TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE WRITING

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TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE WRITING

• A QUICK SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR THE BUSINESS STUDENT

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TODAYS TOPICS

• FIVE COMPONENTS OF GOOD WRITING
• COMMON MISTAKES (and their corrections)
• RESOURCES

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FIVE COMPONENTS OF GOOD WRITING

• SOLID, WELL-RESEARCHED CONTENT
• APPROPRIATE TO THE AUDIENCE
• CONCISE
• CLEAR
• COHERENT

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CONTENT

• Have a I told the reader the purpose of my
  document?
• to provide information?
• to propose a course of action?
• to summarize a document?
• to solve a problem?

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Content, cont.

• Is my message clear to my reader?
• Have I included all I know, and researched any
  potential questions?
• Are my ideas organized by their relevance to my
  position?
• Do my main ideas stand out?
• Have I kept my paragraphs to one idea each?
• Are my transitions smooth?

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Understanding the Reader

• Who is my reader? How should I tailor my writing?
• Internal vs. external audiences
• The readers familiarity with the topic
• The readers attitude toward the topic
• The readers style and tone expectations
• Removing bias and attitude from your writing

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Content

• Unified paragraphs
• Incorporation offers many benefits for a
  business and its owners. For example, owners are
  not responsible for the businesss debts.
  Investors hope to make money when they buy a
  stock in a corporation. Incorporation also
  enables a business to obtain professional
  management skills. Corporations are subject to
  more governmental regulation than other forms of
  organization.

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Content

• Transitions and paragraph structure
• Begin with your conclusion and offer support
  (deductive organization)
• Use transitional phrases and words
• Repeat certain key phrases for emphasis and
  transition
• Limit paragraphs to 4-5 sentences

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Content

• Paragraph structure
• Topic sentence main idea
• Supporting sentence
• Supporting sentence
• Supporting sentence
• Concluding or transitional sentence
• Exercise 3-2

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Conciseness

• Edit for unnecessary words
• Due to the fact that because
• In advance of before
• Along the lines of like
• At this point in time now

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Conciseness

• To stay informed on the latest information,
  analysts must read a great number of published
  materials about finance

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Conciseness

• To stay current, analysts must read many finance
  publications

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Conciseness

• For the sake of our cost reduction goals, we
  changed the way we ordered equipment

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Conciseness

• To reduce costs, we changed the way we ordered
  equipment

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Conciseness

• There are several planning strategies that we can
  use to reduce our income taxes

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Conciseness

• We can reduce our income taxes by using several
  different planning strategies

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Conciseness

• In spite of the fact that our costs rose by 10
  percent, we still were able to keep our prices
  stable

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Conciseness

• Although costs rose by 10 percent, our prices
  remained stable

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Conciseness

• Ultimate consumer means a person or group of
  persons, generally constituting a domestic
  household, who purchase eggs generally at the
  individual stores of retailers or purchase and
  receive deliveries of eggs at the place of abode
  of the individual or domestic household from
  producers or retail route sellers and who use
  such eggs for the consumption as food.

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Conciseness

• Ultimate consumers are people who buy eggs to eat
  them

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Conciseness

• Wheres the verb?
• One of the fastest ways to add conciseness is to
  search for your verb and ask yourself whether
  youve got a verb or a verb phrase

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Conciseness

• We made an analysis of ways to cut costs
• We analyzed ways to cut costs
• We are able to make the determination of the cost
  of an asset due to the fact that we have records
  of its purchase
• We can determine an assets cost because we have
  purchase records

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Conciseness

• Inaccurate or awkward use of words
• Our advertising expense, which is 1 percent of
  total sales in a negligent/negligible amount
• This memo will discuss how to account for the
  theft of the filling station.
• This memo will discuss how to account for the
  robbery at the filling station

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Conciseness

• Awkward word use
• By using the net present value method, the
  chances of accepting a poor investment are
  reduced.
• Use of the net present value method reduces the
  chances of accepting a poor investment

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Conciseness

• Avoid the passive always use active verbs
• Corporate income taxes were raised by 15 by the
  current administration The current
  administration raised corporate taxes by 15
• It was decided by management that work hours
  would increase by 10 Management decided to
  increase work hours by 10.

