfully

Fonts and colors aren’t just aesthetic choices; they carry meaning and affect readability. The right combination can elevate your content from good to great, making it visually appealing and easy to read. Here’s how to choose and use fonts and colors effectively.

Choose a primary font for your body text and a secondary font for headings and subheadings. Stick to these fonts across your marketing content to maintain a consistent look. Sans-serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana are generally easier to read on screens. Serif fonts like Times New Roman and Georgia can add a touch of elegance to printed materials.

The New York Times uses fonts consistently across its print and digital editions, with a serif font for body text and a bold sans-serif font for headlines. This consistency reinforces its brand identity and makes NYT content easily recognizable.

Font size hierarchy

Varying font sizes for different elements on the page creates a clear hierarchy. For example, choose a larger font size for headings, a slightly smaller size for subheadings, and a standard size for body text. This hierarchy helps guide the reader’s eye through the content and makes it easier to skim.

Line spacing and paragraph breaks

Proper line spacing and paragraph breaks improve readability by preventing the text from looking too dense. Aim for 1.5 to 2 times the font size. Keep paragraphs short to provide visual relief.

Font contrast and readability

Using the proper contrast between text and background colors makes your content easy to read. Dark text on a light background is typically the most readable combination. Don’t use light text on a light background, or dark text on a dark background, lest you strain the reader's eyes.

Colors for engagement and readability

Use your brand’s color palette consistently to reinforce brand identity. The palette includes the colors you use in your logo, website, and other marketing materials. Consistently using the same colors creates a cohesive look and makes your content instantly recognizable.

Look at this page from my website. My brand’s colors are yellow and purple, which I use everywhere.

A page from my website illustrates how I use my brand colors — yellow for the logo and purple for ... [+] hyperlinks and heading text.

Here’s a screenshot of an email I sent subscribers of my Beyond Copy newsletter . The yellow in the box behind the words Beyond Copy is the same as on my website, and the purple lines surrounding the header image match the purple of my website’s heading text.

My brand's yellow and purple colors carry through to my Beyond Copy newsletter.

And here’s an image from one of my lead magnets. The yellow is a little deeper, but you can see that I use the same colors everywhere.

Visual consistency helps people recognize your brand. My yellow and purple colors appear here in a ... [+] lead magnet.

Color psychology

Colors can also evoke emotions and influence how readers perceive your content. For example, blue often conveys trust and professionalism, while red can evoke excitement and urgency.

I chose purple for my brand because it’s my favorite color. But it also represents creativity, imagination, and inspiration. It stimulates the mind and makes me think of innovation and originality. Purple can also evoke thoughts of luxury, wealth, spirituality, and mysticism—all essential to my identity.

I chose yellow because it represents joy, cheerfulness, and optimism. It's a bright, uplifting color that can create a sense of warmth and positivity. Yellow also speaks to energy, attention, intellect, and mental stimulation—words I associate with myself and my brand.

When choosing colors for your brand and content, consider how color associations match your message and the emotions you want to evoke. For instance, if you're going to:

• Evoke trust and dependability, try blue.
• Fire up a sense of passion and urgency, use red.
• Evoke harmony and growth, try green.
• Spark thoughts of elegance and sophistication, consider black.
• Inspire warmth and friendliness, try orange.

By strategically using different colors, your content can whisper the emotions and messages you want to convey, enhancing your communication's overall effect and effectiveness.

15. Maintain visual consistency

Visual consistency speaks as loudly as words.

Keeping visuals consistent reinforces your brand’s identity and fosters reader trust. It makes you credible when your content—whether an email newsletter, a blog post, or a LinkedIn header image—looks and feels like it belongs to your brand.

Apple is a prime example of maintaining visual consistency. I bet I don’t even have to show you a screenshot from Apple’s website; you can probably envision Apple the way its marketers want you to just because the brand is so consistent and familiar. From its website to its product packaging and advertisements, Apple uses a clean, minimalist design with consistent fonts, colors, and layout. This consistency reinforces its brand identity and creates a seamless customer experience.

Want to achieve visual consistency like Apple? Focus on logo placement, design elements, colors, and layout.

