Business

Communication
(CONVEY IN ENGLISH)
Chapter 2: Planning, Writing and
Completing Business Messages
 Three-step Writing Process To Create Better Messages In Less Time.

No matter what kind of information you need to convey, your goal is

to craft a message that is effective and efficient. Following a clear
and proven three-step process will help you meet both goals:

1. Planning business messages

2. Writing business messages
3. Completing business messages.
 Purpose Business Messages

➢All business messages have a general purpose: to inform, to

persuade, to collaborate, or to initiate a conversation.
➢ This purpose helps define the overall approach you’ll need to
take, from gathering information to organizing your message.
 Quality Information

➢Is The Information accurate?

➢Is the information ethical?
➢You can often use a variety of informal techniques to gather insights and guide your research efforts:
■ Consider the audience’s perspective.
■ Listen to the community.
■ Read reports and other company documents.
■ Talk with supervisors, colleagues, or customers.
■ Ask your audience for input.
 Identify The Audience Needs

I. if they don’t think you are being sensitive to their needs, they won’t pay
attention
II. You can improve your audience sensitivity by adopting the “you”
attitude, maintaining good standards of etiquette, emphasizing the
positive, and using bias-free language.
III. In other words, use you and your instead of I, me, mine, we, us, and ours:
How Establishing Your Credibility And Projecting Your Company’s Image

➢ Audience responses to your messages depend heavily on your credibility,

which is a measure of your believability and is based on how reliable you
are and how much trust you evoke in others.

➢ To build, maintain, or repair your credibility, emphasize the following

characteristics: Honesty; Objective; Awareness Of Audience Needs;
Credentials, Knowledge, Expertise; Endorsements; Performance ;
Confidence; Sincerity.
 How establishing your credibility and projecting your company’s image
are vital aspects of building strong relationships with your audience
How Establishing Your Credibility And Projecting Your Company’s
Image
Be aware that credibility can take days, months, even years to
establish and it can be wiped out in an instant. An occasional mistake
or let down may be forgiven, but major lapses in honesty or integrity
can destroy your reputation.

Most successful companies work hard to foster a specific public

image, and your external communication efforts need to project that
image.
 Identify The Audience Needs

To establish a good relationship with your audience, you must

also appear to be fair. Good communicators make every effort to
change biased language Bias can take a variety of forms:
1. Gender bias.
2. Racial and ethnic bias.
3. Age bias.
4. Disability bias.
 Writing Business Messages

Written Messages Take Many Forms :

1. Memos are brief printed documents traditionally used for the routine,
day-to-day exchange of information within an organization.
2. Letters are brief written messages generally sent to recipients outside the
organization.
3. Reports documents , come in a variety of lengths, ranging from a few
pages to several hundred, and are usually fairly formal in tone.
 Writing Business Messages

However, when you do have a choice, think carefully about which type of
medium will work best for you and your audience. Consider these factors:
1. Media richness.
2. Message formality.
3. Media limitations.
4. Urgency.
5. Cost.
6. Audience preferences.
 Writing Business Messages

Your communication style involves the choices you make to express yourself:
the words you select, the manner in which you use those words in sentences,
and the way you build paragraphs from individual sentences.

Your style creates a certain tone, or overall impression, in your messages. The
right tone depends on the nature of your message and your relationship with
the reader.
 Writing Business Messages

In a sentence written in the active voice, the subject performs the action and
the object receives the action: “Jodi sent the email message.”
In a sentence written in the passive voice, the subject receives the action:
“The email message was sent by Jodi.”
➢Using the active voice often makes your writing more direct, livelier, and
easier to read.
➢Passive voice is not wrong grammatically, but it can be cumbersome,
lengthy, and vague. In most cases, the active voice is the better choice.
 Writing Business Messages

As you write your first draft, let your creativity flow. Don’t try to draft and
edit at the same time, and don’t worry about getting everything perfect.

When you compose business messages, look for the most powerful words for
each situation :
1. Choose strong, precise words.
2. Choose familiar words.
3. Avoid clichés and use buzzwords carefully.
4. Use jargon carefully.
 Writing Business Messages

➢Paragraphs vary widely in length and form, but most contain three
basic elements: a topic sentence, support sentences that develop
the topic, and transitional words and phrases.
➢Transitions connect ideas by showing how one thought is related
to another.
➢Five of the most common approaches are illustration, comparison or
contrast, cause and effect, classification, and problem and solution
 Revising Your Message: Evaluating the First Draft
1. For important messages, schedule time to put your draft aside for a day or
two before you begin the revision process.
2. The beginning and end of a message usually have the greatest impact on
your readers.
 Revising to Improve Readability

Varying Sentence Length

To keep readers’ interest, look for ways to combine a variety of short, medium, and
long sentences.
Keeping Your Paragraphs Short
Short paragraphs have the major ad- vantage of being easy to read.
Using Lists and Bullets to Clarify and Emphasize
Lists are effective tools for highlight- ing and simplifying material.
Adding Headings and Subheadings
Use headings to grab the reader’s attention and organize material into short
sections.
 Editing for Conciseness

➢Delete unnecessary words and phrases.

➢Replace long words and phrases.
➢Eliminate redundancies.
➢Recast “It is/There are” starters.
➢Spell checkers, grammar checkers, thesauruses, and style
checkers can all help with the revision process, but they can’t
take the place of good writing and editing skills.
Distributing Your Message
Cost :isn’t a concern for most messages, but for multiple copies of lengthy
reports or multimedia productions, it might well be.

Convenience. Make sure your audience can conveniently access the

material you send.

Time. How soon does the message need to reach the audience?

Security and privacy. The convenience offered by electronic

communication needs to be weighed against security and privacy
concerns.