Revising Business Messages

   How are speakers different from writers in the way they emphasize ideas?

Speakers and writers have different tools to emphasize their ideas.  A speaker can and has to do some extra work beyond just saying the words. While speaker is able to change a tone of his/her voice, use facial expressions, a pose, put a stress on the key words and it might mistakenly look that a writer deprived of such eloquent features. There is a big space for writers to be not less expressive. There are many kind of writing techniques, for instance, playing with a text structure, with the sequence of ideas and the way they disclose, describing the main topic in a certain way and with certain words that makes us think the way that the author wanted to  make us believe.

  Why are short sentences and short paragraphs appropriate for business communication?

Short sentences and short paragraphs are appropriate in general because the main function of any business letter is informative. There is nothing common with your personal opinion or analysis of satiation unless you were asked to do this research. I think it is important to care about time which your receiver has to spend reading your message and how much valuable information he or she can get from this reading.

      When might it be unethical to use the indirect method of organizing a message?
Usually the indirect form of a message is used when the subject of a message is not really pleasant for instance it might be refuse of requests, reject claims or some kind of sensitive messages which have to respect the feeling of the audience and minimize a negative reaction. I think it is unethical to use indirect way of writing when people wait some kind of action, some information, some urgent instructions because it puts them in quandary. 

Composing Business Messages

How can the three-phase writing process help the writer of a business report as well as the writer of an oral presentation?

 The first phase of the writing process consists of analyzing the audience and identifying the purpose of  your writing. When your target is determined along with knowing who your audience is it becomes much easier to understand what  about you supposed to write and in a which manner. Researching, organizing and composing are involved in the second part of writing process. It let you see how much information do you have and how supported your ideas are.  The last step is really important. Revising may take 50% of all of writing time, depending on complexity of your topic. All of these steps are vitally necessary in order to write a good business message. Missing any of them makes your message weak, unclear and even unprofessional.

 Discuss the following statement: “The English language is a land mine – it is filled with terms that are easily misinterpreted as derogatory and others that are blatantly insulting… Being fair and objective is not enough; employers must also appear to be so.”

It is absolutely true. Being an immigrant I can’t agree more. Sometimes misunderstanding happens even among native speakers when they use a lot of slang or some kind of words which might be interpreted in several ways. To avoid this misunderstanding in a business communication  message has  to be clear, correct, understandable and simple.

 Why is writing in a natural, conversational tone difficult for many people?

There is huge difference between oral and writing communications. Sometimes it is difficult to say about business ideas in a natural tone for several reason one of which is the discussed subject is highly important or informative and sometimes it looks like there isn’t room for conversation but there is. While some people can’t combine importance of a message and natural tone some people abuse conversational tone in a business massage and sometimes  it looks rather unprofessional then good.

 If computer software is increasingly able to detect writing errors, can business communicators stop studying writing techniques? Why or why not?

The answer is obvious and the answer is not.  Modern software can detect grammar mistakes or mistyping that, of course, great and helpful tool for everyone but unfortunately that is not enough. What software can’t do is  that to understand to whom you write, what you want to emphasize, what you try to say really gently and what you have to force. Machine can use simple grammar rules to fix your words but it can’t choose the right meaning of these words in a certain context and it can’t change a form of your message. Software also can’t protect you of being rough because it is not able to fill your message with appropriate tone, words and form. All of these in your hands.

Why do you think managers prefer messages that are not written like high school essays?

          I think  managers expect to see messages that are different from college essays due to several reasons. First, a college essay has its specific format  that consists of an introduction (which includes some background about the topic), a couple of paragraphs and some conclusion. The significant difference here is that a school essay often has an abstract topic or a problem which can be solved or described in variety of ways because it’s based on your personal opinion, knowledge and believe. In other words, a topic of a school essay is more theoretical theme while a business message is more specific. Some kind of business messages need in identification of  the problem, find the ways to solve it and analyzes results or benefits of this way of solving. Second, a business message might be just an informative letter that says  about some changes, for instance, in policies or it might be an invitation, for example, to stockholders meeting that does not need to have background information (as a history of a company) and conclusion. Writing your business message you most often know who your receiver is and it helps to understand how much information this person knows about the topic. In a school essay you suppose to write descriptive, broaden text which usually is much longer  than business message should be.