The aim in business writing is to communicate as
clearly and concisely as you can. In our high-tech culture we
expect many tasks to take far less time than they do. Writing is
one of them. The ability to write well – clearly and concisely –
is not an ancillary skill; it is an essential skill. Contrary to
general beleif, writing is not something only ‘writers’ do; it is a
basic skill for getting through life. However, writing is a high-
level conceptual skill you are writing: analuzing the audience,
remembering and deciding on what information to present,
organizing the information, putting it into comprehensible
sentences, paying attention to the rules of good writing,
proofreading, etc.
When getting started, remember, if you gain control of
yourself, you will gain control of your topic.
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First of all you ask yourself the question about the
purpose of your writing:
Are you writing to inquire, inform, persuade, motivate, or
do you have more than one purpose?
Second, get interested in its scope:
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Given your needs and your reader’s needs, how much
information should you include?
Third, see clearly the contents of your writing:
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What kind of information will help you to achieve your
purpose? Do you have all information you need? How, or
where, can you get additional information?
At last, you should ask yourself about the available
constraints:
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What makes your task more difficult? Time or cost
constraints? Your reader’s attitudes? Your own lack of
credibility?
Put yourself in your reader’s place and look at the
message through his eyes. Most of the readers want the results
of your thinking, not the thinking itself. Remember that there is
a difference between thinking and communicating. When
experimenting with various ways to organize the information
be guided by two factors: (1) your reader’s knowledge and
interest and (2) your purpose and the information itself. The
contents of any letter may be summarized as follows:
(1) opening, (2) purpose; (3) action, and (4) polite expressions.