• Keep your word count under control. 
• Don't hedge. 
• Be on the lookout for language
• Use active verb tense
• Don't use passive verbs; they express impersonal events rather than committed actions, and they create distance with the reader. 
• Maintain an optimistic, positive tone. 
• Even if circumstances require that you deliver bad news, do so with optimism: there are problems, but we are solving them. 
• Structure your writing carefully.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

via pickthebrain