Business Units ? Technical Writing Tips for the Oil Patch

Sometimes we corporate types like to name our business units after certain areas of the world, and then refer to that corporate entity by that name.

Bad Example:
South Dakota has the responsibility of preparing quarterly and annual maintenance reports for all critical equipment.

Now, somebody from another company or business unit may read this requirement and think that the State of South Dakota has responsibility for compiling this report and submitting it by the stated deadline.

(Hey, this world is full of people who could misread this: foreigners, autistic folks, blondes, Aggies, the list goes on?.)

Although you may be able to abbreviate this way when speaking to small corporate groups, it would be far better to be specific about the entity in formal written documents like guidelines, procedures, and contracts that people are supposed to follow to the letter.

Corrected Example:
The Acme South Dakota Business Unit (BU) has the responsibility of preparing quarterly and annual maintenance reports for all critical equipment.

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Refreshing Statesman Quote of the Day:
?Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.
Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.?
John F. Kennedy, 35th US President, 1917-1963
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This entry was posted on October 5, 2012 at 3:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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