Getting Started: Planning and Writing Business Messages презентация

6-16.

able to
Identify the components that make up the writing process specific to the context of business.
Adopt individual techniques to plan a message, generate content, avoid writer’s block, and revise/edit/proofread.

noted internet meme from Lord of the Rings, producing a completed message is never achieved in a single step. Whether composing an essay for university or a memo for an organization, writing involves a number of steps from planning to completing the final document. Even a “quick email” requires some planning and proofreading. This week, we look closely at the individual steps in the process of writing.

(“One Does Not Simply”)

is a cycle rather than an entirely linear progression, so, as a writer, you may circle back and revisit or repeat any of the steps as circumstances demand. If you wish to delete an entire paragraph after editing, you return to the revising stage. If you receive feedback suggesting you change your tone, you return to re-draft or revise. Ultimately, only deadlines and due dates determine when the otherwise open-ended process must cease.

communications endeavour) is considering the rhetorical situation, the circumstances surrounding the composition of the message. This includes, first and foremost, establishing the nature of the audience (Who are they? What are they like?), your intended purpose, the best channel for the message, and any “limitations on what can be said” (Meyer 48). Planning effectively reduces the chance of error and the need to redraft or clarify messages, which costs time and money while diminishing the reputation of the sender.

your purpose, why you are writing. Are you primarily looking to inform your audience as in an expense report, or is your first goal to persuade as in a proposal? All other purposes can fit under the umbrella of these two, and the two may overlap. An advertisement informs about a product or service while persuading the potential customer to use it. An internal announcement to staff about how to submit a timesheet seeks to inform. Perhaps it goes without saying that you need to know why you are writing before getting started, but thinking consciously about purpose helps ensure your message is focused.

in the previous readings, the necessity of knowing your audience has already been emphasized as part of both cross-cultural and ethical communication.
Purpose and audience are usually the two foundational aspects to think about when preparing to write. It’s fairly easy to know your purpose—you know if you have to give bad news or if you need to persuade. Knowing the audience can be more challenging, and given how crucial it is for all the professional writing you do, we’re going to take some time to talk about how to do this in depth here.

(Ganzer)

cultural differences and ethics, empathizing with your audience, putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what they want, is the best way to know what and how to write for them. If you know your manager is very precise and likes detail, you’d add more information to the memos you send her and use a certain tone. If you know the potential buyers for your product are bored by complex information but like to feel happy, you could decide to use the image of a puppy in an advertisement to sell a beer. By understanding “the needs and mindset” of your audience, you can then tailor your message to appeal to them (Meerman Scott 109).

The New Rules of Marketing and PR, talks about creating buyer personas or buyer profiles, “fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers” (Vaughan). For an audience analysis (your first writing assignment), you do something similar, trying to get a thorough sense of who your potential reader will be, then craft your written work accordingly.
Audience analysis can encompass a range of items such as whether your audience is likely to be resistant or compliant, what they know (and need to know) in terms of background, what their education level and other demographic traits are, and what their personalities are like. This is easier for a simple audience comprised of one individual, especially one you already know, but more difficult when writing to multiple people (a complex audience) or those with whom you’ve never spoken.

(Vaughan)

content, a situation where you have a potential audience of more than a billion people with internet access across the whole world.
You can’t realistically or effectively target the entire Web with what you write but instead need to tailor digital content to particular niche audience. For example, instead of blogging about cars, you might write a blog for Canadian owners of the second-generation Mazda 3 automobile. Odds are that more general content will not be found or will be buried online while the specific focus, the niche topic, will be found more easily by a certain audience.

audience analysis was used to generate campaign materials for the 2004 Presidential election in the United States. Instead of trying to appeal to a general audience of voters, individualized material was directed toward specific niche groups like “’NASCAR Dads’ (rural working-class males, many of whom are NASCAR fans) and ‘Security Moms’ (mothers who were worried about terrorism and concerned about security)” (Meerman Scott 122).

how audience analysis is used specifically to generate online content or digital writing in the form of a college website tailored to five specific audience types.

for an organization, whether it is promotional material, a website, a blog or anything else available to the public, is knowing how your desired niche audience thinks in terms of keywords – when they search the Web, what will they be looking for when searching for something related to your organization? Part of empathizing with your audience therefore requires brainstorming search terms they might use and working them into what you are writing. For example, if you are a book publisher and are promoting a new novel about a vampire and human in love, you might use “paranormal romance” or mention Twilight in order to come up in search results of those who are searching these terms.

