The Writing Process

1
The Writing Process

• The writing process may be viewed as a three-step
  process
• Planning
• Who is your audience, what is your purpose, what
  do you want to convey?
• Writing
• Organize your ideas, choose the direct or
  indirect approach, and
• compose your message by deciding on formality of
  writing level and tone, word selection, writing
  mechanics
• Completing
• Revision, readability, editing, rewriting
• Message format, design, and delivery
• Message mechanics (proofreading, spelling,
  correct data)

2
General purpose of Writing

• To inform
• To persuade
• To collaborate

3
Oral Communication Channel

• Face-to-face conversations
• Speeches
• Videotapes
• Voice mail
• Phone conversations

4
Written Channels

• Letters
• Reports
• E-mail
• Faxes
• Flyers

5
Advantages of oral and written communication

• Oral communication gives the opportunity for
  immediate feedback
• Use oral communication when
• You want the audience to ask questions, make
  comments
• You are trying to reach a group decision
• You are trying to relate and emotional message
• You want to read the audiences body language,
  hear the tone of their response
• Written communication gives the ability to plan
  and control the message
• Use written communication when
• Your information is complex
• You need a permanent record of the message
• Your audience is large and geographically
  dispersed
• You dont need or want immediate interaction with
  your audience

6
The You Attitude

• To establish a good relationship with your
  audience, project the audience-centered approach
  by using the you attitudespeaking and writing
  in terms of your audiences wishes, interests,
  hopes, and preferences.

7
Adoption of the You Attitude

• Replace terms that refer to yourself and your
  company with terms that refer to the audience
  (use you, yours instead of I, me, we, us, ours)
• Avoid the word you when its use would be impolite
  or accusatory
• Sincerely and genuinely empathize with your
  audience

8
Style, anyone?

• Style is the way you use words to achieve a
  certain tone (the impression made by your words).
• To achieve a conversational tone
• Avoid obsolete and pompous language
• Avoid intimacy
• Avoid humor
• Avoid preaching and bragging
• Strive for the right level of formality
• Use plain English whenever appropriate

9
Words, words, words

• Denotative meaning
• Connotative meaning
• Abstract vs. concrete words
• Cliches
• Jargon
• Euphemisms
• Pet expressions
• Biased expressions
• Trite expressions
• Sexist expressions
• Redundant expressions

10
Active voice vs Passive voice

• To achieve straightforward simplicity, clarity,
  and efficiency, be sure to
• Select active or passive voice
• Emphasize key thoughts
• Vary sentence length
• Use bullets and lists
• Even though active voice yields shorter, stronger
  sentences, passive voice is best when
• You need to be diplomatic
• You want to avoid taking or attributing the
  credit or the blame
• You want to avoid personal pronouns to create an
  objective

11
Readability

• Use of the Fog Index
• Elimination of ambiguous words
• Knowledge of writing level for targeted audience