1. Writing Business Messages
By: Kalgi Shah
Prerna Gupta
Hetal Solanki
Dipak Hadiya
Imtiyaaz Gogda

2. Three-Step Writing Process
Planning
Writing
Completing

3. Flow of the Presentation
Adapting to the audience
Being sensitive to the audience needs
Building strong relationships with the audience
Controlling our style and tone
Composing our message
Choosing strong words
Creating Effective statements
Creating coherent paragraphs

4. Adapting to the audience
Audiences want to know what is their benefit in the message.
We will be able to write most persuasively if we know our audience and their expectations and if we organize our message to address their needs.
Thus message should be composed in a way which shows: Sensitivity, Strong Relationship and Our appropriate style and tone.

5. Being Sensitive to audience needs
Adopt a “you” attitude
Demonstrate business etiquette
Emphasize the positive
Use bias-free language

6. The “YOU” Attitude
Speaking and writing in terms of audience’s wishes, interests, hopes and preferences.
Replace I, me, mine, us by you and yours.
I, me Selfishness or Disinterest
You, Yours Empathy

7. Contd…
For Example:
Instead of this: “To help us process this order, we must ask another copy of the requisition.”
Use this: “So that your order can be filled promptly, please send us another copy of requisition.”

8. Business Etiquette
Practice courtesy to show consideration and create a suitable environment for communication.
Be diplomatic to communicate calmly and politely.
Respond promptly to avoid miscommunication.

9. Contd…
For Example:
Instead of this “Because of your incompetent working we lost an order.”
Use this : “Lets go over what went wrong with the last order so that we can avoid future mistakes.”

10. Emphasize the Positive
While communicating bad news the difference between delivering bad news and being negative should be understood.
Elaborate the positive points when communicating bad news.
Using Euphemisms.
For Example: failing – underperforming
elderly – senior citizens

11. Bias-Free Language
Avoid age, gender, racial and disability biases which might offend the audience.
Example:
Not: Connie Green performed the job well for her age. But: Connie Green performed the job well.

12. Building a strong Relationship
Establish your credibility
Projecting the company’s image

13. Establishing Credibility
Honesty and objectivity: Tell truth to gain trust and respect.
Awareness of audience needs
Credentials, knowledge, expertise: Let the audience be aware of your credentials to gain faith.
Endorsements
Performance
Communication style
Your audience's response to every message you send depends heavily on their perception of your credibility, a measure of your believability based on how reliable you are and how much trust you evoke in others. With colleagues and long-term customers, you've already established some degree of credibility based on past communication efforts, and these people automatically lean toward accepting each new message from you because you haven't let them down in the past. With audiences who don't know you, however, you need to establish credibility before they'll listen fully to your message. Whether you're working to build credibility with a new audience, to maintain credibility with an existing audience, or even to restore credibility after a mistake, consider emphasizing the following characteristics:
Honesty. Demonstrating honesty and integrity will earn you the respect of your colleagues and the trust of everyone you communicate with, even if they don't always agree with or welcome the messages you have to deliver.
Objectivity. Audiences appreciate the ability to distance yourself from emotional situations and to look at all sides of an issue. They want to believe that you have their interests in mind, not just your own.
Awareness of audience needs. Let your audience know that you understand what's important to them. If you've done a thorough audience analysis, you'll know what your audience cares about and their specific issues and concerns in a particular situation.
Credentials, knowledge, and expertise. Every audience wants to be assured that the messages they receive come from people who know what they're talking about. To establish credibility with a new audience, put yourself in their shoes and identify the credentials that would be most important to them.
Endorsements. If your audience doesn't know anything about you, you might be able to get assistance from someone they do know and trust.
Performance. It's easy to say you can do something, but following through can be much harder. That’s why demonstrating impressive communication skills is not enough; people need to know they can count on you to get the job done.
Communication style. If you support your points with evidence that can be confirmed through observation, research, experimentation, or measurement, audience members will recognize that you have the facts, and they'll respect you.

14. Projecting the Company’s Image
When communicating with outsiders one acts as a spokesperson for his or her company.
Hence a company’s interests and reputation take precedence over one’s personal communication style.

15. Controlling Style and Tone
Tone in writing refers to the writer's attitude toward the reader and the subject of the message.
Style is the way words are used to achieve a certain tone or overall impression.
Use a conversational tone
Write in plain English
Select active or passive voice

16. Conversational Tone Tone ranges from informal-conversational-formal.
For business messages conversational tone is appropriate.
Ways to achieve conversational tone are:
Avoid using pompous language
Avoid preaching or bragging
Control emotions and intimacy
Use humor carefully

17. Using Plain English
Straightforward
Easy to understand
Conversational

18. What happens here?

19. Contd… Instead of this Use this Subsequent to the
passage of the subject
legislation, it is incumbent
upon you to advise your
organization to comply
with it.
After the law passes,
you must tell your
people to comply with
it.

20. Choosing the Right Voice
Active voice
Subject + verb + object
Less Formal and easy to understand.
Passive voice
Object + verb + subject
Unnecessarily vague and can make sentences longer.

21. Passive Voice Active: You are past due on your registration payment.
Passive voice gives the advantage of being diplomatic, leaves the actor out of the statement and avoids usage of personal pronouns to create an objective tone.
It can be less confrontational as for e.g.:
Active: You are past due on your registration payment.
Passive: Your registration payment is past due.

22. Composing Message Choosing Strong words Creating Effective Statements
Crafting Coherent paragraphs

23. Choosing Strong words Correct grammar Effectiveness
Example: “In view of the fact that the model failed during the time that we tested it, we are at this point in time searching for other options.”
This can be simplified as “ As the model failed we are searching for other options.”

24. Using Functional and Content words
Functional words: Have only one meaning.
Content words: Multidimensional and subject to various interpretations.
Denotative meaning: Literal or dictionary meaning.
Connotative meaning: Includes association and feeling invoked by the word.
Abstract word: Expresses characteristic.
Concrete word: Used for real things.

25. Finding Words that Communicate
Choose powerful words
Prefer familiar words
Avoid clichés
Use jargon carefully

26. Writing Effective Sentences
Types of sentences
Simple
Compound
Complex
Compound-complex

27. Is it effective?

28. Writing Coherent Paragraphs
Paragraph elements
Topic sentence
Support sentences
Transitional Elements

29. Effective Transitions
Additional Detail
Causal Relationship
Comparison
Contrast
Illustration
Time Sequence
Summary
Moreover, furthermore, in addition
Therefore, because, since, thus
Similarly, likewise, still, in comparison
Whereas, conversely, yet, however
For example, in particular, in this case
Formerly, after, meanwhile, sometimes
In brief, in short, to sum up

30. Paragraph Development
Illustration
Comparison and contrast
Cause and effect
Classification
Problem and solution

31. Composing E-Mail Keep content appropriate Avoid personal messages
Respect the chain of command
Promote hygiene
Don’t send unnecessary messages
Avoid insensitive, insulting

32. Arranging E-Mail Arranging Include the original question
State the desired response
Write a concise message

33. Adapting E-Mail Level of formality Audience Purpose
Informative subject line
Personalized message

34. Formatting E-Mail Prefer basic formatting Use proper capitalization
Minimize acronyms
Avoid emoticons

35. Example of Ineffective E-Mail
Subject: Travel Site
Deepa, We called the HD because
when we clicked on the travel site we got
a funny error message. Not sure what is
going on. We don't have this problem. 
I'm getting calls from clients. They want something done about it. RAJEEV

36. I bet you will figure this out. This is the error message
Subject:  Need Help >>> Travel Site dead ______________________
Hi Deepa,  
I left you a voic .
I bet you will figure this out. This is the error message
when you click on "Travel" on the home page:
ASP error, line 205, no find match: 456XXpp35, SQL error:
456DD.
Please take a quick look and give me a ring.
Many thanks. 
Rajeev
phone:

37. Word Processing Tools Style sheets and templates
Auto completion or correction
File or mail merge
Endnotes and footnotes
Indexes and tables of contents
Wizards

38. Thank You