Lecture 3-4.

Planning what you are going to say

1) Reasons for writing and speaking

2) Getting the right reaction
3) Assembling and ordering your information and arguments

Reasons for writing and Speaking

Why Plan? You should plan what you are going to say to ensure that:
you say everything that has to be said
the information you give is correct
your arguments are logically expressed
you use the right language to suit your purpose
you are not emotional

Before you plan what you are going to say, you should ask yourself the following
questions:

Should you be writing or speaking to the person concerned?

Are you addressing the right person? You can waste a lot of time being passed from one
person in the organisation to another if you address the wrong person initially, and in the
case of a written document it could be lost or ignored in the process.
Should anyone else be aware of what you want to say? All your planning can come to
nothing if you do not address everyone who needs the information you are giving.
Do you need a reply? If you do, and you do not let the other person know,
you will have failed to achieve your purpose.
What is your purpose in writing or speaking?
What do you want to achieve?
Purpose vs. what you want to achieve
The purpose of a sales letter is to tell people about your product or service. What you want to
achieve is a sale.
The purpose of a report on the advantages and disadvantages of different work practices is to
inform the decision-makers of the options available. What you want to achieve is acceptance
of the most efficient option.
The purpose of a complaining telephone call is to point out an error or fault. What you want
to achieve is the correction of that error or fault, or else compensation.
Planning Your Communication
Assembling your information
Collect all the information you need before you write your document, go to your meeting or
make your telephone call.
If you are answering a complaint or enquiry, do have the answers to all the points raised?
If you are writing a report, have you considered all the arguments before reaching your
conclusion?
If you are making an enquiry, do you know exactly what you are trying to find out?
There are three main ways of writing an outline:
Charting.
Listing
Freewriting.
Making your points flow logically
There are five ways of assembling your points so that they flow logically:
In chronological order
Building up an argument by deduction, induction or both
In the same order as the document to which you are replying
In ascending order of importance
In descending order of importance

If you are writing about a complex sequence of events (or speaking about them, although it
can be very difficult to make a complex point orally), then a chronological approach is
almost certainly going to be the best.
If you are trying to persuade someone to take a certain course of action, then it is good to try
to build up an argument.
If you are replying to a letter, e-mail or telephone call, it might be best to follow the order in
which the other person presented their points.
Making your first draft
If you were compiling a long report or a presentation or working on a long presentation it
might be good to draft out what you are going to say, and if you are planning a written
document then it is essential that you do so.
Editing your draft . A checklist for editing:
• Is your document polite and unemotional?
• Are there any unnecessary words or phrases?
• How would you react if you were receiving it? Is that the reaction you want from your
audience?
• Do you assume too much knowledge on the part of your reader?
• Is it clear, or is anything ambiguous?
• If it needs a reply, do you say so? Should you set a time by which you expect to hear
from your correspondent?
• Is it likely to achieve the result you want?
• Have you included everything your reader needs to know?
• Have you included anything that is irrelevant to your aim or your audience?
• Is the information logically presented?
• If you are presenting an argument, have you thought of all the counter-arguments?