Always place your logo in the same location on all your content, such as the top left corner of your website, the header of your emails, and the bottom right corner of your social media graphics. This consistency builds brand recognition.

Design elements

Design elements like icons, patterns, and shapes can also become part of your brand’s visual identity. Your chosen elements should complement and reinforce your brand’s look and feel.

Primary and secondary colors

Define a primary color palette that includes your brand’s main colors and a secondary palette for accents and highlights. Use these colors consistently across all your content to create a cohesive visual identity.

Apply your color schemes consistently in all your content, too. For example, use the same background color for your social media graphics, the same button color on your website, and the same highlight color in your blog posts.

Layout consistency

Use a consistent layout for similar types of content. For example, all your blog posts might follow the same structure with a header image, an introductory paragraph, subheadings, and a conclusion. This consistency makes your content more predictable and more manageable for readers.

Design templates

Create design templates for different types of content, such as blog posts, newsletters, social media posts, and presentations. Include predefined styles for fonts, colors, and layout elements to maintain brand consistency no matter who uses the templates.

Canva is probably the best-known tool for templates—especially for non-designers like me. As a paid user, you’ll get access to a brand toolkit to store your brand colors and fonts for easy access. Free and paid plans give you access to many design templates for everything from Instagram posts to videos, ebooks, and cheat sheets. Using Canva templates, you can create professional-looking content that adheres to your brand guidelines without much work.

What’s next? Stay tuned for Part 4 of this series

Integrating these visual strategies into your content will create a more engaging and reader-friendly experience that keeps readers returning for more. Visual consistency, skimmability, and thoughtful design choices improve aesthetics, enhance comprehension, and retain reader interest.

Ready to elevate your content? Use what you learned in this article and watch as your engagement metrics climb and your audience's appreciation grows. In the next installment of this series, we'll look at deepening reader connection through empathetic and persuasive writing.

Follow me here on Forbes or sign up for my newsletter to get the rest of the tips in this series. By doing the latter, you’ll see how I maintain reader interest and enthusiasm with excellent writing and, yes, visual consistency.

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I prompted AI to summarize Google's 45-page book about how to write the best AI prompts. Here are the key takeaways.

• Google  handed out free guides on how to write successful AI prompts for Gemini at Google I/O.
• The booklet covers best practices for Google Workspace and gives examples for various professions.
• Some tips include drafting 21-word prompts that include persona, task, context, and format.

Google handed out booklets about how to write successful AI prompts at its big summer developer conference, Google I / O .

But you're still in luck even if you weren't one of the developers or press in attendance — Google has a free PDF version available for download on its website.

The guide breaks down how to best write AI prompts for Gemini for the company's Google Workspace apps, which include Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Meet, and Google Slides.

But there are some great takeaways in general for writing AI prompts.

It lists some helpful tips, like how the most successful AI prompts average around 21 words, and users should refrain from making them too long or too short. The guide also went over the four key points to hit in every prompt to receive the most useful responses.

The guide showcases how different roles can use Gemini to improve productivity. For example, an HR manager might use Gemini to create a script for an onboarding presentation, while a sales representative may use it to create an elevator pitch for a client.

Related stories

While the digital version is only 45 pages long, we uploaded the booklet to Google's Gemini to see the biggest takeaways (yes, we prompted AI to summarize a book about AI prompts).

Here's what it said in response.

Gemini for Google Workspace: A Guide for Busy Professionals

This guide is a comprehensive resource for anyone who wants to learn more about using Gemini for Google Workspace to improve their productivity and creativity. It covers a variety of use cases for different roles (Recruiter, HR Manager, Marketing Manager, Project Manager, Sales Manager) and provides specific prompts and examples to help them leverage Gemini's capabilities.

Key Takeaways

• Gemini for Google Workspace integrates with various Google Workspace apps (Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet) to assist with tasks like writing, organizing, summarizing information, creating visuals, and more.
• Effective prompts for Gemini should include Persona (who you are), Task (what you want to achieve), Context (background information), and Format (desired output style).
• Gemini can be used across various departments to improve productivity and streamline workflows.

