Writing Business Messages

*Bringing idea to life
- Adapting to audience
--- Readers/ listeners want to know how your messages will benefit them
--- May need to alter your communication style to match specifications
-Benefits ensitive to your audience's needs
--- Using the "you" attitude
----- speak and write in terms of your audience's wishes, interests, hopes, and preferences
----- do not (1) sound dictatorial (2) make someone feel guilty (3) go against your style (4) innappropriate for the culture
The following is a site speaking all about the "you" Attitude:
http://grammar.about.com/od/qaaboutrhetoric/f/youattitudefaq.htm
---Maintain standards of etiquette
----- Show audience consideration and foster a more successful environment for communication
----- express facts in a kind and thoughtful manner
----- add more courtsey when communication with people higher in the organization or outside the company
--- Emphasizing the Positive
----- don't be negative when communicating negative news
----- when giving advise => focus on what the person can do to improve
----- show how audience members will benefit from complience
----- use meaningful words, not negative connotations
--- Use bias free language
----- Words ad phrases that unfairly and even unethically categorize or stigmatize people in a way related to gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability

*Building strong relationships with your audience
- Requires poritive messages with the sender and reciever
- Establishing your credibility
--- credibility: measure of your believability, how reliable you are, and how much trust you evoke in others
--- people will react better to you if thet have confidence in you
--- emphasize: honesty, objectivity, awareness of audience needs, credenticals, knowledge, enterprise, endorsements, performance, confidence, communication style, and sincerity
--- can take time to establish
- Protecting your company's image
--- Company's interests and reputation come before your communication style

*Controlling your style and tone
--- style: the choices you make to express yourself: the words, how you use them, sentences, and how you build paragraphs
---tone: overall impression in your messages, created by style
- Using a conversational tone
--- aim for a " warm but businesslike" tone
--- guidelines:
1. understanding the differences between texting and writing
2. avoid stale and pompous language
3. Avoid preaching and bragging
4. Be careful with intimicy
5. Be careful with humor
- Using plain language
--- audiences can understand and act on it without reading it many times
--- to be clear, not lifeless, dull, or boring
- Selecting the active/ passive voice
--- use active tone when the subject performs he action and the subject recieves the action
--- use paccie voice when the subject recieves the action
--- active voices are usually stronger than passive
--- use passive mostly too:: soften bad news, put yourself in the background, and create an impersonal tone

* Composing your message
--- be creative and not perfect in your 1st draft
--- introduction is often hardest to write
- Choosing strong words
--- first consider correctness of the word
--- if you are unsure of correct grammer=> look it up; avoid mistakes and learn more
--- also consider effectiveness= many options
--- Understand denotion and connotation
----- denotive meaning is the literal or dictionary meaning
----- connotative meaning is the associations evoked by the word
--- Blanace abstraction and concreteness
----- abstract words express a concept, quality, or characteristic
----- concrete word is something you can touch, see, or visualize
----- Use abstractions in communications only when necessary
--- Finding wrds that communicate well
----- powerful and familiar words
----- avoid cliches and be careful of buzzwords
----- use jargon carefully
- Creating effective sentences
--- Four types of sentences
1. a simple sentence has one main clause
2. a compound sentence has 2 main clauses- independent and dependent
3. a complex sentence has one main clause and one subordinate clause
4. a compound/ complex sentence has 2 main clauses and at least one dependent clause
This website gives different types of sentences and their forms:
http://learningnerd.wordpress.com/2006/09/12/english-grammar-types-of-sentences/
--- Using sentence style to emphasize key thoughts
----- can emphasize ideas by: (1) devoting more words (2) putting them at the beginning/ end of sentences (3) making them the subjuect
----- depenent clauses and positioning them is a sentence can determine emphasis
- Crafing united, coherent paragraphs
--- organizing sentences in a unified manner- focusing on a single topic
--- elements in a paragraph
1. Topic sentence
--- the sentence that introduces the topic of the paragraph
--- generally explicit and first sentence in the paragraph
--- helps write say focused and on topic
2. Support Sentences
--- explaination, justification, and extention of topic sentences
--- more specific and relates to the general idea
3. Transitions
--- words/ phrases that tie together ideas by showing how one thought is realted to another- arrangement and connection of thoughts
--- can use by connecting works, repeat words or phrases, pronouns, and words that are frequently paired
- five ways to develope a paragraph
1. illustration
2. compare or contrast
3. cause and effect
4. classification
5. problem and solution

*Using technology to compose and shape a message
- Capabilities of more word processing systems:
1. style sheets and templates: preesigens designs to help your message be organized and designed to company standards
2. smart documents: word processor files based on special templates that can retrive info from documents
3. master documents: can organize and integrate all subdocuments when ready to print/ distribute a report
4. Autocompletion: inserts a ready-made block of text when you type the first few characters, shich saves time and reduces errors
5. Endnotes, footnotes, indexes, and tables of contents: computer can track endnotes and footnotes, renumbering them when you add references
6. Wizards: guide processes of creating letters, resumes, web pages, and common documents
7. Mail Merge" personalize form letters by inseting names and addresses form a database

Interesting Sites:
http://www.writing-business-letters.com/business-letter-format.html
This site lays out in a visually pleasing form how to write business messages as well as what are the most important aspects to include in your messages.