audiences. Who is the primary audience, the main recipient of the message? While the first reader(s)to get your message, termed the initial audience, might be the same, this could also be the person who initiated the communication. This individual could also be the gatekeeper audience, with the power to stop your message. Are there additional parties such as lawyers or the media who may read and act on the communication after the primary audience? These would comprise the secondary audience. Finally, your message could have a watchdog audience if there are any parties that don’t have a direct part in your message but who can exert an influence on it such as a political or regulatory agency.

(Blackwell)

identifying their attributes. Think of common census data such as age, education level, location, gender and ethnicity. Targeting communications to retirees would involve different approaches than addressing young parents as would writing a farmer in Winnipeg as opposed to a banker in Toronto.

Psychographics, the interests, attitudes and opinions (IAO variables) of your audience are also a valuable tool, highly used in marketing. Some examples are the goth subculture, NFL football fans, or those interested in “green” living.

Once you’ve identified who your audience is, learn about them

(Rupert)

(Pogrzeba)

and described a set of sixteen personality types based on individual behavioral preferences such as introversion vs. extroversion, feeling vs. thinking. These indicators have since been used as a means of understanding the needs of employees, patients, clients, audiences, and oneself. You can take an unofficial online quiz to gain some sense of your personality type. You can also view the Myers-Briggs types of notable individuals.

(Jordy)

helps you craft the communication to appeal to them.
If your reader is known to be hostile to an idea, you would take more time to develop its persuasive aspect.
If you’re writing a technical report for engineers with graduate degrees you’d choose a different level of diction and use different vocabulary than if you were creating a public service ad aimed at teens.
If you know your manager is an introvert, you might send an email to request something rather than asking for a personal meeting, as introverts prefer to mull over content and are more comfortable reading material carefully than making an immediate face-to-face decision.

audience’s personality can also influence which channel you select in order to convey the message. Page 54 of our textbook, CFR, provides a detailed list of other factors governing the choice of channel independent of audience considerations, such as how quickly the information needs to be received, how much information needs to be provided, and whether there needs to be a “paper trail” recording the content.

can apply a variety of techniques to develop written content and overcome writer’s block. Brainstorming involves simply thinking in a concentrated manner about your topic for a set period of time, translating your ideas to a blank page (hardcopy or on screen) by listing or freewriting. These are sometimes considered part of brainstorming (see page 7 of the CWH) though they really involve externalizing the ideas you have generated.

(Marcos C.)

for a set period of time (often ten minutes). You may then engage in “focused freewriting,” selecting a particular aspect of what you have freewritten and freewriting again on that idea alone. Ultimately, emphasizing the recursive nature of the writing process, your job is to go back and revisit the material, making use of the best parts and putting order to your output.

(Oliveri)

What? Where? When? Why? How?—asking these about your topic. Doing this provides a guide for issues, topics, and considerations that may be worth addressing in the message. For example, in announcing a policy change, you might ask “What specific changes need to be mentioned? Who is affected? Why are we changing the policy? How will this affect employee behavior?” Answering these questions furnishes the content for your message.

(Thwip!)

“clustering,” “web diagramming,” “bubble mapping” or by a number of other terms) may be the approach for you. This involves drawing a central shape with a particular idea in it, then adding related ideas that you brainstorm and connecting them with lines, helping you visualize the interrelationships. This may be done on paper or with free online tools such as Text2Mindmap, Bubbl.us or Freemind.

(Kaluri)

focused freewriting, from answering the journalist’s questions, or from drawing a mindmap, but, as a final part of planning. many writers prefer to map out the structure of a document using a outline, which can be as formal as having a hierarchical list using Roman numerals, Arabic numerals, and letters, or more casual, by grouping and classifying similar ideas on paper.

I. Policy change
1. No alcohol in breakroom.
Beer
Liquor
2. No gambling in breakroom.
Poker
Blackjack

as an introduction, topic sentences, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Just as one wouldn’t construct a house without a blueprint, so too some sort of organizational plan—a blueprint for your house built of words—is essential when writing.

