ifs business writing feb 2012 v4 - ispeak, inc. letters, emails, proposals and reports....

Foundation Series®

Business Writing

inform – inspire – implement – improve

B U S I N E S S W R I T I N G

iSpeak, Inc. 2012© i

Business Writing

iSpeakTM prepared this workbook for use in the area of Training and Development for continuing education. It is intended that these materials will be used to assist students in the learning process during the workshop, after the workshop for review, and continued learning as a reference guide.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Curriculum Developers: Russ D. Peterson, Jr. Kevin J. Karschnik Cynthia Oelkers

Copyright Notice Copyright © 2012 by iSpeak™. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States. iFS_Business Writing_Feb 2012_v4.2 Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication, including additional handouts, reference guides, or any part thereof, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of iSpeak™.

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Thank You Thank you for your purchase. We are committed to delivering a successful training program in a productive, efficient, and positive manner. Enjoy the workshop.

W E L C O M E

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Welcome to Business Writing

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” - Benjamin Franklin

The Business Writing program was developed to enhance your abilities in business writing for more effective letters, emails, proposals and reports. Communication skills can provide the fuel required to power your team in today’s demanding business environment. Writing well means that you can state your ideas clearly and in an engaging manner. It also gives you the ability to inform, persuade, and motivate others. Think about it. Your thoughts are only as valuable as your ability to communicate them with clarity and appeal. Clients can’t read your mind, but they can compare your writing to your competitor’s!

The ability to effectively communicate has become a necessity at all levels of a business organization. Every time you speak or write, you represent yourself and your company.

You bring to the class the skills necessary to be a great communicator. Research shows that participants who interact during this course will gain a superior understanding of the course content over those who passively read the workbook or listen to the facilitator. Business Writing will challenge you to step outside of your comfort zone to learn new techniques. To become a skilled writer, you must challenge yourself to improve these skills, and that means participation and practice.

Research shows that participants who interact during this course will gain a superior understanding of the course content over those who passively read the workbook or listen to the facilitator.

The information and inspiration will provided by your facilitator, but the implementation is the single most important factor in your improvement. Only through your implementation will you internalize the skills required for success. We will provide you with the foundation and tools that are required to reach your business writing potential.


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Exercise: Course Expectations

What do you want to gain from the Business Writing course?

1.

2.

3.

4.

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

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Table of Contents

Welcome to Business Writing ii Unit One: Business Writing Foundation 1

The Importance of Good Writing 2 Communication Channels 3 Effective Business Writing 4 Readability Index 5 iSpeak Business Writing Model 8 Unit Summary 9

Unit Two: Letters, Emails, Memos 11 Brief Document Types 12 Delivering Good News 14 Delivering Bad News 16 Who is Your Audience? 22 Visual Appeal 24 Email in Business 31 Email Etiquette 33 Unit Summary 38

Unit Three: Developing Proposals 39 Writing Proposals 40 Prepare Proposal Objective 41 Audience Analysis 42 Idea Mapping 45 Inductive vs. Deductive Reasoning 47

Deductive Reasoning 48 Inductive Reasoning 49 Persuasion Through Counter-Arguing 50 Turn Features into Benefits 52 Using Evidence 54 Call to Action 57 Proposal Structure 58 Create Your Appeal 60 Executive Summary 61 Grammar Drill: Passive / Active Voice 62 Unit Summary 64

Unit Four: Review and Proofread 67 Review 68 Proofreading 69 Unit Summary 76

Implement to Improve 77 iSpeak After the Class 78 Satori 79 Kaizen 80 21-Day Habit 81 Foundation Series Curriculum 82 Corporate Ovations 83


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Table of Exercises

Exercise: The Power of Writing ....................................................................................................................... 3 Exercise: Ineffective Business Writing ........................................................................................................... 4 Exercise: Using the Index ................................................................................................................................ 6 Exercise: Choose the appropriate document type ...................................................................................... 13 Exercise: Bad News Message: Company at Fault ....................................................................................... 20 Exercise: Bad News Message: Customer at Fault ....................................................................................... 21 Exercise: Visual Appeal of a Report .............................................................................................................. 25 Exercise: Reading and Interpreting Emails .................................................................................................. 32 Exercise: Sentence Fragments ....................................................................................................................... 36 Exercise: Sentence Construction .................................................................................................................. 37 Exercise: Message Purpose ........................................................................................................................... 41 Exercise: Audience Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 42 Exercise: Idea Mapping .................................................................................................................................. 46 Exercise: Argument or Premise? ................................................................................................................... 47 Exercise: When to Use Deductive Reasoning .............................................................................................. 48 Exercise: When to Use Inductive Reasoning ............................................................................................... 49 Exercise: Write your counter-arguments ...................................................................................................... 51 Exercise: Turning Features into Advantages and Benefits ........................................................................ 53 Exercise: Call to Action .................................................................................................................................. 57 Exercise: Write your persuasive appeal ....................................................................................................... 60 Exercise: Write the executive summary ....................................................................................................... 61

iSpeak, Inc. 2012© 1

Unit One:

