Of course, there are lots of important things to bear in mind - like making your points in a logical order - but what I’m talking about here is tone, language and grammar. A badly written document makes you sound unprofessional and severely detracts from the points you are trying to make and the message you’re trying to get over.

Here are some of the main things on my list.

Americanisms - you know - using “ize” instead of “ise”, and phrases like “I was obligated” instead of “I was obliged”. And transatlantic spelling is another source of annoyance - “color” and “harbor” for example.

Another Americanism that comes to mind is a phrase like “We were sat in the reception area” which people use instead of “We were sitting in the reception area”. The first example means that somebody has shown you to the reception area and given you a seat whereas the second simply means that you were sitting in the reception area. It’s not a matter of preferring different ways of saying the same thing, it’s a matter of one phrase meaning something completely diffeent from the other. It’s a matter of accuracy.

If your proposal is for an English person then use his native language. Some of this problem is caused by the fact that we use American software but a little care will ensure that your reader doesn’t have to endure those little grating moments.

Apostrophes. Simply put, these are for indicating possession - Mark’s car, the school’s staff. Frequently one sees things like the 20s written as the 20’s (wrong) and plurals like jpeg’s and PDF’s written with apostrophes (also wrong). If you’re not sure about apostrophes buy the book ‘"Eats, shoots and leaves” written by Lynn Truss. It’s an amusing read. And if you’re worrying about the “It’s” at the beginning of the previous sentence, that’s an abbreviation - and so is “that’s”.

Be brief and use short sentences. Your reader understand short sentences more easily than long, tortuous sentences, with lots of commas and sub phrases that don’t really mean anything, and that ramble on and on and on - and this isn’t really a long sentence but I’m sure you’re starting to get the drift!

Tone. Always sound positive. Don’t talk about “if we are fortunate enough to win the contract we will ...”. Simply say “we will...”

Avoid terminology that the reader might not understand and above all do not use meaningless phrases like “going forward” at the end of a sentence. We will raise your profile going forward - grrr!

There are lots of other simple rules but perhaps the most important rule is to read through your proposal carefully and read it as if for the first time - it’s surprising what you’ll probably notice.