Recommended resources
The freely available resources this lesson will direct you to.
Welcome. This course begins with professional English for executive conversations: first, making a written message clear and credible; next, introducing yourself aloud. Later modules will build on those foundations in discovery conversations, sales discussions, and outreach.
In this lesson, you’ll revise a short message for a chief executive or another senior decision-maker. The goal is not to make every sentence sound formal. It is to correct errors, choose precise business vocabulary, and make the point easy to grasp on a quick read. Allow about 40 minutes, including the resources and worked revision.
Write for a reader with limited time
An executive-facing message should make its purpose clear early. The reader needs to understand what you are offering or asking, why it may matter, and whether a response is needed. Grammar supports that clarity, but tone matters too: a grammatically correct message can still sound presumptuous, vague, or overly familiar.
Purdue OWL describes effective business tone as confident, courteous, and sincere. Confidence means stating what you can substantiate—not claiming that a reader must agree or that you can solve a problem you have not yet investigated. Courtesy means making a reasonable request without assigning blame.
Tone in Business Writing - Purdue OWL
Read Purdue OWL’s “Tone in Business Writing” for a way to judge tone without relying on a list of “formal” words.
Start at “What kind of tone should I use?” and read the tone guidelines. Under “Be Confident,” read the comparison between a demand and a supported claim. Then go to “Stress the Benefits For the Reader” and read the reader-focused guidance. Finish with “Write at an Appropriate Level of Difficulty,” from its opening explanation. Notice that writing for the reader does not mean adding complex vocabulary.
The reader-focused principle is useful, but it needs care. “I would love to tell you about our product” emphasizes the writer’s wish. “I can outline how the service may affect reporting time” gives the reader a reason to consider the conversation. Neither sentence establishes that the service will save time in the reader’s organization. Professional tone depends on that distinction between a possible benefit and a proven result.
Make a separate grammar pass
Trying to fix grammar, tone, and vocabulary at once makes errors easy to miss. Begin by checking whether each sentence is complete and whether its parts fit together. Then check the words that commonly change form or require a particular construction.
The University of Oregon’s Business Writing Guide pairs a compact error checklist with advice on word choice and concision. Read the specified pages before looking at the short video examples.
Read the University of Oregon’s “Business Writing Guide” to see how sentence-level choices affect credibility and how to check common errors systematically.
On pp. 9–11, find “4.1 Sentence-Level Language.” Under “BUILD RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH TONE,” read the tone discussion. Continue to “USE CONCISE PHRASING” and read the concision advice, including the wordy-versus-concise example and replacements that follow. Under “AVOID GRAMMAR ERRORS,” read the error table through “Dangling modifier.” Focus on how the corrected sentences preserve the intended meaning while removing an error.
For a short message, give particular attention to these checks:
| Check | Problem | Revision |
|---|---|---|
| Subject–verb agreement | “Our team have a proposal.” | “Our team has a proposal.” |
| Sentence boundaries | “We reviewed the figures, the risk remains.” | “We reviewed the figures. The risk remains.” |
| Fragments | “Because the deadline changed.” | “The plan needs updating because the deadline changed.” |
| Fixed expressions | “I look forward to discuss it.” | “I look forward to discussing it.” |
A comma alone cannot join two complete sentences in the second example. A full stop makes both points clear. In the third, because introduces a reason, but the reader still needs the main point it explains.
Some mistakes are not obvious from general grammar rules; they involve customary English combinations. The video below shows several in business emails. Watch the selected passages for the correction and the reason for it, rather than memorizing whole messages.
Can You Correct the Mistakes in These Business Emails?
Watch selected examples from “Can You Correct the Mistakes in These Business Emails?” by Derek Callan – English for Professionals. They illustrate small errors that can survive an ordinary spell-check.
In meeting changes, notice “an urgent” and the corrections to an apology and meeting request. In email expressions, focus on “look forward to welcoming,” “attached,” and the uncountable noun “information.” Finally, in formal inquiry, notice why “discuss about” becomes “discuss” and why “researches” becomes “research.”
A final grammar pass should be deliberate, not a search for more elaborate language. Read each sentence once for a complete thought, once for verb forms and agreement, and once for expressions such as discuss the proposal or look forward to hearing from you.
Replace informal wording with precise wording
After grammar, revise vocabulary. Professional does not mean complicated. The Business Writing Guide recommends replacing wordy phrases such as “in order to” with “to” and “utilize” with “use.” Those simpler words usually let an executive reach the point faster.
Informal wording often causes trouble because it is imprecise. “A cool tool” says little about what the tool does. “Fix your reporting problem” assumes you know both the problem and the solution. A more useful phrase names the offering and its intended function: “a reporting tool designed to reduce preparation time.” That wording is specific without promising a result you cannot yet verify.
Consider this illustrative draft:
Hi, our team have a cool tool that make reporting faster, your managers spends too much time on reports. We can fix it and save you 20%. I want to discuss about this, can you give me 30 minutes next week? I look forward to hear from you.
First, correct the language without changing the claims. Our team has, a tool that makes, and managers spend fix agreement. The comma after faster needs a sentence break. Write discuss this, not discuss about this, and look forward to hearing, not look forward to hear. This first pass makes the draft grammatical; it does not make its claims reliable.
Next, consider what the writer actually knows. The draft assumes how the recipient’s managers spend their time, and “save you 20%” does not say whether the figure refers to time or cost. If a verified figure exists, specify what it measures and be ready to support it. If it does not, do not present it as fact. The request for 30 minutes can remain, but it should be courteous and connected to a possible priority for the reader.
With no verified performance figure or confirmed knowledge of the recipient’s process, a revision could be:
Hello,
Our team offers a reporting tool designed to reduce the time spent preparing reports. If reporting efficiency is a priority, would you be open to a 30-minute discussion next week?
The revision uses ordinary words, correct grammar, and a conditional request. It also changes the strength of the claim: designed to reduce describes the tool’s purpose, while will save you 20% promises a measurable outcome. That change is a matter of accuracy, not merely style.
Before sending a message like this, read it once from the recipient’s perspective. Can they identify the purpose on the first read? Does every claim have support? Is the requested response clear? Those checks are more valuable than adding formality for its own sake.
Key takeaways
Revise executive-facing messages in two passes: correct the sentences, then test the tone and claims. Choose specific, straightforward business vocabulary over slang, jargon, or inflated phrasing. State a relevant possibility confidently, but do not turn an assumption into a promised result.
The next lesson moves from the page to speech: you’ll use the same clarity and confident tone in a concise professional introduction.