Additional Tips

• Level Up Your Prompt Writing: The guide offers additional tips to help you improve your prompt writing skills. These include breaking down complex tasks into smaller prompts, using constraints to generate specific results, and tailoring your prompts to the desired tone and audience.
• Stay Up-to-Date: The guide recommends checking workspace.google.com and workspace.google.com/blog for the latest information on Gemini for Google Workspace.

Overall, this guide is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about using Gemini for Google Workspace to enhance their work within the Google ecosystem.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

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Elon Musk’s Diplomacy: Woo Right-Wing World Leaders. Then Benefit.

Mr. Musk has built a constellation of like-minded heads of state — including Argentina’s Javier Milei and India’s Narendra Modi — to push his own politics and expand his business empire.

Credit... Cristiana Couceiro

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By Ryan Mac ,  Jack Nicas and Alex Travelli

Ryan Mac reported from Los Angeles, Jack Nicas from Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, and Alex Travelli from New Delhi.

• Published May 12, 2024 Updated May 13, 2024

Minutes after it became clear that Javier Milei had been elected president of South America’s second-largest nation in November, Elon Musk posted on X : “Prosperity is ahead for Argentina.”

Since then, Mr. Musk has continued to use X, the social network he owns, to boost Mr. Milei. The billionaire has shared videos of the Argentine president attacking “social justice” with his 182 million followers. One doctored image, which implied that watching a speech by Mr. Milei was better than having sex, is among Mr. Musk’s most viewed posts ever.

Mr. Musk has helped turn the pugnacious libertarian into one of the new faces of the modern right. But offline, he has used the relationship to press for benefits to his other businesses, the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.

“Elon Musk called me,” Mr. Milei said in a television interview weeks after taking office. “He is extremely interested in the lithium.”

Mr. Musk has declared lithium — the silvery-white element that is the main component in Tesla’s car batteries — “the new oil.” Tesla has long bought lithium from Argentina, which has the world’s second-largest reserves. Now Mr. Milei is pushing for major benefits for international lithium miners, which would likely give Tesla a more stable — and potentially cheaper — flow of one of its most critical resources.

Mr. Milei is part of a pattern by Mr. Musk of fostering relationships with a constellation of right-wing heads of state, with clear beneficiaries: his companies and himself.

Mr. Musk, 52, has repeatedly used one piece of his business empire — X, formerly known as Twitter — to vocally support politicians like Mr. Milei, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Narendra Modi of India. On the platform, Mr. Musk has backed their views on gender, feted their opposition to socialism and aggressively confronted their enemies . Mr. Musk even personally intervened in X’s content policies in ways that appeared to aid Mr. Bolsonaro, two former X employees said.

Mr. Musk, in turn, has pushed for and won corporate advantages for his most lucrative businesses, Tesla and SpaceX, according to an examination by The New York Times. In India, he secured lower import tariffs for Tesla’s vehicles. In Brazil, he opened a major new market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service. In Argentina, he solidified access to the mineral most crucial to Tesla’s batteries.

Mr. Musk’s endorsement has given many nationalist and right-wing heads of state more international cachet, which they have eagerly promoted as a validation of their policies and popularity. Last month, as India began holding an election, Mr. Modi prepared to host Mr. Musk in New Delhi, calling the billionaire’s visit a testament to his leadership.

“People are coming, and they are trusting me,” the Indian prime minister said in a televised interview before Mr. Musk postponed his trip.

Mr. Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and X did not respond to requests for comment.

No other American megabillionaire businessperson has so publicly fostered ideological relationships with world leaders to advance personal politics and businesses. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder turned philanthropist, engaged in political diplomacy largely after stepping back from corporate life. Other chief executives typically stay quiet about meetings with politicians.

Mr. Musk’s politics have long been guided by his businesses, said five former Tesla and SpaceX executives who worked closely with him and were not authorized to speak publicly. In the 2010s, he built an alliance with President Barack Obama as Tesla and SpaceX welcomed federal assistance and contracts. He remains close to some mainstream leaders, notably President Emmanuel Macron of France.

But as populism and nationalism spread, Mr. Musk courted Xi Jinping in China and supported Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. He began criticizing the “woke mind virus” and what he has declared the failings of the left, which he says have led to issues such as illegal immigration and declining birthrates.

