BUSINESS WRITING

BUSINESS WRITING

1. Form, Mechanism & Art.

2. Business Writing Purposes/Purpose of a Business Letter.

3.  Elements of a Good Letter.

    Letters as a means of expression and communication hold an important place in life. We receive letters and then required to commit our feelings, ideas and message to letters. A successful and effective letter is a product of the skill and art of the writer’s pen. In this sense letter writing is not an easy thing. Even a most gifted person at times may find to pen a satisfying and interesting letter a difficult proposition. A good letter is the most effective and the cheapest means to make friends, to maintain friendship and to keep the family together across the long distances.

    Even in the modern time of television, telephone, radio and such other means of communications, there is no suitable substitute for an aesthetic letter. A letter makes our beautiful communication permanent and in a way which is matchless from so many points of view. Letters help in recreating the joy once experienced whenever one whishes.

From Purpose Through Process

1. Know your single purpose
Inform, persuade, instruct, record / document.

2. Writing in four stages
Plan, write, revise, edit

3. Five step revision & edit
Overall purpose, content & structure
Paragraph, sentences
Your personal errors

Business Writing Purposes

    The purpose of business writing is to convey information to someone else or to request information from them. To be effective writing for business, you must be complete, concise, and accurate. Your text should be written in such a way that the reader will be able to easily understand what you are telling or asking them.

    A lot of writing for business is sloppy, poorly written, disorganized, littered with jargon, and incomplete. Often it is either too long or too short. All these attributes contribute to ineffective business writing.


    There ere are certain steps you need to follow to create effective business writing. You need to:

 
1. organize your material
2. consider your audience
3. Write
4. Proofread ; and 

5. edit your text.

1. Organize

 
First, organize your material. When writing an email announcing a staff meeting, this may be as simple as collecting your thoughts. On the other hand, you may need to write out a multi-level outline of the material. Without an appropriate level of organization, you can't be sure you will include everything or  you will give the most important topics. Omissions or incorrect focus can make your business writing less clear.

2. Audience

 
Before you start to write, think about your intended audience. Remember that you will be more effective writing to your audience if you focus on what you want them to hear.

Start Writing

Good writers have different styles of writing. Some prefer to write everything out and then go back and edit. Others prefer to edit as they go along. Sometimes their style varies depending on the piece they are writing.
As you write, or when you edit, be aware of length. Use enough words to make your meaning clear, but don't use unnecessary words just to make it flowery. Business writing needs to be clear and concise, not verbose and flowery. No one in business has time to read any more than necessary.

Conversely, don't make the piece too short. Write enough that your meaning is clear and won't be misunderstood. Don't try to shorten a piece by using jargon or abbreviations. These often mean different things to different reader

Edit and Proofread

After you write anything, you need to proofread it. You may then need to edit it. Proofreading is re-reading what you wrote to make sure all the words in your head made it correctly on the paper or the screen. 

After you have proofread your material, you need to edit it. Sometimes these can be done together, but it is more effective when they are done sequentially.

You edit to fix or change what you wrote in order to make the material better. When writing for business, this means fixing the errors and making the text clear and concise.

Who are you writing to??

1. Know your reader 

 
    -  The more you know, the more you can customize your message
    -  Age, education, income, gender, race, nationality, religion, attitude, beliefs & values

2. Check the reliability

 
    -  reader’s knowledge level and their interest

3. Writing from the reader’s perspective

 
    -  focus on benefits of reader, put yourself in readers shoes

4. Comes to terms with gender 

 
    -  refer men & women in the same way, avoid genders modifiers or gender specific words


Elements of a Good Letter

The most important element of writing a good letter is your ability to identify and write to your audience. If you are addressing your letter to the department of human resources, avoid using highly technical terms that only engineers would understand, even if your letter is addressed to an engineering company, the personnel in human resources does not have an engineering background.

The next element is that you make sure your present your objective in a clear and concise manner. Don't be vague about your objective, most people will not have the patience to sit there and guess at the meaning of your letter or the time to read a long-winded letter, just get to the point without going into unnecessary details.

Another important element to remember is to remain professional. Even if you are writing a complaint letter, remain polite and courteous, simply state the problem(s) along with any other relevant information and be sure to avoid threats and slander.


Tips for Correspondence in Business English

 

Sumber : Power Point from Mrs. Hanna ( ABA UMI )