When it comes to drafting reports, your writing can never get too creative; it can, however, be boring, annoyingly repetitive or, worst of all, just plain bad.
Play Around with Synonyms
Redundancy and repetition will make your work look sloppy, amateurish and unprofessional. Adding some variety to your report writing is an easy way to avoid losing credibility with your clients. Every language offers plenty of synonyms to choose from: use them!
Here's our list of the most frequently used English terms in financial advisory, along with useful synonyms and related terminology:
Sentence Structure and Grammar
Key rules to remember: be concise and only use the necessary words; avoid loose sentences; keep to one tense; and keep it simple.
In our field of work, the English language is dominant: some seldom use it, but many of us use it on a daily basis to write reports and talk to clients. For most of us, English is not even our native language. Of course, this does not mean that an ESL will not or cannot know the language better than a British or an American, who often butcher their own language with inexcusable grammatical errors and embarrassing spelling mistakes.
We recommend that everyone, native and non-native speakers, brush up on their English language skills by reading the book The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. (which can be accessed at the following link). This is a short, but effective manual that sets out the rules on how to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, and points out which are the most commonly misused words and expressions.
We hope you have found this article useful. For questions or clarifications, feel free to reach out. Thanks for reading, and good luck!