“I guess if you consider fighting the woke mind virus, which I consider to be a civilizational threat, to be political, then yes,” Mr. Musk said in a podcast in November when asked if he was becoming more political. “Woke mind virus is communism rebranded.”

A Long Game

In September 2015, Mr. Musk welcomed Mr. Modi to Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif. Mr. Modi, a Hindu nationalist politician, had been elected India’s prime minister a year earlier when his Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power, and was visiting the United States to meet business leaders.

Standing under Indian and U.S. flags at the factory, Mr. Musk and Mr. Modi posed for photographs near a gleaming red Model S car. They discussed how “solar panels and battery packs” could power rural regions in India without electrical lines, Mr. Musk said at the time.

“I understood his vision,” Mr. Modi later said.

It was one of the first instances of Mr. Musk’s publicly meeting a nationalist leader. And it was the beginning of a long game between him and Mr. Modi, a relationship that took years to develop — and that started paying off for Mr. Musk after he bought X.

India is a potentially massive market for Tesla, which needs to expand to new regions to grow. But the country has virtually barred electric vehicles built by foreign manufacturers. In recent years, the tariff India imposes on imported electric vehicles has risen as high as 100 percent.

Mr. Musk initially used traditional personal diplomacy, meeting with Mr. Modi and ordering his staff at Tesla to get close to officials. In 2017, Tesla sent a letter to India’s government to kick-start talks on operating in the country. Another overture to Mr. Modi’s government in 2019 was rebuffed, three people with knowledge of the company said.

After Mr. Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he had a new lever. The platform, renamed X, is widely used in India — including by Mr. Modi, who has nearly 98 million followers — and is a major forum of political discussion.

Before Mr. Musk owned the platform, Twitter tangled with Mr. Modi’s government. The company, which complies with requests to block certain content in India, had sued the government and challenged its power to censor online material.

Under Mr. Musk, X blocked posts last year that linked to a BBC documentary examining Mr. Modi’s role in the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, where he was the chief minister at the time. Twitter’s lawsuit against the Indian government was dismissed in July.

In a discussion last year with Twitter employees, Mr. Musk intimated that he was personally close with Mr. Modi. He said he could easily call the prime minister to take care of a content issue, two former employees said. It’s unclear if any conversation took place.

Mr. Musk met Mr. Modi in person again last June when the prime minister visited New York. He called himself a “fan of Modi” and said Mr. Modi was “pushing us to make significant investment in India, which is something that we intend to do.”

By then, Tesla employees were again talking with Mr. Modi’s advisers about a reduction in tariffs and investing in India, two people familiar with the conversations said. Rohan Patel, who was Tesla’s vice president of public policy and business development, traveled to India several times, and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister, visited the Fremont factory in November.

In January, Mr. Musk posted on X that India should receive a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, which would boost India’s international standing. “India not having a permanent seat on the Security Council, despite being the most populous country on Earth, is absurd,” he wrote.

The timing suggests that Mr. Modi noticed. Two months later, India announced it was reducing some import duties for electric carmakers that committed at least $500 million to produce vehicles in the country. The policy dropped tariffs to 15 percent of a car’s price from 100 percent, specifically for electric vehicles that retail for more than $35,000.

The description fit Tesla to a T. Its Model 3 cars ship at $38,990. BYD, the fast-growing Chinese electric vehicle maker, is barred from investing in India on national security grounds.

Last month, Tesla scouted potential factory sites in three Indian states, three people familiar with the process said. Mr. Musk had also said he would visit Mr. Modi in New Delhi during the country’s multiweek general election, before delaying the trip, citing obligations with Tesla.

Mr. Musk promised not to stay away for long. “I do very much look forward to visiting later this year,” he wrote on X.

‘True Legend of Freedom’

By 2021, Mr. Musk was employing a similar courtship to bring his Starlink satellite internet service to Brazil, which was then led by Mr. Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist president elected three years earlier. At the time, Starlink was in its infancy, with fewer than 150,000 users across 25 countries.

In October 2021, Fábio Faria, Brazil’s communications minister and an organizer of Mr. Bolsonaro’s re-election campaign, sent a letter to Mr. Musk, saying that “Starlink and Brazil can become great partners,” according to correspondence obtained through the country’s open records laws.