(Collapsed House)

place, though some form of drafting and revision may already have taken place while freewriting and performing focused freewriting as a means of developing ideas.
During drafting and revising it is not uncommon for writer’s block to occur. Our text (Meyer 59-60) provides some useful advice on getting around this.

(Coleman)

re-drafting) is the desire for perfection, especially a concern for lower-order issues like correct grammar or choosing exactly the right word. This idea should be abandoned—one can edit the text later as endless tweaks or a concern for correctness can hinder the completion of drafting. This is an occasion where the stages in the writing process should be separated. Revision is distinct from editing in that it focuses on the large-scale or macro issues such as content and organization. You may want to move, delete, or add a paragraph. You may reconsider your entire approach at persuasion in the message. This is part of revision.
Editing should occur later as a distinct step once the higher-order matters are completed to your satisfaction. However, the ease of editing using word processing software makes it tempting to do so while still in the middle of drafting or revising. This can be a wasted effort if you later delete a large chunk of text you’ve spent time editing in addition to being a major cause of writer’s block. So, leave the lower-order, micro concerns for later.

leave the work for a time, either getting away your desk for a while, even a day or more, to revisit your content with a recharged mind.
Alternatively, skip to another section in the work. If you are having difficulty drafting the introduction, do the body first. There’s no rule that you need to progress through the document in linear order.
If all else fails, try freewriting again as a way to generate content in the middle of the drafting process.

(Albaih)

such as those involving content or structure. It implies “seeing again,” which requires you to visit your work with fresh eyes. Thus, it is best to leave the work for some time, ideally a day or more, before reviewing it. Sending the draft to other readers for feedback can be valuable during the revision stage as well. You will have the opportunity to engage in this sort of peer review process for some of the assignments during the term.

(Humpohl)

end of the writing process. Besides setting the work aside before looking for individual issues of wording or grammar, printing a hardcopy can help. We tend to skim when we read on screen and therefore miss errors. Reading the text aloud is also a fantastic way to hear issues of wording (awkward phrasing, wordiness) or sentence structure (run-ons, fragments). Better yet, have someone read the document to you or use a text-to-speech feature, so you can concentrate on hearing the content. Lastly, run a spell check on your document but realize it will not catch everything (as the widely circulated poem at right reveals), so scan it closely yourself.

Eye halve a spelling chequer  It came with my pea sea  It plainly marques four my revue  Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word  And weight four it two say  Weather eye am wrong oar write  It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid  It nose bee fore two long  And eye can put the error rite  Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it  I am shore your pleased two no  Its letter perfect awl the weigh  My chequer tolled me sew.

take away from the readings this week, it is that the writing process can— and should—take time. Not only do we go through the steps but we may go through them multiple times for a single document. Paralleling the Slow Food and Slow Travel movements, Slow Writing is the best way to optimize the writing experience. Of course, in real life, deadline pressures can hasten the process, so it is important to budget and manage your time effectively.

(Depolo)

content generation and revision detailed in the readings of the week? If not, would you? Does one of them seem particularly appealing to you? Why?
Consider question 4 on page 69 of CFR. Identify for yourself the purpose for each of the forms of writing listed there.

Jul. 2014.
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Jordy. “I Will Not Be Graphed.” Photograph. Flickr. 22 Sep. 2008. Web. 5 Jul. 2014.
Meerman Scott, David. The New Rules of Marketing and PR. New York: Wiley, 2013. Print.
Meyer, Carolyn. Communicating for Results: A Canadian Student’s Guide. Don Mills: Oxford UP, 2014.

Jul. 2008. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Marcos C. “Brainstorm.” Photograph. Flickr. 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Oliveri, Mike. “Brainstorm.” Photograph. Flickr. 30 Jun. 2007. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
“One does not simply.” Image. Imgflip. n.d. Web. 5 Jul. 2014.
Pogrzeba, Norbert. “Létain.” Photograph. Wikipedia Germany.16 Dec. 2006. Web. 5 Jul. 2014.
Rupert, Nathan. “Ready for War.” Photograph. Flickr. 27 Sep. 2009. Web 5 Jul. 2014.
Thwip! “more at eleven.” Photograph. Flickr. 15 Dec. 2004. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Vaughan, Pamela. “How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business.” 28 May 2015. Web. 3 Sep 2016.