Write for Business - Blog

“Although I still don’t work from a formal outline, I write a plan, usually a few phrases scribbled on a yellow pad.…My plan helps me see the big parts of the story.”

—Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools

Everyone comes programmed with a need to put his or her writing in order. Even those of you who are, at best, reluctant writers, who may be unsure of many things when it comes to writing, know that your ideas must be organized to be understood. Knowing this, of course, is one thing; achieving order in writing may be quite another. Your internal wiring will take you only so far. To ensure that your writing is orderly, follow these five steps.

1. Identify your main idea. Are you making a request, solving a problem, offering a proposal, sharing bad news? Actually state your main idea on paper; then organize your writing around it.
2. Decide on the best way to develop it. It may be enough to know that you want to work deductively or inductively. To work deductively, you state the main idea right up front and then explain or develop it in the rest of your writing. To work inductively, you build up to the main point. (See my blog entry “Just a Reminder” for more information.)
   
   Then again, your writing may clearly follow a more exacting pattern of development such as time order, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, problem/solution, or so on.
3. Create a writing plan. Some people use an outline—complete with Roman numerals, capital letters, and so on—to organize their supporting details for writing. I am not one of those people. A more informal listing works just fine for me. It’s not so left-brained, if you know what I mean.
   
   

   Formal Outline	Informal Listing
   I. First main idea      A. Supporting detail            1. Example/explanation            2. Example/explanation      B. Supporting detail            1. Example/Explanation            2. Example/Explanation            3. Example/Explanation II. Second main idea      A. Supporting detail            1. Example/explanation Etc.	– Main idea       – Detail       – Detail       – Detail – Main idea       – Detail       – Detail – Main idea       – Detail       – Detail       – Detail Etc.

   If your supporting information clearly follows a specific pattern of development as mentioned in the second step, you could use a graphic organizer to help you arrange your details for writing. Here are two examples.
   
   

   Flowchart (time line)	Cause/Effect Diagram

4. Form a meaningful whole. This may seem obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: An organized piece of writing includes three parts—a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Introduce your topic and/or state your main idea in the beginning. Include the supporting details in the middle, and tie everything up in the ending. Think of this step as organization at the conceptual level: Everything that you say in your writing has to “fit” into the appropriate part. (See my blog entry “In the beginning…” for more information.)
5. Use transitions as needed. Transitional words and phrases can strengthen the orderliness and clarity of your writing sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph. Notice how the transitions (in italics) work in the following passage:

   …The sound system allows team members to tune into different conversations at the Center. As a result, children who might feel overwhelmed with too many people in the room can relax and play naturally.
   
   In addition, parents also use the sound system to listen in on sessions in the therapy room.…

Special Note: A reliable writing handbook such as Write for Business will provide more information about planning and organization, including example graphic organizers and lists of transitions.

In his book The Art of Readable Writing, Rudolf Flesch talks about the value of setting your writing aside for an extended period of time after you have collected your information and before you do any actual planning or drafting. He says the period between “legwork and outline is the most important part of the whole writing process” because as your collecting percolates in your mind, you will begin to envision the “big parts”—the focus and shape—of your writing. Give this strategy a try, and see for yourself if a little downtime early in a writing project is time well spent.

—Dave Kemper

Last time we examined basic and perfect verb tenses. Both of those tenses also have another form, called the progressive or continuous tense. As the name indicates, this tense expresses an action in progress. All progressive tenses use a helping verb with a main verb ending in the suffix ing. The difference between the various progressive tenses lies in the particular helping verb that is used.

• Present progressive tells of an ongoing action in the present. It uses the helper am, are, or is. Here’s an example:

  We are preparing a new ad campaign for the product launch.

• Past progressive conveys an action that occurred over a period of time in the past. It uses the helper was or were, as in this example:

  We were considering a new approach when Ali remembered that law.

• Future progressive expresses an ongoing action that will happen in the future. In this case, the helper is the phrase will be or shall be, as in this example:

  We will be presenting at several conferences in the coming year.

The perfect progressive tenses use the helping verbs has or have been, had been, and will have been to expand upon the perfect tenses that we explained last time. While the present perfect progressive tense is commonly used, you won’t often see the past and future perfect progressive tenses in business writing. Still, it is good to understand how these tenses are employed.

• Present perfect progressive conveys a continuing action that began in the past. Here’s an example:

  We have been collecting data for a full six months now.

• Past perfect progressive expresses a continuing action that took place in the past, as in this example:

  We had been waiting for over forty minutes when the train finally arrived.

• Future perfect progressive tells of a continuing action in the future that will be completed by a particular time, as in this example:

  We will have been working on the site for two decades before it opens to traffic.

As a practice exercise to “perfect” your awareness of these tenses, read a paragraph of text from a few different types of writing and identify the tenses used in each sentence. To “progress” further, try writing a few examples of your own.

