【正文】 ether you are clear about what to say and say it simply and straightforwardly. Clear writing and clear thinking go hand in hand, and a person who thinks straight will usually be able to write straight.” A consistent point of view is essential to clarity。 if a subject is frequently switched from one point to another, the reader will certainly get confused.Another important contributor to clarity is a careful and methodical approach to the writing project, such as proper emphasis and subordination, clear transition, unification and so on. Without a logical method of development and a clear outline of content, the writer is likely to pass isolated or ambiguous thoughts to the reader and, consequently, the anticipated objective cannot be achieved. Let’s look at the following statement: No child shall be employed on any weekday when the school is not open for a period longer than four hours. Does this writer means that no child must be employed when the school is not open for more than four hours, or that no child must be employed for more than four hours when the school is not open? If he means the latter, then the phrase for a period longer than four hours should be placed immediately after employed.Therefore, the presentation of any message must be made clear and intelligible, so that the reader can see without difficulty what the points of a message are, and what he or she should think or do accordingly.3. 2. 3 CompletenessCompleteness means prehensive treatment of the subject or problem at hand. Only when the idea we are to convey is plete will our message be made clear enough and our goal be attained. For example, if a buyer is writing to place an order for shoes, in case of any delay in fulfilling orders, he or she is supposed to indicate details like color and size, and provide relevant information that may evoke the anticipated reaction of the seller. Unless all points and explanations are sufficiently detailed, no misconception will follow.There are several reasons for pleteness to be one of the principles that business writers must apply. First of all, a plete message will save the writer the embarrassment of having to clarify repeatedly his or her points in subsequent messages, and the possible expenses otherwise incurred. Secondly, formulating a plete message shows the writer’s wish for a favorable reaction from the reader and thus help build up goodwill. Finally, being plete in business writing will help business people avoid costly lawsuits they may be faced with simply because some essential information has been omitted by mistake in their outgoing messages.3. 2. 4 CorrectnessAs has been pointed out in the previous chapter, accuracy is one of the advantages a piece of business writing may present. Accordingly, to be correct is a principle we must adhere to when writing business messages. Correctness here refers to correctness in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, appropriateness of tones, reliability of information, authenticity of facts and accuracy of figures. Generally speaking, errors that generally occur in business writing fall into three categories. The mistakes under the first category are typographical, such as wrong printing and improper spacing, which are relatively easy to avoid so long as writers can be a little more cautious when they are making out their documents. The occurrence of the second category of mistakes may be attributed to unintended failure to check reference sources and to detect misspelled names and words of other parts of speech, faulty figures, or other errors such as in wording, dating, capitalization and punctuation. These mistakes can be prevented by meticulous collation as well as careful typing, adequate proofreading and proper correction of erasures. The mistakes under the third category are not easy to identify because they are problems of deep structure, such as the lack of sentence unity or coherence, dangling modifiers, fragmented sentences, illogical bination of ideas and so on. To solve these problems, a writer must be linguistically proficient. This means he or she must be knowledgeable not only in grammar, but also in logic, rhetoric, semantics, pragmatics and other related branches of linguistics. A prehensive mastery of the knowledge in these fields may help a writer bee duly sensitive to the mistakes of this nature. Let’s look at the following several statements:The accountant prepares the firm’s financial statements. For example, the balance sheet and the ine statement.Here we have two sentences, but obviously the second is not a plete one, which may as well be subordinated to the first sentence: The accountant prepares various financial statements of the firm, such as the balance sheet and the ine statement. As a customer of our pany, I am sure you will want to take advantage of the best price we can quote you for this item.The phrases a customer of our pany and you, instead of I, are in apposition to each other。 therefore, the sentence shall be rewritten to read: As a customer of our pany, you will want to take advantage of the best price we can quote you for this item.3. 2. 5 ConcisenessMany business executives believe that conciseness is the most practical writing principle because a wordy message requires more time and money, which are regarded as the most important factors in business circle, to type and to read. In Handbook for Business Writers, Doris H. Whalen says: “A long letter that is greatly overwritten takes longer to read, covers the important facts with verbiage, and confuses the reader to the point where often the letter is ignored.” Although words are the basic “materials” we use to pose our messages, too many of them can impede munication just as too many cars on a highway can impede traffic. For the sake of conciseness, all the writer has to do is to prune verbiage from his or her writing. No one likes to read a verbose letter full of stiff and dull expressions us