Has a colleague ever asked if you have the “bandwidth” to do something? Or requested you “touch base” with them? Most of us have been victim to this sort of overused argot, and you’re not alone if you feel exasperated by it. In fact, 90 per cent of office workers think people use jargon to hide incompetence.

If clichés are the bane of professionals’ lives, why are they so rampant in corporate settings? Probably because they’re slick-sounding phrases you can roll off your tongue (or your keyboard) without having to think too hard. And when everyone who’s anyone is doing it, it makes you feel part of the group.

The problem is that once the novelty wears off, you’re stuck with an office full of vague, unoriginal language. That’s why good writers use clichés sparingly and say exactly what they mean instead.

2. Jargon

Jargon is more forgivable, as long as it’s used in the right way. Jargon is vocabulary that’s specific to one group of people, and which others won’t necessarily understand. For example, lawyers often use Latin phrases like “prima facie” and “actus reus”, terms many English speakers aren’t familiar with. In the corporate world, unexpanded acronyms are often a source of confusion.

Jargon can help you describe your specialism quickly and accurately, but be careful not to spring it on people who don’t share your expertise. Good writers avoid language that alienates audiences, so save jargon for readers who’ll know what you’re on about.

3. Formal language

We all write differently to the way we speak. But some professionals take a drastically more formal tone in their business writing than they would in a conversation with colleagues. Before you know it, “Have you finished the project?” has turned into “Kindly provide an update regarding the project’s completion”.

As with clichés and jargon, formal language is sometimes an attempt to sound more clever or authoritative without much extra work. Language can act as a mask, but often what it hides is the real meaning of your writing.

With most business documents (including emails), it’s best to keep things simple instead of cloaking your writing in formality. Your reader will be able to relate better to what you’re saying if you use natural-sounding language. It’ll also make your writing clearer as you’re more likely to say exactly what you mean.

4. The passive voice

In the active voice, the subject performs the action in a sentence. In “The porcupine ate the berries”, “The porcupine” is the subject, and it’s performing the action of eating berries.

The passive voice switches this around so that the subject has the action done to them, like this: “The berries were eaten”. “The berries” are now the subject, and they’re being eaten. As you can see, the passive voice gives you the option of completely removing the original subject.

Passive sentences are common in business writing, perhaps because they avoid confrontation. The passive voice lets you say “This target must be achieved” instead of “You must achieve your target”.

The problem is that the passive voice makes your writing less personal and specific, and therefore less meaningful. Readers are in danger of misinterpreting sentences that don’t specify who’s doing something. It’s also easier to relate to people performing actions than to actions happening on their own, resulting in a more engaged audience.

If you’re worried about sounding too direct, try rephrasing your sentence rather than resorting to the passive voice. “You’re essential to the business’s success” (with further explanation) is more caring than “You must achieve your target”, and it’s more inspiring than the passive “This target must be achieved”. Think carefully about your message and then phrase it kindly but clearly.

5. Confusing sentence structures

In a first draft, we often write the way we think. It makes sense when we read it back because we already know what we mean. But consider it from the perspective of the reader, who has no idea what you’re thinking.

To avoid confusion and get results, you must make your writing unambiguous. Follow these tips for straightforward sentences:

• Break up sentences that are bewilderingly long.
• Use full stops, colons or semi colons between sentences – never a comma or nothing at all, as this can unintentionally change the meaning. Sentences are groups of words that make sense on their own; take notice of when you move from one to the next.
• Order your words and phrases in a way that’s clear to your reader (not just you).
• Make sure you’re describing the right person or thing. In “As a senior leader, I imagine you’re very busy”, you’re calling yourself a senior leader (not your reader) as “I” is the closest pronoun to the description.

6. Unnecessary information

Before you start writing, think about your message and plan what you want to say using bullet points. Don’t include anything that doesn’t help you achieve your goal, and consolidate or remove repeated points unless you need to emphasise something.

Also avoid unnecessary words and phrases. For example, don’t say the same thing twice in different ways (“We’ll help and support you”). See how many words you can get rid of without losing meaning.

7. Being inconsistent

Good writing is logical and cohesive. As part of this, you should phrase things consistently so as not to disrupt your reader’s train of thought. For example, if the first two items in a list of role responsibilities are “Write reports” and “Manage budgets”, then the third item shouldn’t be “Organising events”. What should it be instead? “Organise events” is the answer.

8. Grammatical mistakes

Good writers avoid making these mistakes:

• Capitalising nouns haphazardly: Capitalise the first letter in a sentence as well as the first letters of proper nouns – not regular nouns like “company” and “campaign”.
• Turning singular nouns into plurals: Nouns like “business” and “team” are singular, not plural, because they refer to an entity rather than the individuals associated with it. This means you should use singular phrases like “it is” rather than plural ones like “they are”.
• Saying “myself” when you mean “me”: Reflexive pronouns, like “myself” and “yourself”, apply when the subject is the same as the object. In other words, only use them when someone is doing something to or for themselves. Don’t say things like “I look up to successful people like yourself” (it’s just “you”).
• Confusing “I” and “me”: The pronoun “I” is for the subject in the sentence, and “me” is for the object. Don’t use “me” as a subject (“Chris and me will do the report”), and avoid using “I” as an object (“Send the details to Sam and I”). To get it right every time, remove the other subject or object and see if “I” or “me” sounds right on its own. You’ll see that the pronouns should look like this: “I will do the report” and “Send the details to me”.

9. Writing with no objective or audience in mind

Purpose and audience decide the message of a piece of writing, and they influence everything from structure to individual words. They’re the reins that keep your writing from veering off course.

Before you write anything, define what you want to achieve. Do you want someone to buy your product? Do you need your colleague to follow your instructions correctly? Then consider your reader; what sort of arguments and phrases will engage them and motivate them to respond in the desired way?

10. Not asking the reader to do something

Do you ever receive emails you don’t know what to do with? Something can be wonderfully written, but if it doesn’t give you necessary information or ask you to do something, it’s a waste of both the writer’s and the reader’s time.

If you can, be specific about what you want your audience to do. Try using an imperative call to action like “Buy now” or “Please get back to me by Monday so I can use your feedback”.