—Joyce Lee

Podcast

My grandfather and his partner started their printing business with a handshake. In the midst of the Great Depression, that’s how businesses were made. People couldn’t trust banks and contracts, so they trusted handshakes.

They could tell a lot from a handshake—the strength of the person, the engagement, the toughness or tenderness of the palm, the warmth or chill, the vigor or stupor.

A wringing handshake.

A vice grip.

A pump.

A dead fish.

And while the hands shook, the eyes met and exchanged more assurances than any contract could.

Times have changed. Business partners most often are out of arm’s reach. Sure, some businesspeople still clamber onto planes and hurl themselves thousands miles across the sky for the chance to shake a hand and stare into a pair of eyes, but most business partners have to settle for the 21st-century handshake: e-mail.

You can tell a lot from an e-mail—the strength of the thinking, the engagement, the toughness or tenderness of the voice, the warmth or chill, the vigor or stupor.

An e-mail that lands a contract.

An e-mail that creates a furor.

One that gets copied to everyone because it’s so good.

One that gets copied to everyone because it’s so ridiculous.

And every e-mail is eternally documented. It’s a matter of record, even of subpoena.

So, how’s your 21st-century handshake? Does it firmly and warmly grasp hold of the reader, or does it make the reader wince or curse or worse?

Here we are in the midst of the Great Recession, and businesspeople aren’t looking to banks and contracts for assurances. They’re looking to other businesspeople. They’re looking for handshakes, whether across a table or across the Internet. Take hold. Look them in the eye. Assure them you mean business.

—Rob King

Verb tenses don't have to be confusing. The tense of a verb simply indicates the time of the action in a sentence. Basic tenses are present, past, and future, and all others are a variation of those.

Present tense tells that an action is happening right now or happens regularly:

We ask you to donate to this cause today.

We ask for a policy review every year.

Past tense tells that an action happened in the past:

We asked him for ideas.

Future tense tells that an action will happen in the future:

Next month we will ask for new proposals.

The perfect tenses are a variation on the basic tenses. However, while the basic tenses indicate a one-time action, the perfect tenses indicate an ongoing action.

Present perfect tense indicates an action that began in the past and continues into the present. The helping verb has or have is used to form this tense:

We have considered developing that concept for a long time.

Past perfect tense indicates an action that was completed in the past. The helping verb had is used to form this tense:

Despite economic predictions, we had hoped things would turn around by December.

Future perfect tense indicates an action that will be completed in the future. The helping verbs will and have are used to form this tense:

Our plane will have taken off long before the storm hits.

When proofreading your writing, check that the verb tenses indicate the time and action you intend. Using the correct tense is, has been, and always will be a sure path to clear communication.

—Joyce Lee

Podcast

“Good writing is clear thinking made visible.” —Bill Wheeler

There may not be a more essential writing mantra in the workplace than this: People in the workplace are busy, so get to the point in your writing. What businessperson doesn’t have it firmly embedded in her brain? The principle is well taken. Most workplace writing needs to be immediate and up front because that is what is required to conduct daily business. (Of course, complex technical documents and extended reports are another matter.)

Note the opening paragraph from four workplace writing samples. In each one, the reader clearly gets the main point right away:

• Starting April 1, please make all of your company-related flight arrangements through the Travel Center. This change will benefit you and the company.
• To help new employees become familiar with day-to-day procedures, Human Resources has revised the New-Employee Orientation Checklist (attached). The revised checklist should shorten the time it takes for new employees to learn their assignments.
• Thank you for requesting a credit account at Cottonwood Hills Greenhouse and Florist Supply. We are pleased to extend you $100,000 in credit based on Dale’s Garden Center’s strong financial condition. Congratulations!
• I’m writing with an idea for training that will improve customer relations and retention. Specifically, I have noticed that our sales and marketing staff could sharpen their skills in speaking and listening to clients.

To achieve this immediacy, most day-to-day business writing is developed deductively, which simply means that you move from a generalization (the main idea or claim) to the specifics (the supporting details). If, on the other hand, you were to lead with the specifics and conclude with the main point of your message, you would be working inductively.

Bad-news messages are, in a manner of speaking, developed inductively. Note in the following message that the first two paragraphs offer “buffer” details that lead up to the main point, the bad news (in bold).

Thank you for your proposal that I join your Customer Training Department. I appreciate your confidence in my ability to provide Miami Computer Enterprises’ clients with instruction and technical support.

While considering the proposal, I reflected on the reasons that I started my own computer-consulting service two years ago. One of the reasons was flexibility. As an independent consultant, I could regulate my work activities around family demands. Although your proposal was financially attractive, I must turn down your offer, at least for now.

Why mention all of this? Just as a reminder that there is a standard type of thinking that governs almost all business writing. If you stray too far from this standard, your reader may become confused or frustrated and say to himself, “Get to the point, please!”

—Dave Kemper