copyright protection
the exclusive legal right to produce, distribute, and sell that creation
the "you" attitude
speaking and writing in terms of your audience's wishes, interests, hopes, and preferences
___________ communication generally requires more tact than oral communication
written/electronic
euphemisms
words or phrases that express a thought in milder terms that convey your meaning without carrying negative or unpleasant connotations; are unethical if they obscure the truth
bias-free language
avoids words or phrases that unfairly and even unethically categorize or stigmatize people in ways related to gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability, or personal characteristics
to appear fair, avoid these types of bias:
gender bias, racial and ethnic bias, age bias, and disability bias
credibility
a measure of your believability, based on how reliable you are and how much trust you evoke in others
to build your credibility, emphasize these characteristics:
honesty, objectivity, awareness of audience needs, credentials, knowledge, and expertise, endorsements, performance, sincerity
endorsement
a statement on your behalf by someone who is accepted by your audience as an expert
communication style
involves the choices you make to express yourself: the words you select, the manner in which you use those words in sentences, and the way you build paragraphs from individual sentences
tone
overall impression; can range from informal to conversational to formal
conversational tone used in most business communication
plain language that sounds businesslike without being too stuffy or too laid back
plain language
presents information in a simple, unadorned style that allows your audience to easily grasp your meaning; language your audience can understand the first time they read it
active voice
the subject performs the action and the object receives the action; better for business communication
passive voice
the subject receives the action; better when you want to soften bad news, put yourself in the background, or to create an impersonal tone
_________ is the first consideration when choosing words
correctness
_________ is the second consideration when choosing words
effectiveness
denotative meaning
the literal, or dictionary meaning; explicit, specific
connotative meaning
includes all the associations and feelings evoked by the word; implicit, associative
abstract word
expresses a concept, quality, or characteristic; usually broad, encompassing a category of ideas
concrete word
stands for something you can see, touch, or visualize; may or may not have a physical presence (example: software)
avoid cliches, which are
terms and phrases so common that they have lost some of their power to communicate
buzzwords
newly coined terms often associated with technology, business, or cultural changes; use sometimes
jargon
the specialized language of a particular profession or industry; usually an efficient way to communicate within the specific groups that understand it; is meaningless to those who aren't familiar
powerful words are those that are
specific, clear, and dynamic; lots of nouns and verbs, not adjectives and adverbs
choose powerful and _________ words
familiar
simple sentence
has one main (independent) clause (a single subject and a single predicate)
a compound sentence
has two main (independent) clauses that express two or more independent but related thoughts of equal importance; usually joined by and, but, or or
a complex sentence has
one main (independent) clause and one subordinate (dependent) clause
a dependent clause cannot
stand alone as a sentence
a compound-complex sentence
has two main (independent) clauses, at least one of which includes a subordinate clause
you can emphasize ideas in a sentence by
devoting more words to them, putting them at the beginning or at the end of a sentence, and by making them the subject of the sentence
unified
focusing on a single topic
coherent
presenting ideas in a logically connected way
most paragraphs consist of
a topic sentence that reveals the subject of the paragraph, related sentences that support and expand the topic, transitions that help readers move between sentences and between paragraphs
the support sentences are more _______ than the topic sentence
specific
transitions
connect ideas by showing how one thought is related to another
transitional elements include
connecting words (conjunctions), repeated words or phrases, pronouns, words that are frequently paired
five ways to develop a paragraph:
illustration, comparison or contrast, cause and effect, classification, problem and solution
illustration
giving examples that demonstrate the general idea
comparison or contrast
using similarities to develop the topic
cause and effect
focusing on the reasons for something
classification
showing how a general idea is broken up into specific categories
problem and solution
presenting a problem and then discussing the solution
templates
usually set overall document parameters such as page size and provide a specific set of styles to use
boilerplate
refers to a standard block of text that is reused in multiple documents
pull quotes
a piece of text copied from the main body of the document and formatted as a large, eye-catching visual element
completing business messages (the third step of the three step writing process) involves four key tasks:
revising your message to achieve optimum quality, then producing, proofreading, and distributing it
the ____________ and _____ of a message usually have the greatest impact on your readers, so make sure they are clear, concise, and compelling
beginning and end
Fletch-Kincaid Grade Level score
computes reading difficulty relative to grade-level achievement
using shorter words and simpler sentences can improve ____________
readability
You can also improve readability by
making the document interesting and easy to skim
you can make a document easier to skim by
varying sentence length, using shorter paragraphs, using lists and bullets instead of narrative, and adding effective headings and subheadings
short sentences have
up to 15 words or so
medium sentences have
15 to 25 words
long sentences have
more than 25 words
short sentences can be
processed quickly and are easier for nonnative speakers to interpret
medium sentences show
the relationships among ideas
long sentences are best for
covering complex ideas, listing multiple related points, or summarizing and previewing information
short paragraphs are usually ___ words or fewer
100
list
a series of words, names, or other items; are effective tools for highlighting and simplifying material; items in a list should be parallel
parallel items
all follow the same grammatical pattern
heading
a brief title that tells readers about the content of the section that follows
subheadings
subordinate to the headings, indicating subsections with a major section
headings and subheadings serve to
show the organization of your material, draw the reader's attention to key points, and show connections between ideas
descriptive headings
identify a topic but do little more
informative headings
guide readers to think in a certain way about the topic
self-contained informative headings are ones that
readers can read without reading the rest of the document
hedging means
pulling back from making a confident, definitive statement about a topic
if you hedge too often, you undermine your
credibility
camouflaged verbs are verbs that
have been changed into nouns; they often increase the length of a sentence without adding any value
to edit for conciseness:
delete unnecessary words and phrases, shorten long words and phrases, eliminate redundancies, and recast "it is/there are" starters
the production quality of your message
the total effect of page or screen design, graphical elements, typography, etc.
to achieve an effective design, pay careful attn to the following design elements:
consistency, balance, restraint, and detail
white space
any space that doesn't contain text or artwork, both in print or online; use a lot of it to increase the chances that readers will read your messages
justified margins
they are flush, or aligned vertically, on both the left and right; best to avoid in most business documents
flush left & ragged right margins are usually used in
business documents
typeface
refers to the physical design of letters, numbers, and other text characters
font
a set of characters in a given typeface
serif typefaces
have small crossbones (serifs) at the ends of each letter stroke (example: Times New Roman)
Type style
refers to any modification that lends contrast or emphasis to type, including boldface, italic, underlining, color, and other highlighting and decorative styles
multimedia document
contains a combination of text, graphics, photographs, audio, animation, video, and interactivity (such as hyperlinks that access webpages or software programs)
information architecture
the structure and navigational flow of websites and other multimedia documents
desktop publishing software
goes beyond word processing, offering more advanced and precise layout capabilities that meet the technical demands of publication-quality printing
most business letters are printed on letterhead stationery, which
includes the company's name, address, and other contact information
letters typically have the following elements:
preprinted letterhead stationery, date, inside address, salutation, complimentary close, signature block