Business Writing

Today I had a writing assessment (as part of orientation, in addition to a lot of other academic policy and financial aid meetings), and as a fairly experienced writer, there wasn't a whole lot from this experience that struck me as blog worthy except for the Graziadio School of Business and Management writing rubric (the scale on which we are graded). Each essay, to be considered passing, should satisfy the following criteria.

• a significant, insightful answer to the question
• content organized to the specifics of the question
• sentence and paragraph construction that meets readability criteria (business style: short, direct sentences and paragraphs)
• few errors in grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling
  

To me, the point that was most relevant was "business style: short, direct sentences and paragraphs." I tend to be slightly verbose, so this was challenging, yet thought-provoking for me.

How can I say what I need to say in half as many words as I would ordinary say it?

P.S. My essay question asked me what my dream job would be. My answer? Any day that begins in ski boots. Probably not the answer they were looking for, but I was quite poignant in my response, so maybe it was convincing. ;)