20. Sentence Structure: Maximizing Your Clarity
Most lousy proposals have a few characteristics in common. By now, I’m sure you know what they are as well as I do: They’re product focused rather than client focused. They’re factual rather than persuasive. They’re disorganized. They lack a clear value proposition. But there’s one characteristic we haven’t looked at yet: They use pompous language to impress or intimidate the reader rather than writing clearly to communicate.
Assuming that you subscribe to the linguistic version of the Golden Rule, “Send unto others what you would like to receive yourself,” the question arises: How can you write proposals that are clear and easy to understand? And what is clarity, anyway? How do you know if something ...
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