Business Writing Foundation

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” - Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

he ability to write well is essential when you want to communicate your thoughts and ideas to an audience in a more formal way than speaking. Writing well means that you can state your ideas clearly and in an engaging manner. It also gives you the ability to inform, persuade, and motivate others.

The written word is powerful. Passionately written letters have started and ended wars, spared lives, and have even become the legal foundation of a nation. On July 4 1776, members of the Second Continental Congress drafted and signed a document declaring that the Thirteen Colonies of North America were “free and independent states” and that “all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved.” It went on to lay the foundation for America’s laws and government with its famous words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The results of these words? Too many to count. Among the significant ones were the Revolutionary War, Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, and most laws that still govern our nation today.

In this unit, you will learn:

What makes business writing effective or ineffective?

The importance of the writing levels of the Readability Index

The iSpeak Model for Effective Business Writing

Unit One

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U N I T O N E : B U S I N E S S W R I T I N G F O U N D A T I O N

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The Importance of Good Writing

“Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.” - Carol Burnett, US actress & comedienne

The world has seen an explosive growth of communication technologies. Computers and personal electronics (such as mobile phones and handheld devices) have added thousands of ways to send and receive written messages. In a typical day, we send and receive email, text messages, electronic documents, presentations, spreadsheets, faxes, and instant messages.

The networks that carry our data are also improving in quality and speed. That means that it is easier than ever to publish information to the world. Personal homepages, company blogs, consumer reviews, and social networking technologies like Facebook, My Space, and Twitter are just some of the ways to make information accessible to the public.

Chances are good that our written communication is more public now than ever. So what opinions are people forming about our writing styles?

So why do we still want our writing to be better than it is right now, if people can understand us anyway? If even these jumbled letters are comprehensible, why is it so important to spend time perfecting our business writing?

Readers will still judge our abilities and competence based on our writing.

Readers will draw conclusions about our organization based on our personal writing capabilities.

Readers may think that our writing is an indication of how important (or unimportant!) they are to us and to our company. If they receive communication that is sloppy and error-filled, they may conclude that they are not worth our time or effort.

The Pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaern what oredr the ltteers in a word are. The only iprmoetnt thing is that the first and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the human mind deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?



Communication Channels

“The single biggest problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” - George Bernard Shaw

Writing falls at the low end of “richness” because a reader cannot hear how we say our message and cannot see our facial expressions as we say it

Writing is more public and permanent than ever

The writing channel is lean, therefore, great care must be taken to be clear in our messages

When we write well, we are saying that we thought about our message, we took the time to understand the reader, and we wished to send a positive image of ourselves.

In addition, when we write well, we improve the bottom line. Why? We save time, frustration, and inconvenience; all of which represent costs.

Exercise: The Power of Writing

What documents do you regularly write?

What do you stand to gain if you improve your writing? What would poor writing potentially cost you?



Effective Business Writing

“Writing is the action of thinking, just as drawing is the action of seeing and composing music is the action of hearing.” - Brenda Ueland, Author

Effective business writing can be defined by answering a simple question, “Did the document achieve its objective?” In sales, the objective may be signature on an agreement. For management, the objective may be a change in team behavior. In operations and support, the objective may be to effectively educate a customer on the appropriate process for mixing ingredients. Regardless of the specific role of the individual, if the objective is met, the writing is effective.

Effective business writing can be described as:

Succinct

Poignant

Direct

Relative

Persuasive

Informative

Exercise: Ineffective Business Writing

Read the following example of ineffective business writing.

On the IFE Plan, John Cotton and Devon Weber are the lead engineers. I gave him another copy of the IFE report completed on K1 last year. He and I will work on defining. As you know, basically, it is not an easy task to complete so it will take all three of us plenty of time.

I will FedEx the completed IFE Plan to you by September 1st. That is the last day of drilling for the season. Basically, it will give us time to complete the necessary paperwork for presentation by September 1st. I can have John provide you an executive summary prior to our final submission. Let me know.