Weeks later, Mr. Faria visited Mr. Musk in Texas. After returning to Brazil, Mr. Faria pushed regulators to approve Starlink, at one point urging Brazil’s space agency to stay out of any debate about SpaceX’s satellites over the country, he later testified to Brazil's Congress.

Brazil’s regulators approved Starlink for operation in December 2021, seven months after the service first applied. It was the fastest of five approvals that regulators granted to satellite internet providers.

Mr. Musk later lent a hand to Mr. Bolsonaro, who faced an uphill battle in his 2022 re-election campaign.

On May 20 that year, Mr. Musk made a surprise trip to Brazil for a major announcement alongside the president. Starlink was coming to the country, and it would provide internet connectivity to 19,000 rural schools, as well as environmental monitoring of the Amazon, they said at an event in a resort near São Paulo. Mr. Bolsonaro gave Mr. Musk a medal and called him a “true legend of freedom” for his bid that year to buy Twitter.

There was just one catch: The plan to connect schools never materialized, said Carlos Baigorri, Brazil’s chief telecommunications regulator, who helped approve Starlink’s entry into the country. “I don’t really think that it even existed,” he said of the plan.

Brazilian officials said they had no record of Starlink’s connecting Brazilian schools for free or conducting environmental monitoring.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Bolsonaro benefited anyway. Mr. Musk had entrenched SpaceX in a critical market , where Starlink now has 150,000 active accounts, according to Brazil’s telecommunications regulator. Mr. Bolsonaro’s campaign got to promote the president’s business acumen and cast him as a defender of the Amazon before an election.

Mr. Musk’s favor did not prevent Mr. Bolsonaro from losing the presidency to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s leftist former president, in October 2022. But within weeks, Mr. Musk, who had just completed his deal for Twitter, tried helping Mr. Bolsonaro again.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters had started pushing accusations on Twitter that Brazilian judges had tilted the election by ordering social networks to remove right-wing posts and accounts. As they camped outside military bases demanding the election be overturned , Mr. Musk fed their suspicions by suggesting that Twitter’s former bosses had contributed to Mr. Bolsonaro’s defeat.

“It’s possible that Twitter personnel gave preference to left wing candidates,” he posted in December 2022, without citing any evidence. He later wrote that the company “may have people on the Brazil team that are strongly politically biased.”

Mr. Musk got involved in deciding which posts about Brazil’s election results should stay up or be taken down, two former Twitter employees said. Even after Mr. Musk was briefed about the risk of violence in Brazil that winter, he ordered employees to stop enforcing Twitter’s election rules in the country, including a policy forbidding users to spread misleading claims about election results, they said. He told them to remove only posts that directly incited violence or were subject to a court order.

In January 2023, thousands of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices, under the false belief that the election had been stolen.

Mr. Musk has since used X to attack one of Mr. Bolsonaro’s main political opponents, Alexandre de Moraes , a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who has overseen investigations into the former president and his supporters. X has blocked more than 100 accounts on orders from Justice Moraes, who has said many of them threatened Brazil’s democracy.

“This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil,” Mr. Musk posted on X in April. “He should resign or be impeached.”

At a rally called by Mr. Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro last month, his supporters held signs thanking Mr. Musk.

When Mr. Bolsonaro addressed the crowd, he hailed the billionaire as “the man who really preserves true freedom for us all.”

A Meeting of the Minds

In 2022, one of Tesla’s lithium suppliers announced a $1.1 billion investment to expand in Argentina. Since then, Mr. Musk has taken a keen interest in Argentine politics — and particularly Mr. Milei — leading to one of the most pronounced bromances among Mr. Musk’s political relationships.

Mr. Milei “would be quite a change,” Mr. Musk wrote on X in September in response to a post from the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had called the then-candidate “Argentina’s next president.”

Mr. Milei, a libertarian economist and TV pundit, campaigned on getting the government out of the economy and tying Argentina more closely to the United States. Like Mr. Musk, he frequently insults critics, has an intense social media habit and is deeply worried about the threat from “woke” culture.