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Conciseness

• Avoid big words
• endeavor try
• interface with work with
• utilize use
• List of better word choices

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Conciseness

• Avoid jargon
• Spell out acronyms in first use
• Use words with precision
• Use words you know

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Grammar

• The road signs you give a reader to help navigate
  your thoughts and words
• Fragments
• To measure the yield correctly
• For example, all the employees who are eligible
  for retirement

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Grammar

• When to use commas
• Two independent clauses (each with a verb and
  noun) are connected with a semi-colon
• Or, connected with a conjunction (and, but, etc)
  which is preceded by a comma

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Grammar

• Commas
• In a series of three things, there is only a
  comma between the first two
• I like apples, oranges and tangerines

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Grammar

• Independent clauses and dependent clauses are
  connected with a comma
• I went to the store, which was down the street.
• The dress she wore, which was blue, was very
  striking on her.
• Of all the gin joints in the world, this one
  served the best martinis

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Grammar

• Run on sentences when independent thoughts are
  connected with no punctuation
• Discounted cash flow techniques are not used by
  all companies however, they are popular in large
  corporations.

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Grammar

• Parallel structure grammatical equality in
  verbs, nouns, pronouns, etc.
• This report will discuss the computers features,
  how much it costs and its disadvantages.
• This report will discuss the computers features,
  costs and disadvantages.

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Grammar

• We recommend the following procedures
• Hire a consultant to help us determine our needs
• Investigate alternative makes and models of
  equipment
• We should then set up a pilot program to assess
  retraining needs for employees who will use the
  new equipment.
• (Grammar exercises)

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Grammar

• Buy a style guide
• MLA as well as Strunk and White Elements of Style
• MLA for citations and bibliographies
• Strunk and White is great for sentence and
  paragraph construction

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Grammar

• Watch for
• Sentence fragments
• Run-on sentences
• Misuse of clauses
• Parallel construction
• Apostrophes and plurals
• Quotations
• spelling

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Format and Design

• Does it look inviting?
• Use white space liberally
• Use graphics for emphasis. Dont clutter
• Bullets help people move through information
• Vary font and size for importance
• Use call outs to highlight critical information

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Format and Design

• Properly cite and footnote your references
• Follow MLA style
• Use proper citing for electronic vs. printed
  texts both in bibliography and in-text
• Ex. For web reference (basic)
• Gesterland, Richard. Worldbiz.com Page. Retrieved
  1 May 2001
• Refer to MLA website at mla.org for directions

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Most Common Mistakes

• Its and its
• Whose and whos
• Which and that
• Affect and effect
• Who and whom
• Verb tense
• Active verbs
• Buzzwords

• Too many words
• Possessives and plurals
• Using quotation marks
• Using and instead of to
• Using of instead of have
• Top heavy sentences

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What to use?

• Its a nice day (it is) vs. Its hair was red
  (possessive)
• Whose house is it (possessive) vs. Whos going?
  (who is)
• The weather will affect us (verb) vs. The weather
  has an effect (noun).
• Buy the dress that is red and white (specific to
  the object) vs. She wore a lovely dress, which
  was red and white (not critical to the object)
• To whom are you speaking (follows a pronoun) vs.
  Who is at the door? (no pronoun implied)

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Easily confused words

• Allusion/illusion
• Beside/besides
• Bimonthly/semi-monthly
• Concurrent/consecutive

• Discreet/discrete
• Principle/principal
• Desert/dessert
• There/theyre/their

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The preposition thing

• Try and come to my party vs. Try to come to my
  party
• You should of seen her face vs. You should have
  seen her face.

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Verbs

• Subject and tense agreement
• That analyst works hard vs. Two analysts work
  hard
• Sales dropped by 20 last year. That drop is the
  result of increased competition. (shift from past
  to present tense)

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Top heavy sentences

• Keep the noun and verb as close together as you
  can
• The dog, overcome with a sense of futility at
  the unfairness of life, and miserable at the
  inattention of her master, chased the ball.
• The dog chased the ball, even though she was
  overcome with a sense of futility at the
  unfairness of life and the inattention of her
  master.

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Buzzwords

• Eliminate them!
• maximized systems of strategic environmental
  processes.
• Analysis and validation of support strategies
  for customer satisfaction parameters
• Essentially, basically, totally, virtually,
  maximize, paradigm, utilize, facilitate,
  implement, etc, etc.

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Documents

• Memos
• Intro, body and conclusion
• Concise, concise, concise
• Consideration of audience and tone

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Documents

• Executive Summary
• