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Writing Process for Business Communications

For many people, writing is difficult. But writing can become faster and more efficient with practice. When writing effectively for business communications, keep the reader in mind. For the audience to understand, you must be imaginative and communicate your point.

Do not drag out unnecessary details, and try to remain focused on your main goal. Read and explore various sources to enhance your knowledge and improve your vocabulary. To write for effective corporate communication, there are three main steps to follow:

3-Step Writing Process for Business Communications

The 3-step writing process for business communications includes:

1. Make a Plan of What You Are Going to Write

Making a plan for the content of your message is the first stage. Make the purpose or goal of writing clear first. Once a goal has been established, gather data while keeping the audience’s needs in mind. After that, devise a plan or choose a platform to deliver your message.

For the delivery of your desired message, use the appropriate communication channel. It’s time to organize the thought and decide whether to use a direct or indirect technique to convey a message. Wonders happen when writers’ motivation is practiced. The ideal strategy is to create an outline so you won’t forget to include key details. Thus, the process involves:

● Investigate the Situation

You establish the purpose of your writing in this step and create a profile of your audience. Without knowing your writing purpose, you risk having a limited comprehension of your target audience and creating a message that is ignored or receives no reaction.

● Collect Data

This step involves identifying the audience’s needs and gathering the data necessary to meet those needs. What information must your audience have? This process aids in helping you concentrate on the key components of your message.

● Select the Correct Delivery Vehicle

Now you must pick the most efficient means of communication delivery (medium). Does your intended audience read textual correspondence such as emails and letters? To effectively communicate your message, you must choose the appropriate media. If you don’t, your intended audience won’t hear you.

● Put the Data in the Proper Order

Once you’ve completed the fundamental tasks of obtaining, analyzing, and selecting how to present your information, it’s time to organize it all. In this section of the planning step, we will establish the key communication concept and decide whether to deliver the message directly or indirectly. In accordance with best practices, the communication’s substance should be outlined at this point.

2. Get Started with Writing Phase

Compose the message after careful planning. You will concentrate on the “You” mindset strategy during this phase. This approach seeks to engage the audience and effectively deliver the message.

This technique will help you learn more about your audience’s preferences in terms of fashion, age, education, and professional issues. It’s time to write a strong, concise, and meaningful statement. It would be beneficial if you used terms that impacted the readers.

● Awareness About Audience’s Requirements

The objective is to discover as much as you can about your audience. Find out about their prejudices, education, age, status, sense of style, and personal and professional issues. Convey the message in clear English with a conversational tone using the right voice.

After figuring out how to tailor our business communication to our target, you must write the message. Write the message with our audience in mind, in other words. You can communicate with them to meet their needs using this knowledge. Additionally, in this step, you should aim to develop credibility to forge a close bond with the audience.

● Write the Message

The final phase in the writing process is to select powerful words that result in phrases and paragraphs that make sense. If you are writing for a general audience, make sure you distinguish between abstract and concrete words in your writing and eliminate any jargon.

When writing to a technical audience, jargon is allowed since they will comprehend your message better than a general audience. Choose terms when writing your message that will affect both the reader and the message.

3. Final Phase

In this final phase, you will evaluate your message. Check whether it is effective or in presentable form. Now you need to revise and review the message. See whether the information is accurate and relevant to the target audience or not.

Ensure the message format is fine such as fonts, digital, analog, etc. After this, proofread the message to fix the grammatical mistakes and errors. Now it’s time to distribute the message to your audience. Use a reliable and authentic channel.

● Proofread Your Work

Check the communication component for layout mistakes. Verify your grammar and spelling as well. Read your message numerous times, paying attention to various areas with each reading. By reading your work backward, you can check for spelling mistakes.

After your initial examination, put the document aside and return to it a few hours or a day later. You will be able to find any errors you might have missed during the initial review with the aid of fresh eyes. Ensure that all the materials and documents you intend to distribute relate to your message.

Conclusion

Regular practice and use of the three-step writing process for business communication will help you become a better writer. Adhere to the above instructions to accomplish your goal.

For more information, check out these links:

1.     https://sugermint.com/the-importance-of-business-education-for-creating-better-quality-of-life/

2.     https://slocumstudio.com/a-10-step-guide-for-effective-business-writing-to-win-clients/

Pearl Holland writes well-researched articles for Perfect Essay Writing. She holds a good grip over the composition and structure of the English language. Her diversified abilities in crafting informative pieces in a unique style are a source of inspiration.

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Proofed and Polished

This Post Is Better

Have you ever decided to buy a certain product because the packaging assures you that it’s better? I didn’t have to look very hard around my house to find an example. My dish soap promises fifty-percent less scrubbing. We don’t have a dishwasher, so less scrubbing is definitely appealing. However, it’s probably a good idea before I spend my money on this product to ask myself, “Fifty-percent less scrubbing than what?”

Incomplete Comparisons

An incomplete comparison only tells you part of the story. In the dish soap example, I’m encouraged to believe that this product is better than another one, but I don’t know which product that is. Maybe it depends on what I use to scrub with, or if it’s just compared to not using soap at all. The bottom line is, there’s not enough information. The comparison is incomplete.

Ex. Brand name dish soap is more effective than bargain brand dish soap.

This example gives a complete comparison. The function word “than” links two things that are being compared: brand name versus bargain brand dish soap. Now I have enough information to make an informed decision.

When It Could Work

Sometimes you can get away with an incomplete comparison. 

Ex. Ida’s gardens are tidier than Allie’s. 

Imagine that this sentence appears in a story that you’re writing. You’ve explained who Ida and Allie are. Part of the plot is that these neighbor ladies compete over everything, especially their prize-winning backyard gardens. With all of that context, the reader could reasonably assume that you mean Ida’s gardens are tidier than Allie’s gardens, even though “garden” was left out of the sentence. It’s still an incomplete comparison, but you can get away with it.

However, if this were the opening sentence of a book or a chapter or just a stand-alone example sentence in a proofreading article somewhere, then its incompleteness is a problem. The reader would definitely infer that you mean “garden” but it could be quite a lot of other things as well. Ida’s gardens could be tidier than Allie’s living room, which you could be using to contrast how Ida is so very neat and tidy that even her gardens look good while Allie is the complete opposite. 

How To Fix It

Incomplete comparisons are easily resolved.

Ex. Andres loves cars and shoes more than Alexandra.

This incomplete comparison could cause hurt feelings. You could infer that Andres loves cars and shoes more than Alexandra loves cars and shoes, in which case we’re talking about preferences. But you could also infer that Andres loves cars and shoes more than he loves Alexandra, which sounds sad for Alexandra!  

To fix it, you need to give more information. Here are two ways to complete the comparisons.

Ex. Andres loves cars and shoes more than Alexandra loves those things. They just don’t see eye to eye.

Ex. Andres loves cars and shoes more than he loves Alexandra. Alexandra knows that Andres cares more about cars and shoes than he does about her, so she thinks she needs a new boyfriend.

When you’re writing, always double check that your comparisons are obviously comparing two or more things. If you can’t answer the questions, “Compared to what?” then you probably need a revision.

How About You?

Have you ever found any funny incomplete comparisons that have multiple possible meanings? What products can you find around your house that have used incomplete comparisons to make a sale?

Dayna Betz

Dayna Betz is a full-time freelancer providing proofreading and editing services to help writers put their best foot forward. She also enjoys reading and writing book reviews. Head over to her site, Betz Literary to learn more.

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Book Proposals

Always Cover the Basics

From reading many submissions, I’ve seen numerous misspellings of my first and last name. This small but significant mistake makes an immediate negative impression for reading the rest of the proposal. Your professionalism needs to shine through your proposal to a literary agent or an editor.

For a minute,. Imagine yourself as an editor or agent receiving submissions. You are actively looking for wonderful writing and solid authors that you can publish. This fact is good news for authors who wonder if anyone even reads their submissions. The important truth for authors to recall is that you receive hundreds of submissions. The little known truth is writers have only seconds to interest the agent or editor in their work. If that professional opens your submission and sees a glaring error, then that submission is rejected and they press on to the next submission. Rejection can mean receiving a rejection letter or not receiving anything or silence because of the large volume of material the editor or agent is receiving

Here’s some important basics to cover in your submission:   

  1. Address a specific person. Never send an email addressing “Dear Agent” or “Dear Editor.” Besides looking funny, it makes the editor wonder if you are sending this material to thousands at the same time (and normally not saying it is a simultaneous submission). Editors and agents will change positions in the industry. It can be cause for rejection if you address someone who is no longer at that business. Check the agency or publisher website for their guidelines before sending and make sure you have all of the correct details.
  2. Double check every word of your submission is correctly spelled. This point is one of my 21 Secrets in Book Proposals That Sell. I’ve had readers say, “Obvious.” Often submissions contain typos.
  3. After you write your proposal and sample chapter, put it aside for several hours (or several days). With fresh eyes read your submission aloud and use a pencil to immediately adjust errors. The ear is less forgiving than the eye and you will pick up on more details reading aloud. Your goal is for every sentence to make sense.

Recently I’ve updated my free book proposal checklist: http://terrylinks.com/bookcheck Use this checklist to know you have sent a complete proposal. It is time-consuming for the editor to have to write an email asking for a missing section or missing address or _____.  Almost daily I write these emails to authors but I recognize I’m different. Because of the high volume of submissions, many agents and editors will not write for the missing information and instead they will never respond or send a quick rejection.

As a writer, you want to rejection-proof your submission and give it every possible opportunity to get their approval, interest and excitement. Every editor is looking for the next bestseller. Will it come from you? I hope so.

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in Colorado. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. He answers to your proposal questions at: www.AskAboutProposals.com.

Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.