The Toolkit of Formal Writing

• Formal corporate writing requires precision, objectivity, and elegance. By mastering nominalisation, the passive voice, hedging, and cohesion, you elevate your strategic documents to an executive standard.
• Technique
• Informal / Direct
• Formal & Advanced
• Nominalisation
• We need to analyse the market quickly.
• A rapid market analysis is required.
• The Passive
• Management decided the budget allocation.
• The budget allocation was determined.
• Hedging
• This strategy will fail in Chicago.
• This strategy would appear to carry risks in Chicago.
• Cohesion
• Boston and Seattle grew. The former did well; the latter struggled.
• Remember
• Use nominalisation to turn verbs and adjectives into nouns, creating a more objective, abstract tone.
• Employ the passive voice to shift focus from the actor to the process, result, or strategy itself.
• Apply hedging devices (such as modal verbs, seem, appear, arguably) to soften assertions and mitigate risk.
• Maintain structural cohesion using linking devices, substitution, and terms like 'the former' and 'the latter'.
• Examples
• Rigorous portfolio strategy formulation was undertaken by the executive board in London.
• It would appear that resource allocation needs to be re-evaluated across all regional branches.
• Operational efficiency improved significantly in New York; the former initiative succeeded while the latter faltered.
• Common mistakes
• We feel that our strategy is completely wrong.
• It could be argued that the current strategic direction requires refinement.
• Management made a decision to cut costs.
• A decision was made to reduce operational expenditures.

Complete the sentences

• A thorough (analyse) ____ of the market in Dallas was conducted by the consultants.
• It (seem) ____ that the proposed mission statement lacks sufficient clarity.
• The strategic plan (approve) ____ by the board of directors in Manchester yesterday.
• Significant (grow) ____ has been achieved through effective resource allocation.
• The former approach proved successful, whereas (latter) ____ failed to meet expectations in Chicago.
• Such measures (tend) ____ to mitigate potential risks associated with strategic drift.

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