Overview

People who can produce well-written business communications have a real advantage in the workplace. According to some surveys, many employers consider good writing skills to be the most important quality in a job candidate. Such skills can be even more important than work experience. On the job, well-written communication leads to success for the business and for you. This course provides you with the information and practice you need to produce successful business-style writing.

The goal of this course is to enable you to produce business writing that achieves its purpose. The course is divided into four lessons. Lesson 1 describes the process of organization. Lesson 2 discusses appropriate writing style and tone. Lesson 3 explains how to write successful memos, email, and letters. Lesson 4 shows you how to create accurate short business reports.

Each lesson includes section reviews and interactive exercises. The exercises present real-life business situations in which you practice the writing skills presented in the lesson.

To complete the course, you are required to submit four assignments, one at the end of each lesson. Follow the instructions for submitting assignments that appear on each assignment page and in the Welcome Letter.

If you're ready to learn how to produce good business writing, start Lesson 1.

Overview i

Lesson 1: Organization

How do you start writing a memo, email, letter, report, or any other piece of writing for business? Some people start by writing whatever first comes to mind. Successful business writers, however, always plan and organize before they begin to write. They use their organization to create clear, convincing paragraphs. This lesson explains the how and why of organizing information that can be transformed into a well-constructed paragraph. Organizing the information before you write will enable you to produce business correspondence that works to achieve a goal.

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to

a. Organize the information to be communicated

b. Use the organization to create a well-constructed paragraph

Organize the Information

Experienced writers always organize their material before beginning the first sentence of any business communication. Doing so reduces the risk of miscommunication and stress. This section describes how business writers can organize the information that arrives on their desks.

A process for organization involves three steps, as follows:

1. Gather the information.

2. Analyze the information.

3. Put the information in the context of your situation.

Gather the Information

The average businessperson may receive as many as seventy email messages and twenty voice-mail messages every day. Sometimes a person may read correspondence, spreadsheets, or other in-house materials. Other situations may require a person to use the Internet. In addition, some people attend an average of two to three hours of meetings, teleconferences, videoconferences, and webcasts every day. Businesspeople have plenty of information, but they do not always know how to use it to achieve their goals.

Generally, businesspeople need to record any information they receive that will be used for a piece of written communication. This means taking notes as you listen to voice mail, read email, or gather information in other ways. Note taking allows you to document (keep track of) the data while simultaneously "imprinting" it on your mind. Many people benefit from paraphrasing (rewording) the text as a way to capture the main points of the message. Once you've taken notes, you have a group of words or phrases that represent the contents of the message.

For example, assume you are a member of the business office of a company. You've received a number of voice-mail and email messages, listed here. Each item begins with the source of the message and is followed by an example of how you might take notes on or paraphrase the content.

· Voice mail

"Hi, I needed some information about my benefits, and I noticed that the handbook has not been updated for over five years. Is the information still up-to-date?"

Note: The Employee Handbook has not been updated in over five years.

· Email

"I find it embarrassing when visitors come to our office on casual dress day and see employees in jeans and tennis shoes. Could you define 'casual' so it doesn't look sloppy?"

Note: Revise "casual dress code"?

· Voice mail

"Do we get days off when national holidays occur on Saturdays or Sundays?"

Note: People are confused about the annual work calendar, especially concerning national holidays that fall on weekends.

· Internal company report

"Health care costs have gone up 15 percent for the company."

Note: Health care costs are up 15 percent. Should we change insurance types?

· Meetings with departing employees

Some employees left the company because they found similar work for more pay elsewhere.

Note: We need to make sure the company is paying fair wages.

· Meetings with departing employees

"Many people feel that their managers do not share enough information with them."

Note: People want to learn more from their managers about what's going on in the company.

· Voice mail

"Hi, could you tell me what the difference is between the Family Medical Leave and Short-Term Disability?"

Note: People don't understand some of the benefits.

· Voice mail

"You know Andrea, who sits at the reception desk? I wonder who she reports to. Do you know?"

Note: The company organization charts have not been updated in some time, so people don't know who works for whom.

· Voice mail

"Hello, I want to nominate one of my coworkers for the 'employee of the year' award. How do I do that?"

Note: It is not clear how to nominate someone for "employee of the year."

You now have a list of notes, as follows:

· The Employee Handbook has not been updated in over five years.

· Revise "casual dress code"?

· People are confused about the annual work calendar, especially concerning national holidays that fall on weekends.

· Health care costs are up 15 percent. Should we change insurance types?

· We need to make sure the company is paying fair wages.

· People want to learn more from their managers about what's going on in the company.

· People don't understand some of the benefits.

· The company organization charts have not been updated in some time, so people don't know who works for whom.

· It is not clear how to nominate someone for "employee of the year."

Another way of gathering information is brainstorming. This is a group problem-solving technique in which people contribute ideas as they think of them. One member of the group records the ideas as people suggest them. The result is a list of content about a particular topic.

