Writing Business Messages

Know your audience

Business writing is persuasive writing.

At the most basic level, business writing seeks to convince the reader that what is being said is true. Some business writing will try to persuade the reader to take an action or think about something a certain way.

Know your audience

You will be able to write most persuasively if you know your audience and their expectations and if you organize your message to address their needs.

Sometimes you will know your audience personally.
Other times you will not know your audience personally, or you will need to write to more than one person.

When you know your reader

Put yourself in your reader’s place and look at your message through that person’s eyes.
If your message does not meet your reader’s needs or if it isn’t written at his or her level of understanding, your message may be ignored.

Before you write, ask yourself these questions about your reader:

How interested or involved in the subject is my reader?
How knowledgeable is he or she on the subject?
What is my reader’s purpose for reading? To make a decision? To be better informed?
Does my reader have special concerns or strong views about the subject? What are they?
How does my reader regard me personally and professionally?
What is my reader’s style of doing business?
When you do not know your reader

There are two general types of business readers: skimmers and skeptics.

Your documents will be most effective if you write for both types of readers.
When you do not know your reader

Skimmers are readers that are typically very busy. Pressed for time, they often skim documents in a rather short period of time.

The documents you prepare for skimmers should:

State the main point clearly and up front
Place the most important information at the beginning or ending of paragraphs
Highlight key dates or figures
When you do not know your reader

The second type of reader is a Skeptic.

A Skeptic is a reader that is cautious and doubtful.
Skeptical readers will tend to read a document carefully, questioning its validity and the writer’s claims.

In order to meet the needs of the Skeptical reader, it is necessary to support your statements with sufficient details and evidence.
Provide specific examples, numbers, dates, names, and percentages to meet the needs of the skeptical reader.

Know your audience

Knowing your audience is only the first step.
This information must affect the way that you write your message.
So, how can you write for both skimmers and skeptics at the same time?
Using knowledge of your audience to develop and organize the content of your message will help you to create documents that can be skimmed easily and read critically.

Audience expectations

Your document will be most successful if it matches the reader’s expectations.

Three of the most common expectations are that your message will:

Get to the point
Be kept as simple as possible
Use passive and active voice appropriately
Get to the point
Readers will expect you to answer the question, “so what is your point?” early in the document, regardless of the type of document they are reading.
Preview your main idea so that readers will know what to expect.
Even when delivering bad news, it is best to state the main point early in the document.
Get to the point

Here is an example of a hidden main point in requesting an employment verification.

Dear Personnel Director:

On March 27, I received a phone call from Mrs. Karen Krane from New York, who was once a data entry clerk in your Ohio office. She was under the direct supervision of.....

Get to the point

Here is the same example rewritten so that the main point is clear.

Dear Personnel Director:

Would you verify the employment of Mrs. Karen Krane? She was a data entry clerk in your Ohio
office (fill in the details)

Get to the point

Even bad news should always be delivered up front.

You can cushion bad news by the language you use. When delivering bad news, do not be too aggressive, as in the first example.

Not: We must hire a new secretary now.

But: I know that you do not think we should hire a new secretary now, but I really think we need to. Please let me explain my reasons.

Keep it simple

Do not feel compelled to use bigger words or more complex sentences to build credibility with your audience.

The main reasons to avoid such an approach are:

a) you might be perceived as a con artist or,
b) your message might become confusing.

An example using “impressive” words:

Subsequent to the passage of the subject legislation, it is incumbent upon you to advise your organization to comply with it.

An example using simple words:

After the law passes, you must tell your people to comply with it.

Use active and passive voice appropriately

Passive voice has three basic characteristics:

1. a form of the verb to be (is, am, are, was, were, be, been, or being).
2. a past participle (a verb ending in -ed or -en except irregular verbs like kept).
3. a prepositional phrase beginning with by

Here is a sentence using all three characteristics:

“The matter is being looked into by the committee.”

Another sample of a passive sentence:

“You have been given an extension on your loan.”

Use active and passive voice appropriately Passive voice is often overused in business writing.

A writer uses passive voice to purposefully leave out the actor or subject of the sentence in an effort to sound more diplomatic.

Active: You are past due on your registration payment.
Passive: Your registration payment is past due.
The passive example is less confrontational. It takes the actor out of the sentence so that the message does not appear to blame someone.