Days before Mr. Milei’s inauguration in December, they spoke directly for the first time, and Mr. Musk asked about Argentina’s lithium. In the months since, Mr. Milei has been pushing legislation that would make extracting Argentina’s lithium far more attractive to foreign investors.

His sweeping bill, which would grant him broad emergency powers over Argentina’s economy and energy for the next year, includes a major benefit for Tesla: significant incentives for foreign investors in large projects, particularly in mining.

Such companies would receive substantial tax cuts, customs exemptions and foreign-exchange benefits, as well as tax and regulatory certainty for the next 30 years. Tesla’s lithium supplier is likely to qualify. If so, Mr. Milei’s plan would give Tesla unusual stability and predictability in its access to lithium in Argentina until at least 2054.

The proposal passed Argentina’s lower chamber of Congress on April 30.

Mr. Musk has already seen other dividends from Mr. Milei. In one of his first acts as president, Mr. Milei passed an executive order with 366 provisions. When summarizing the highlights of the order in a televised address, Mr. Milei mentioned just one corporate brand by name: Starlink.

SpaceX had pushed for Starlink’s approval in Argentina since 2022, but faced a bureaucratic jam. Mr. Milei quickly cut regulations on satellite internet, and Starlink began operating in the country in March.

Mr. Milei, in turn, has benefited: Mr. Musk has become his most influential online promoter. In January, Mr. Musk shared videos of Mr. Milei’s speech at the World Economic Forum, in which the leader claimed communism and social justice were the main threats to the West.

The posts set off a frenzy of praise for the Argentine across right-wing corners of the internet, including from Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who met with Mr. Milei in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. Mr. Milei hugged Mr. Trump and told him he was rooting for him.

Last month, Mr. Milei traveled to Austin, Texas, to visit Mr. Musk at Tesla’s factory there. The two men agreed to “open markets and defend the ideas of freedom,” according to a statement from Mr. Milei’s office. The statement did not mention lithium.

Later, Gerardo Werthein, Argentina’s ambassador to the United States, told the Argentine newspaper La Nación that the pair had indeed discussed Argentina’s mineral reserves.

Mr. Musk “had a very good view of everything we have,” Mr. Werthein said, “especially lithium.”

On Monday, Mr. Musk and Mr. Milei met again, this time at a conference in Los Angeles. Mr. Milei called the entrepreneur “my friend” in a speech in which he praised Mr. Musk’s effort to reach Mars . A few hours later, Mr. Musk posted a photo of the two men with their thumbs up.

“I recommend investing in Argentina,” he wrote .

Reporting was contributed by Jason Horowitz from Rome, Kate Conger from San Francisco, Sameer Yasir from New Delhi, Paulo Motoryn from Brasília, Lucía Cholakian Herrera from Buenos Aires and Ishaan Jhaveri from New York.

Ryan Mac covers corporate accountability across the global technology industry. More about Ryan Mac

Jack Nicas is the Brazil bureau chief for The Times, based in Rio de Janeiro, where he leads coverage of much of South America. More about Jack Nicas

Alex Travelli is a correspondent for The Times based in New Delhi, covering business and economic matters in India and the rest of South Asia. He previously worked as an editor and correspondent for The Economist. More about Alex Travelli

The World of Elon Musk

The billionaire’s portfolio includes the world’s most valuable automaker, an innovative rocket company and plenty of drama..

Wooing World Leaders: Elon Musk has fostered relationships with a constellation of right-wing heads of state — including Argentina’s Javier Milei and India’s Narendra Modi — to push his own politics and expand his business empire .

Tesla: Musk has gutted the part of the carmaking company responsible for building charging stations for electric vehicles , sowing uncertainty about the future of the largest and most reliable U.S. charging network.

X: An Australian court extended an injunction ordering the social media platform to remove videos depicting the recent stabbing of a bishop , setting the country’s judicial system up for a clash with Musk.

A $47 Billion Pay Deal: Despite   facing criticism that Tesla is overly beholden to Musk , its board of directors said that the company would essentially give him everything he wanted, including the biggest pay package in corporate history.

Business With China : Tesla and China built a symbiotic relationship that made Musk ultrarich. Now, his reliance on the country may give Beijing leverage .  

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