Business Communication

Ch: 3 Adapting Your MessageCh. 4: Making Your Writing Easy to ReadCh. 5: Planning, Composing & Revising

Housekeeping

Memos turned in today Progress on branded letterhead/cards? What do you remember about the

communication theory presented?

1. Prewriting

Analyze

PurposeChannel

Anticipate

Demographics

Response

Adapt

Reader benefits

Legal implications

2. Writing

Research

Organize

Compose

3. Revising

Revise

Proofread

Evaluate

Writing Process

Communicator control & audience participation vary with message purpose

High Collaborate / Goodwill

Medium Persuade

Low Inform

Low Medium High

Communicator Control

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Audience analysis questions

Analyze Who is your audience? Diversity?

Understand What is the audience’s knowledge of subject?

Demographics Ages? Gender? Ed background?

Interests What interests does your audience have?

Environment Is your audience friendly or hostile?

Needs What does your audience need?

Customize

Expectations

How can you customize to connect with audience? What does your audience expect?

3.1: Identifying audience roles

Initial-- Gatekeeper-- Primary-- Secondary-- Watchdog--

Organizational culture issues:

Flat vs. tall What gets people ahead? Diversity valued? Yes people? Do groups ferret out problems? Answers? How formal is the culture? What are the goals of the organization?

Channel options…....Medium options

Which works best for 3.2:

*Renters

*Af. Am. bus. owners

Goals: Speed, feedback, detail, convenience, etc.

Face-to-face formal Face-to-face informal One to group Teleconference, tape Telephone Voicemail Email, attachments Fax, courier, mail

3.3 Defining “reader benefits”?

What could help convince employees that it would be in their best interests to use less paper

3.4 Identifying objections & reader benefits

Objections to preparing a training video

- what are the objections of users and authorities?- what benefits might occur?- who is easiest to convince?

How do reader benefits differ for varying audiences? Becoming physically fit:

- college students in job market- sedentary workers- people with high blood pressure- managers who travel frequently- older works

Legal Issues in Writing

Investment messages must be accurate Safety information must be carefully worded

with clear warnings Marketing messages must not make claims

that can’t be verified.Inspect means to examine critically & testAssure means to make secure or render safe

Recommendations must include positive, job-related information.

Be precise in meanings

He is (associated with, employed by, connected to) Wartburg College.

The specialized report has (a lot of, many, a warehouse of) facts.

If you find yourself (having, engaged in, juggling) many tasks, find ways to prioritize them.

We plan to (acknowledge, publicize, applaud) the work of exemplary employees.

Chapter 4: Making your writing easy to read

Writing style appropriate to audience: 4.7 Connotation vs. denotation: 4.1 - 4.6 Eliminate jargon, acronyms, etc.: 4.9 Use active voice & strong verbs: 4.10 Reduce wordiness: 4.11 Use parallel structure: 4.12 Use you-attitude: 4.13 Use topic sentences: 4.15

Improve sentence style and structure

4.14 & 4.16 (if time)

Ch. 5: Planning, Composing & Revising

What techniques can you use to gather ideas?

How does editing differ from proofreading? What info must be checked in the revision

process? What issues develop when using boilerplate? Revise 5.3