Short words are the best

They were the first words. Use them.

A writer at The Economist:

Though the tongue in which you read this stole words from here and there, and still does, at the start, if there was one, its words were short. Huh, you may say, those first “words” were no more than grunts.

Yet soon they grew to be grunts with a gist, and time has shown that, add to the length of your words as you may, it is hard to beat a good grunt with a good gist. That is why the short words, when old, are still the tops. Tough as boots or soft as silk, sharp as steel or blunt as toast, there are old, short words to fit each need.

You want to make love, have a chat, ask the way, thank your stars, curse your luck or swear, scold and rail? Just pluck an old, short word at will. If you doubt that you will find the one you seek, look at what can be done with not much: “To be or not to be?” “And God said, Let there be light; and there was light,” “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

“Short words are best,” Winston Churchill said, “and old words when short are the best of all.”

Stop capitalizing everyhing

I come across unnecessary capitalization in business writing all the time.

Often it involves corporate departments, e.g., Human Resources or Finance Department. Sometimes I see only one word capitalized: Finance department. Sometimes these words refer to a specific company's department; sometimes they refer to departments in general.

Sometimes the capitalization seems completely random: the Client or the Regulation.

Capital letters are speed bumps. They slow the eye as it scans across a sentence. So avoid them wherever possible.

Let's start with departments. Proper names, i.e., names of specific things or people, are capitalized. So I suppose "the GE Department of Human Resources" is technically correct. But is it necessary? Not really. The only time you should capitalize a corporate department is when it refers to a specific company's department, and then you want to get the name exactly correct. I would argue, however, that capitalization in that case isn't necessary for meaning.

Now for titles. When they come before a name, they should be capitalized. So: Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Office Joe Blow. But do you see how hard that is to swallow. Better: put the title after the name and don't capitalize it. Joe Blow, chairman of the board and chief executive officer. (Notice I left out "of directors" -- the meaning is clear in the context.)

There are some good capitalization tips at EssayInfo, but you'll notice they favor more capitalization than I do.