Frankly, we look at product consumption during the previous year, technical developments or new product introductions and their potential impact on product consumption, and the best estimate Sand Dollar can give us as to what the drilling program will be – and order bulk, sack and drum product based on these estimates.

When Sand Dollar Oil told us that the intent was to capture the tremendous amount of planning and engineering that goes into K1 every day by the entire K1 Team, and the value and satisfaction our customer derives from this effort. It will be nice to have this completed. We will see you soon.

What makes this confusing and ineffective?



Readability Index

“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing.” – Benjamin Franklin

Sometimes we make writing difficult for our readers. That may not be our intention, but if we use unfamiliar words, jargon or terms they don’t understand, or write long and complicated sentences, the reader must work harder to understand our message—and sometimes they just won’t bother. To figure out how “readable” your writing is, apply the readability test, sometimes called the Gunning Fog Index, to a sample of your own writing.

1. Count out a sample of 100 words. Count to the end of the sentence nearest to the 100-word total. Record that number. (Example: 104 words)

2. Count the number of sentences in your sample. Record that number. (Example: 7 sentences)

3. Divide the number of words in the sample by the number of sentences. This will give you the average sentence length. (Example: 104 divided by 7 gives an average sentence length of approximately 15 words)

4. Go back through this sample and count/circle all words of three or more syllables (polysyllabic words). Do not include proper nouns, compound words made up of short, easy words (like “bookkeeper”) or words that made polysyllabic by an “es”, “ed,” or “ing” added to the end of the word (such as “adapted”). (Example: 14 words of three syllables or more)

5. Divide the number of polysyllabic words by the total words in the sample, and then multiply the answer by 100 to find the percentage of words that are polysyllabic. (Example: 14 divided by 104 multiplied by 100 equals approximately 13.5% of the words are polysyllabic.)

6. Add the average sentence length (15) and the number of polysyllabic or "hard words" per hundred (14) together. (Example: 14 plus 15 equals 29)

7. Multiply this by the Fog Factor (0.4) to learn your Readability or Fog Index. (Example: 29 multiplied by 0.4 equals 11.6)



iSpeak Business Writing Model

“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.” - Joseph Pulitzer

Prepare Effective business writing is not haphazard. Research and solid logic are the first steps to writing clearly and persuasively. In the preparation phase of the writing process you will perform the appropriate research, define the purpose of the document, and analyze the audience who will be reading your work.

Develop Once you’ve collected the facts, you must begin with a well-constructed outline. By

planning an outline that includes an effective opening, a body of facts, and clear call to action, you can achieve your desired results.

Write Writing should be clear, concise, complete, and correct. Sentence construction,

appropriate vocabulary, and correct grammar keep the reader focused on your meaning, not your mistakes.

Review Whether you are simply re-reading your email before sending it or spending time

scanning a business proposal, appropriate review of written documents ensures error-free documents.


Unit Two:

Letters, Emails, Memos

“Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express personality both of the writer and of the recipient.” - E. M. Forster, author

t’s time to write. Perhaps you are faced with composing a detailed document that must catch the attention of an important client or top executive. Where do you start? Or perhaps you are about to write a type of email that you’ve written one hundred times before. How can you make it fresh this time?

Whether you are writing a lengthy report or jotting a brief note to a co-worker, the iSpeak writing process will improve your communication by preparing your research, developing your thoughts, writing your text, and reviewing your work.

In this unit, you will learn:

Discuss different types of business documents and the appropriate times to use each

Deliver both good news and bad news

Consider your audience when writing letters, emails and memos

Identify methods for writing effective email

Unit Two

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Brief Document Types

“I feel more alive when I’m writing than I do at any other time.” - May Sarton, Author

In today’s environment, our written communication will often be presented in a brief format. Instead of lengthy reports or proposals, a document could be as short as a one page in the form of a business letter, memo, or email.

With the advancement of technology, email has become the most common form of written communication in business today. In many cases, email has taken the place of the printed letters and memos. Regardless of the document’s format, the business writing process can still be applied. You should always prepare, develop, write, and review your document prior to delivering it.

Document Type Usage Type

Business letter Often used for communicating with external business partners, government agencies, customers, and prospects. Business letters are typically composed in a word processing application and can be sent via the post office or attached to an email.

Formal

Memo Memos are utilized for internal communications within a company or organization. Memos are typically written to share information about a problem or a solution to a problem. Typical reasons to write a formal memo are changes in policy, procedure, accounts, personnel, or pricing. These are also usually written in a word processing application, are write-protected, and sent as an attachment in email.

