Writing & Speaking

for BusinessBy William H. Baker

Chapter Five

Revising and Proofreading Text

No first-draft is perfect

Writing violations damage credibility

Unclear writing takes time to understand

Factual errors lead reader to wrong conclusions

Factual errors lead reader to wrong conclusions Q

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ity

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tin

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Chapter Agenda

Getting and giving feedback

Revising content and appearance

Revising paragraphs

Revising sentences

Proofreaders’ Marks

Obtaining Feedback

Writer’s Role in Obtaining Feedback

Describe the audienceaudience

Explain the purposepurpose of the writing

Explain the strategystrategy used in the message

Invite feedbackfeedback

1 2 3 4

Giving Feedback

Reviewer’s Tasks in Giving Feedback

Understand who the audienceaudience is and what the goals are

Review the messagemessage, finding strengths and weaknesses

Give feedbackfeedback in a positive manner

1 2 3

Document Testing

Think-aloud ProtocolWhat I’m reading

What the text is causing me to think and do

Four Parts of Evaluating Writing

C

O

W

D

Content: Is it clear, complete (5 W’s), correct, convincing?

Organization: Is the main idea at the beginning? Is OABC used?

Writing: Do paragraphs pass CLOUD tests? Do sentences apply all guidelines & principles?

Design: Is HATS used to strengthen visual appeal?

Functional Types of Paragraphs

Introductory& Agenda

Body Concluding

Revising Paragraphs

CL

OU

D

Coherence

Length

Organization

Unity

Development

Sentence Guidelines

1. Clear, specific subjects2. Verbs close to subjects3. Active voice4. Modifiers close to words they modify5. Clear modifiers6. Parallelism with parallel connectives7. Parallelism in a series

No worthless or harmful content.

Appropriate transition bridges between and within sentences.

Sentences easy to follow, easy to read.

No long, wordy sentences.

Cordial, conversational, and reader-oriented tone.

Appropriate variation in sentence style.

Sentence Principles

• Contribution

• Cohesion

• Structure

• Conciseness

• Tone

• Variety

Giving Written Feedback

COWDfour-phase feedback

Content

Organization

Design

Writing