Use passive voice:

1) when you don't know the actor (The door was left unlocked.)
2) when the actor is unimportant to the point you're making (The office will be open on Monday.)
3) when the emphasis is clearly not on the actor but on the acted upon (What happened to the student who plagiarized their paper? The student was failed.)

Audience expectations

Readers from other cultures will often have a different set of reader expectations.
Be sensitive to these differences when writing to or for people from other cultures.

Some strategies for communicating with those from different cultures:
Maintain formality—use titles and family names and convey an attitude of propriety.
Avoid slang, jargon, and other figures of speech (zero tolerance policy, once-over, done deal, user-friendly, etc.).
Be specific and illustrate your points with concrete examples.
Provide summary.

Content

Content refers to the information included in the message.
Considering your audience will help you to determine what information to include in the document.
Your Goal: to include enough information to keep the reader’s interest but not so much information that you waste the reader’s time and obscure your main point.

Do not begin writing your document until you have planned what you want to say.
This will help you avoid writer’s block or writing a poorly developed message.

Ask yourself:

How much background information is needed?
How can I best support my conclusions?
Would examples, details, or graphics help readers to understand?
Do I need to do any more research?

Some common methods that writers use to help them determine content are:

Outlining
Brainstorming
Clustering
Content

Outlining: create a hierarchy of your ideas.

This will help you to identify what your main points are, what supporting material is available, and what other information you need to include.

Progress Report for January 2002

I. Background
A. Details of my being hired in Dec. 2001
B. My objectives the first month

II. Work completed to date
A. Developed a plan and presented it to the necessary committee
B. Plan has been approved

III. Work to be completed

A. Plan will be initiated by March 2002

Jan.2002 Progress Report:

----Being hired: no clear procedure for handling mail.
---My plan: name of the committee who approved it??
---Susan and I hope the plan will be in place by March 2002.

Brainstorming: write down ideas, facts, and anything else that seems related to your purpose.
Don’t edit yourself as you brainstorm.
When you’re finished, decide what’s important and what can be deleted or revised.

Clustering: Write your main point in the middle of the page and circle it.

As you think of ideas, write them down and link them to either the main idea or to another point.

My progress
Work finished
Hired in Dec.
Work to do
Work to do

Organization

Organization refers to the order in which information is presented.
Once you know what information you want to include in your document, you can decide how to organize that information.
The first step to organizing is to group like information together.
Next, consider the reaction you are likely to get from your reader.

If you expect a positive response, you can use a direct organizational plan.
Present your conclusions or major idea first, followed by the reasons or support.

I recently came across your posting for aviation interns on an employment opportunities board. My organizational, leadership, and problem-solving skills uniquely qualify me for the position of
planning and development intern at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Organization

You did such a good job of explaining the merits of our new Tuition Assistance Program that I have tentatively decided to apply for the program myself. To keep my options open, then, I must ask you to select someone else to serve on the program committee. . .
If you expect a negative response, you might choose to use an indirect organizational plan.
Present your reasons first and your conclusions after.
Even when using this plan, be sure to state your main point up front.

You can also organize information in paragraphs to meet the needs of skimmers and skeptics.

Place information where readers are most likely to look for it:

Skimmers are most likely to read the first and last paragraphs of a message.
Within paragraphs, skimmers are most likely to read the first and last sentences.

Use paragraphs effectively:
Keep paragraphs short.

Readers are more likely to read a longer message broken into several short paragraphs than they are a shorter message without breaks.
Each paragraph should contain only one main point, and this point should be developed with concrete evidence and details.

Did I effectively reach my audience?

When you have finished writing your message, evaluate your writing by considering whether or not you effectively addressed your reader.
It may be necessary to rewrite or reorganize the document to make your message clear.

20-second test

Skimmers are likely to spend 20 seconds or less skimming a document to decide whether or not to read it more carefully.
Skim your document for 20 seconds, and mark what stands out most to you in that amount of time.
After you are finished, see if what you have marked is able to convey your message clearly.
Even better, have someone else skim your document before sending it, and see if your message is clear to them as well.

Testing your assertions

Expect skeptical readers to question every assertion that you make.
Look at your document closely and underline each of your major assertions.
Ask the following questions about each assertion:
Is the assertion clearly stated?
Did I include enough details and examples to support my assertion?
Is it clear what I want the reader to do or know?
Do I provide enough context for the assertion or is more background information needed?