Formal or Moderately Formal

Email/Text Email is the most common form of written communication today. Utilized to communicate brief notes, thoughts, ideas and information. Sometimes email is used as a delivery system for more formal communications, such as an attached memo or business letter.

Least formal



Exercise: Choose the appropriate document type

For each of the situations below, identify the most appropriate document type for the message.

Situation 1

A customer requests a summary of the PR2 valve pressure performed earlier this week.

Appropriate Document Type

Situation 2

Your manager asks you to send over the flight departure time to go witness the SIT (systems integration test) for three team members.


Situation 3

You are sending out information on the policy change for sick time to your employees.


Situation 4

A peer of yours sent an email asking for the arrival date of the next Tree delivery.




Visual Appeal

“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.” - Gloria Steinem, Author

The audience is much more likely to read and understand a report that is visually appealing. Documents that appear full of long paragraphs with no tables, lists, or diagrams can be cumbersome to read. The easier it is for the reader to understand the logical presentation of the content, the greater the chance that it will be completely understood and accepted.

Spacing

Business documents and reports are currently presented as single-spaced documents with a blank space between each paragraph. Much like this curriculum is written, you will find shorter paragraphs (no more than ~5 lines) all separated by a blank line. Shorter paragraphs with whitespace are more likely to be read completely than the much lengthier paragraphs.

Formatting

With the prevalence and ease of use with word processing software, documents today can be created with very rich and appealing formatting. By utilizing consistent styles for the body text, headings and sub-headings, the reader will understand how each element they read fits into the overall picture.

While formatting and styles are easy to implement with software today, limit the amount of formatting to approximately five styles or less. When too many style sizes, colors, and fonts are introduced, the message gets lost in the formatting.

Bullets and lists

It is much easier to read and reference a bulleted or numbered list, as opposed data presented in paragraph format. Numbered lists should always be used when the sequence is important. If the data can be read and understood in any random order, bulleted lists should be used. If a series of numbered steps contains sub-steps, an outline numbering sequence may be used. Most word processing software today will allow outline lists to automatically enumerate.

Bold / italics

Bold, italic and underlined text is used for emphasis. The intensity of emphasis grows from weakest to strongest in this order: italics, underline, and then bold. In other words, to put a minor emphasis on a word, use italic, for a major emphasis, use bold. Combining all three forms of emphasis are not necessary.

Headings

Each major section of a report should be labeled with a heading. Labeling a section provides an easy method for the reader to transition from one topic to the next. Headings will also make it easy for the reader to find specific material in the future when they refer back to the document.

Table of contents

For lengthier documents (five pages or more) a table of contents provides an overview of the entire document, as well as a quick reference for jumping to a specific section. Most word processing software today can automatically generate a table of contents with the appropriate page numbers.



Exercise: Visual Appeal of a Report

Which of the following would you rather read, Report A or Report B?

TYPES OF BLOOD DONORS One of the keys to a good Blood transfusion is starting with good Blood. There is a massive effort to make sure that "the Blood supply is safer than it has ever been The three types of Blood donors are:

1. Volunteer Blood Donors: As a rule, a greater percentage of better quality Blood comes from volunteer donors. Volunteer donors are very important because the incidence of Blood transmitted disease is much less in Blood drawn from volunteers.

2. Replacement Blood Donors: Blood donors who donate their Blood as a replacement for their own

Blood, or that of a friend or relative are called replacement donors. Blood "scares" in recent years have caused this to grow.

3. Professional Blood Donors: Blood donors who get either monetary benefit or helps of various

other kinds in return for the Blood that they donate. Such donors are statistically more likely to carry some infection. Their Blood is more likely to be of a lower standard as they tend to donate more frequently.

Most Common Eligibility Guidelines The most common eligibility guidelines in the United States (some other countries have differing guidelines) are outlined below. These are subject to change. BASIC REQUIREMENTS

• Be in generally good health and feeling well. • Be at least 17 years of age; upper age 60 (420d*). • Weigh at least 110 pounds (45 kg). • Pulse: 80 to 100 beats/min and regular. • Temperature: Should not exceed 99.5 (37.5c). • Blood Pressure: acceptable range is 160/90 to 110/60. • Skin: the venipuncture site should be free of any lesion or scar of needle pricks indicative of

addiction to narcotics or frequent Blood donation (as in the case of professional Blood donors).

DONATION FREQUENCY (may vary)

• Whole Blood donors may donate every 56 days. • Plasma donors may donate twice a week (max. every 48 hours.) • Platelet donors may donate a maximum of 24 times per year. • Other specialized donations are subject to other rules.