Finally, a familiar way of gathering information is doing research. It is the primary method for gathering information at school and the university, and it is an important part of business writing. As you research a topic, whether from office reports, spreadsheets, or other sources, you take notes in the form of a list or an outline.

For now, consider the list of topics collected in this section. You can use the list to create a summary for a committee or a supervisor. But first, you would benefit from analyzing the information you have so far.

Analyze the Information

The next step in organizing the information is to analyze the content. This section discusses organization by classifying main ideas and subtopics, by asking a series of questions, and by separating fact from opinion.

Writers use various ways to organize content by main ideas and subtopics. Some like to use the cluster diagram method in which ideas are connected by lines to other ideas on paper like cities on a map. Others prefer using a simple list. As you look at the result of your organization, you may find you have an "orphan" idea, or one with no related content. It is probably something you can delete.

Using the previous list of notes as an example of content you wish to analyze, you might want to organize the information according to main ideas and subtopics. The following list is one example:

Main idea: The Employee Handbook has not been updated in a long time.

Subtopics, or items related to the Employee Handbook:

Revise "casual dress code."

People don't understand some of the benefits.

People want access to the annual work calendar.

Main idea: Employees want to be better informed.

Subtopics:

Some past employees have felt that their managers do not share enough information with them.

The organization charts have not been updated in many years.

It is not clear how to nominate someone for "employee of the year."

Main idea: Employee satisfaction

Subtopics:

Some people feel they are being underpaid. Are wages fair?

People want to learn more from their managers about what's going on in the company.

"Orphans," or topics that do not relate to any other idea:

Health care costs are up 15 percent. Should we change insurance types?

Another way to organize information involves placing the data into groups that answer the following questions:

· Who?

· What?

· When?

· Where?

· How?

· Why?

To see how this works, consider another example. Assume you work as a customer service manager. You have received a number of email and voice-mail messages that detail a disagreement between the sales and the production departments. Using the note-taking skills previously discussed, you have compiled the following notes:

· A customer expects delivery of the product by the fifteenth of the month because the customer must pay by the thirtieth, which ends the fiscal year for that company.

· Connie from sales has sent an email message to everyone committing your company to the delivery. She emphasizes that this customer consistently buys many of your products.

· Tom from production leaves you a voice-mail message saying that the delivery is impossible and asking why he was not consulted.

· Tom and Connie meet on the way to the parking lot at the end of the day and argue about the situation.

· Tom says that Connie must go back to the customer and explain that your company cannot deliver on time.

· Connie states that Tom does not understand the pressure that both she and the customer must face. She says that your company will lose the sale and jeopardize a $24,000 account if the delivery does not ship on time.

Now group the information by question:

Who?

The customer, Tom, Connie, and you are involved in this problem. These people can be labeled as "stakeholders."

What?

The issue concerns one order, the relationship that your company has with a solid customer, and the internal communications between your sales and production departments.

When?

The deadline is that your company must deliver the product by the fifteenth, and the customer needs to pay by check by the thirtieth of the month.

Where?

Not applicable

How?

You need to discover a solution with which the customer, Tom, and Connie can all agree.

Why?

You want to find a solution to satisfy the customer, and at the same time figure out a way to help sales and production collaborate more effectively.

The question technique enables you to organize various pieces of information in a way that leads to a solution.

When you analyze data that comes to you, note which pieces of information are facts and which are opinions.

The following statements are examples of facts:

· Seven inches of snow fell before 8:00 this morning.

· We missed our sales goals for the third quarter by 9 percent.

· The cost of new computers for all employees will equal $34,287.

Opinions, on the other hand, usually contain conclusions and recommendations. The following are examples of opinions:

· Employees who are inexperienced driving on snowy roads shouldn't take their cars to work.

· Because of bad advertising for the new product line, the company will not make its sales goals.

· New computers would be great, but they cost too much.

Distinguishing between fact and opinion helps you analyze the presented data because you generally want to uncover the facts behind people's opinions.

Business writers use many different methods to analyze information. In general, they have the ability to recognize patterns in seemingly random data. They can paraphrase the information into phrases that make sense. They place the phrases into lists or categories, and they judge which phrases to keep and which phrases to label as "orphans" and delete. As you analyze the information that you receive from others, make sure that you truly understand the facts of the situation.

Put the Information in the Context of Your Situation

The third step in this process requires some critical-thinking skills, that is, using logic and reason along with intuition to make the data fit your context.

Once you have classified the information you have gathered, ask, "What is the goal of this communication?" Assume for this example that your supervisor wants information to help determine whether to update the Employee Handbook. She has asked you to summarize the email and voice-mail messages about it. Now you have a context within which to work. In this case, you would use the following points, and your goal is to report on the general feeling at the office about issues in the handbook.