How to Sound More Professional in English Writing

Why “formal” can sound wrong in English

In many languages, formal written style is a long way from speech. Official German, French, Spanish, Russian or Arabic prose often uses more abstract nouns, longer sentences and more ceremonial phrasing than people would ever say aloud, and school writing often rewards it. Learners carry that idea into English and reach for the longest, most official-sounding option.

Since the plain-language movements of the 20th century, English business and government writing has gone the other way. A good English email today sounds like a careful, polite version of how the writer would speak. When it doesn’t, readers notice — and not in the writer’s favor. In a well-known 2006 study in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Daniel Oppenheimer found that readers judged texts with needlessly complex vocabulary to have been written by less intelligent authors.

So sounding professional in English is mostly a matter of taking things out. The seven habits below are the ones worth checking first.

1. Use the everyday word

English often has two words for the same thing: a short one from Old English and a longer one from Latin or French. In emails and reports the short one is normal; the long one sounds like a legal document. This trap is especially strong for speakers of Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian, because the long English word looks like the ordinary word at home — utilizar, commencer, facilitar, procurar.

The longer words are not wrong, and some belong in particular places: prior to is normal in contracts, and facilitate is the right word for what a workshop facilitator does. The aim is to stop choosing them by default.

2. Turn nouns back into verbs

Official styles in many languages put the action into a noun and add an empty verb to carry it: German eine Entscheidung treffen and die Durchführung, French procéder à la mise en œuvre, Russian осуществление. Translated into English, this produces sentences where nobody seems to do anything.

Look for words ending in -tion, -ment, -ance, -ence that sit next to make, carry out, perform, conduct or give. Most of them hide a verb: make a decision → decide, give consideration to → consider, conduct a review of → review. Some noun phrases are perfectly natural — make a mistake, take a decision in British English, have a meeting — so change only the ones that make the sentence longer without adding anything.

3. Put the point in the first two lines

Many writing traditions build up to the request: greeting, good wishes, background, reasons, and only then what the writer needs. English business email usually reverses this. The reader expects the purpose or the request within the first couple of lines, with background afterwards. Military writers call this BLUF, “bottom line up front”.

You don’t need to drop the courtesy. One friendly line at the start is fine — just make sure it is one line, and that the next one says what you want.

4. One polite phrase is enough

Languages with rich systems of respect — Japanese and Korean honorifics, the formal registers of Arabic, Hindi or Persian — mark politeness in several places at once. Translating each marker produces a request that is so wrapped up it becomes hard to read:

In English, the question form Could you…? already does the polite work. Add please or if possible if you like, but not all of them. Note also that the plain version is more useful: it gives a day. At your earliest convenience literally means “whenever suits you”, which is rarely what the writer means.

Hedging works the same way. “I just wanted to perhaps suggest that maybe we could consider…” is one sentence with four hedges in it. Keep one: I suggest we consider… or Could we consider…?

5. Say who does what

Impersonal constructions (it is requested that, it has been decided, the documents are to be submitted) sound official in many languages. In English they mostly sound evasive, because the reader cannot tell who decided or who has to act.

The passive itself is not the problem. Use it when the actor is unknown or doesn’t matter: The office was closed for repairs. For more on choosing between the two, see active vs. passive voice in business writing.

6. Keep connectors simple

Essay-writing courses teach long lists of linking words — furthermore, moreover, hence, thus, consequently, nevertheless — and learners often put one at the start of every sentence to show structure. In an email or report this sounds like an exam answer.

Also, so, but and however do most of the linking in good professional English. The longer connectors are fine in formal reports, used occasionally where the logical step really needs marking. If you can join two sentences with and, so or because, that is usually the most natural choice.

7. One main idea per sentence

Academic writing in several languages rewards long sentences that link many clauses. In English emails, a sentence that carries three ideas makes the reader hold all of them at once. Split it where a new idea starts.

Varying sentence length is fine, and a long sentence can be perfectly clear if it carries one idea. The test is whether a reader could repeat each sentence after reading it once.

What not to cut

Plain does not mean blunt or vague. Keep:

• Courtesy. Please, thank you and a friendly opening line cost a few words. “Send report Friday” is short but sounds like an order.
• Precision. Numbers, dates, names and technical terms are what make a message useful. “Sales went down” is plain; “Q3 sales fell 12% compared with Q2” is plain and precise.
• The right word when the short one is vague. Postpone is better than move if you mean “later”; approve is better than OK in a formal decision.

A full email, before and after

Here is a request that uses most of the habits above, and a rewrite.

The rewrite is about 40 percent shorter, makes the request in the first sentence, names who decided, and gives a deadline. It is no less polite.