Effective Business Writing and Communications

Archive for February, 2010

E-mail is quite a special form of communication that allows dialogue communication, online conferencing, etc. and represents a tremendous opportunity as well as difficulties because of the specifics of electronic correspondence. On the one hand, email is almost indistinguishable from their conventional predecessors – paper letters. An e-mail contains the recipient’s e-mail address and the sender’s e-mail address, the date and time of dispatch and receipt of a message, e-mail body text and the signature of the sender. E-mail subject lines are stored in each message, and it is possible to forward a copy of the e-mail.

However, there are all sorts of new, highly specific features of correspondence, which were not previously in the paper correspondence.

Communication of any kind, and e-business correspondence, in particular, identifies what is called “culture” or “cultural differences”. By this means the culture and traditions specific to the people, the social level, and even the field of business. Be prepared for the fact that within a culture it is possible to quickly go to the almost informal level of communication that does not speak in favor of that your business is a priority for him, just that it is “well accepted”. Within the other, by contrast, a distance would be kept as long as possible, and also for the same reason. No worse, no better tactic, just different, and every nation have its time for establishing informal relations.

So, how to behave and what style of communication to choose not to be seen as a “poor relative” and not seem as a disrespectful partner? Probably the best would be an evolution or gradual development of relations from a strictly formal to more informal.

However, it should be remembered that you are writing business letters on behalf of your company, and not personal messages. Therefore, the style and form of such rapid communications, at least in the beginning of the correspondence, must be set out in a formal way.

Furthermore, it should be emphasized that before getting to the mailbox of the addressee your e-mail travels through multiple servers and is available to many people and even many official intelligence agencies from many different countries. Therefore, when working with e-mails it is useful to remember the following Golden Rule:

Your e-mail under any circumstances, should not compromise you, your company or your recipient. Use caution when writing so that your letter could not be used against you and your business.

The culture of communication is a way of achieving socially important purposes, reflecting the interests of people on the basis of free expression and action. This is a set of values, which includes freedom, justice, rights and duties, responsibility and self-consciousness, and the way of implementing them in a social, economic and cultural relations system, based on the disclosure of individual capacities and abilities of the individual.

The lack of culture in business communication is manifested in the fact that, first of all, people stop making their own decisions; managers are afraid to take risks; secondly, fear of starting a new business where there is a lack of funds, and thirdly, the Culture of Conduct and lively discussion of conflict situations are not present anymore.

There is a need of such business relationship, when there is no need for individuals to depend on one another in order to achieve their goals. The success depends on the person, as well as on communication techniques. A person may find themselves in the full and versatile implementation of his skills into work and realizing that his well being is not based on the suffering of others. Business relationships inevitably unite people. Managers are beginning to understand that personal happiness should be sought in the happiness of others. This is where they will find the greatest success in their activities.

The culture of business communication offers great opportunities for personal development. Non-cultured, non-educated, ignorant people are not prepared to methods, standards, technology, activities, actions and life values. People who deny the discipline, order, law, the normative regulation of the individualistic social behavior, are culture destroyers. Business communication is impossible outside the development of the general culture of a person’s behavior, thinking and knowledge. The culture of communication is also the culture of agreements, the interaction between people, aligning their interests and actions. Thus, the culture of the organization of business communication represents the knowledge, ideas, evaluations, attitudes, motives underlying in the basis of active social behavior, in the decision-making and normalized speech.

Major areas with which a writer must be concerned in order to appeal to a reader’s visual sensibilities start of with the font. The font used on any paper, manual, and instructions is very important. You have to use a font that is easy on the eyes but at the same time not plain. Using plain font may cause a lost of interest of the reader, but also a fancy font might be hard to read.

Next, would have to be the size of the fonts used. Using very large fonts can cause a usage of paper and can be interpreted incorrectly, but using small size font can be hard to read and understood by the reader. So using a reasonable size for the font is important. Another would have to be the colors used.

Normally anything in writing comes in black and white, but using a different color could be easy on the eyes and could catch the attention of the reader. How spacing is used in writing is important because too close makes it hard to read and to separate it makes it hard to understand.

While creating a set of technical instructions, the organizational technique known as chunking will be very effective.  With the tactful addition of section headings, white space, and dividers with make any information much easier to follow and locate.

In addition to chunking, the appropriate and sparing use of typefaces will help create order by allowing certain uniformity.  Colors should be used to highlight certain headings or graphics.  However, colors should also be used carefully so as not to confuse the reader’s eye or to lose the information altogether with badly chosen colors.

Another small but effective design component includes bulleted and/or numbered lists.  This is easy to format and is particularly effective to draw attention to important details.

Finally, one of the most effective components in document design is the use of graphics.  Graphics can be used to easily demonstrate a complicated task or description to save time, space, and confusion.

Research is very important in web design because of the need to research what your client wants. This means deciding on style, user interface, content, functionality. Researching the topic would help show your prospective employer that you have researched their company and are very interested in joining them. Researching all  about the company is effective for impressing prospective employeers since it not just shows you’re interested, but it gives the oportunity to advertise the employeer’s needs.

Using establishing a focus and researching your topic prewriting techniques, one will be able to write a clear and precise paper that fully answers what your prospective employer is asking. By using the focus, when you get to the data collection aspect, the focus assists in determining whether the data is beneficial to the point you are trying to substantiate or not. Establishing a focus would help to focus your research and steer you in the direction that would benefit you in the eyes of a prospective employer.

When enough research has been done to firmly have a grasp on the subject matter, it will be time to sit down and brainstorm different ideas.  Just by listing ideas that you might cover as they come to mind,  it’s time to immediately start choosing which supporting details are important and which are not.  When you’ve ironed out what to include in the paper, you can then begin an outline to guide your writing process and make sure there are no holes in the logical progression. During the brainstorming process you can do the page layout or draft to see how many pages will be required and decide what content will be required on each page.