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.