A



TYPES OF BLOOD DONORS One of the keys to a good Blood transfusion is starting with good Blood. There is a massive effort to make sure that "the Blood supply is safer than it has ever been." There are three types of Blood donors: 1) Volunteer Blood Donors: As a rule, a greater percentage of better quality Blood comes from volunteer donors. Volunteer donors are very important because the incidence of Blood transmitted disease is much less in Blood drawn from volunteers. 2) Replacement Blood Donors: Blood donors who donate their Blood as a replacement for their own Blood, or that of a friend or relative are called replacement donors. 3) Professional Blood Donors: Blood donors who get either monetary benefit or helps of various other kinds in return for the Blood that they donate. Such donors are statistically more likely to carry some infection. The most common eligibility guidelines in the United States (some other countries have differing guidelines) are outlined below. These are subject to change. There are some basic requirements for donating blood. A person should be in generally good health and feeling well. They should be at least 17 years of age; upper age 60 (420d*). They should weigh at least 110 pounds (45 kg). Their pulse should be 80 to 100 beats/min and regular. Their body temperature should not exceed 99.5 (37.5c). Their blood pressure should be in an acceptable range of 160/90 to 110/60. Their skin at the venipuncture site should be free of any lesion or scar of needle pricks indicative of addiction to narcotics or frequent Blood donation (as in the case of professional Blood donors). DONATION FREQUENCY (may vary) Whole Blood donors may donate every 56 days. Plasma donors may donate twice a week (max. every 48 hours.) Platelet donors may donate a maximum of 24 times per year. Other specialized donations are subject to other rules.

What else could be implemented from the previous page to improve the report even more?

B



Idea Mapping

“If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” - Yogi Berra

Idea mapping is an idea generating tool that involves both hemispheres of the brain in a divergent thinking process. All brains think in a very dynamic way through free association. Instead of logically identifying a methodical sequence, our brains tend to free associate to generate ideas. Similar to brainstorming, idea mapping involves rapid generation of ideas generated from a single trigger idea.

Begin with a central theme or question. As you think of related ideas, link them back to the trigger idea with a line. As you branch out with new ideas, you will begin to see a visual representation of the relationship among them. As additional ideas and lines are drawn from the central idea, additional images or colors can be used for specific branches. These related ideas create a “flow” of topics and ideas.

By utilizing a visual layout instead of simply documenting words and ideas, the creative portion of the brain is freed to generate multiple ideas relating to any of the primary or secondary branches. The pictorial representation of the idea map further energizes the right hemisphere of the brain which is the naturally creative side of the brain.

Poor Customer Service Rating

Call Center

PoorProduct

Retail Centers

Auto Attendant

Lack of Training

Not 24 hrs

Lack ofTraining

Unprofessionalattendants

NotKnowledgeable

No WebPortal

PoorHiring

Poor Customer Service Rating

Call Center

PoorProduct

Retail Centers

Auto Attendant

Lack of Training

Not 24 hrs

Lack ofTraining

Unprofessionalattendants

NotKnowledgeable

No WebPortal

PoorHiring

U N I T T H R E E : D E V E L O P I N G P R O P O S A L S


Exercise: Idea Mapping

Follow the facilitator’s instructions to mind-map ideas and thoughts for the proposal. Document your key thoughts in the spaces below to organize your thoughts for the proposal.



Inductive vs. Deductive Reasoning Once you have all of your ideas out on paper, it is time to organize them into a structured argument. The two most common structures for presenting persuasive material are inductive and deductive. Before we dive into these structures, let’s take a look at some basic vocabulary.

Argument or claim

In persuasive writing, this is your argument for why the reader should do or believe what you are asking.

I am the best candidate.

Our company will provide you with the highest quality drilling fluid.

ABC Company’s rig in the Gulf is on the brink of losing well control.

Premise or evidence

This is the information on which we base our arguments. We draw conclusions (arguments) from these facts.

I am the best candidate. (argument)

I have ten years experience in the Texas Senate. (premise)

I was the CEO of a Fortune 1,000 company. (premise)

Our company will provide you with the highest quality drilling fluid. (argument)

We have over 70 value products, more than any other provider in the industry. (premise)

ABC Company’s rig in the Gulf is on the brink of losing significant well control. (argument)

The rig manager has less than a year’s experience on this type of rig. (premise)

The rig has lost well control twice in the last week. (premise)

Exercise: Argument or Premise?

The instructor will display a sentence. The left side of the room is for those who believe the sentence is an argument. The right side of the room is for those who believe it is a premise. Once the sentence is displayed, decide whether it is an argument or a premise and walk to the appropriate side of the room.