Professional writing has a job to do. If the written document doesn’t achieve its intended goal, whether that’s to inform, to persuade, or to compel some action, the page might as well be blank. 

To ensure organizational writing consistently delivers results, every document must meet certain key thresholds. At Hurley Write, we think of these thresholds as the three Cs of company writing excellence: clarity, confidence, and credibility. Together, these three key dimensions of written content form the foundation of strong organizational communication.

Here’s what each one means, and how you can make sure every document your organization produces is equally clear, confident, and credible.

Clarity: The First Essential

Clarity is the starting point. Without it, even the most innovative ideas collapse under the weight of jargon, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity.

Often, the problem is straightforward, like writers forgetting or failing to appreciate that their readers might not know as much as they do. Researchers in the Journal of Marketing, a scholarly journal that features peer-reviewed research and is published by the American Marketing Association, analyzed more than 1,600 articles in marketing journals looking for indicators about why so much writing is confusing and unclear.  

One  conclusion is that many professionals suffer from the “curse of knowledge.” In other words, the writer forgets that their reader doesn’t share their insider expertise and consequently produces texts so abstract and technical that even attentive readers struggle to understand. As the researchers put it, “Scholars write unclearly in part because they forget that they know more about their research than readers.”

In our experience, the curse of knowledge afflicts experts of all types, including engineers, scientists, and other professionals whose sheer subject matter mastery can sometimes overwhelm their writing clarity.

Complicating matters, confusing writing can creep in from unexpected places; for instance, during the editing process. Another study of organizational writing practices found that “Confusion can often arise when some managers base their feedback on their own preferred style when editing their employees’ work, rather than on knowledge informed by scholarly theories of reading and writing.” 

In other words, writing often falters when editorial choices reflect personal quirks rather than reader-centered standards.

At Hurley Write, we describe clarity as having four pillars: purpose, structure, conciseness, and readability. These are teachable, repeatable practices. In fact, one of Hurley Write’s own workshop participants, a microbiologist at food producer ConAgra, discovered just how powerful clarity could be. By refining reports around these pillars, her lab ensured that “any report or protocol [would] be clear enough that other microbiologists can understand or even recreate [our] projects.” 

Confidence: Writing That Inspires Trust

If clarity ensures readers understand your message, confidence ensures they believe it.

Confidence in writing doesn’t mean arrogance or bluster. It means presenting ideas with assurance, authority, and decisiveness. Readers instinctively pick up on hesitancy: overuse of hedging phrases (“I think,” “maybe,” “perhaps”), cluttered sentences, or apologetic tone can make even sound recommendations feel tentative. By contrast, confident writing signals competence.

For example, consider two versions of the same recommendation:

• “It might be worth considering implementing a new reporting dashboard if resources allow.”
• “Implementing a new reporting dashboard will give managers real-time visibility and improve decision-making.”

The first hedges its bets, while the second exudes assurance. Which one is a busy executive more likely to act on?

Confidence also stems from preparation and expertise. Good writers know what evidence supports their case and what objections they must pre-empt. As a result, their documents carry an unmistakable decisiveness.

Credibility: The Final Judgment

Clarity and confidence culminate in credibility. Indeed, whether readers take you seriously is ultimately the most important element of writing that gets the job done.

“People jump to all kinds of conclusions about you when they read documents you have written,” author Barbara Wallraff wrote in The Harvard Business Review. “They decide, for instance, how smart, how creative, how well organized, how trustworthy, and how considerate you are. And once they have made up their minds, it is hard to get them to see you differently.”

That snap judgment explains why credibility is so fragile. A single typo in a high-stakes proposal can raise doubts about diligence. Hesitant writing might make the reader doubt your abilities or knowledge of the topic. Ultimately, even groundbreaking insights, as the American Marketing Association researchers wrote in their analysis, “will make an impact only if others understand and build on them.”

How to Kickstart the Three Cs at Your Organization

The good news is that, contrary to popular belief, writing excellence isn’t innate talent. As Wallraff says, “Writing well is a learned skill.” With the right training, employees at every level can sharpen their ability to produce clear, confident, and credible documents.

That said, organizations must be discerning. Just as managers without communications training can inadvertently create obstacles to clarity, so too can superficial “kwik-fix” workshops, as Dr. Roslyn Petelin, a professor at the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland, Australia, terms them. She advises companies to beware of consultants who “lack a background in communication theory and have only a minimal understanding of the structural, linguistic, and document-design principles that are the basis of flawless documents.”

We agree. Instead, invest in programs grounded in communication science and tailored to the realities of professional writing. When employees learn how to align structure with purpose, cut hedging language, and present arguments with assurance, they produce documents that both reflect and reinforce organizational strength.

The Hurley Write Way

The three Cs are so key to effective writing that they are foundational to every workshop we design and teach. We see them as crucial elements that determine whether a piece of writing earns attention and drives results or whether it falls flat. Clear writing ensures your ideas are understood. Confident writing ensures the ideas are taken seriously, and credible writing ensures they deliver a real impact. 

We’ve designed our own courses, like Better Business Writing and other Team Writing Workshops, with these elements in mind.  Our goal is to empower your team with improved writing skills that will showcase your organization’s professionalism and talent, ensuring readers are interested and engaged. When your company’s writing embodies the three Cs, every document becomes a value-producing asset.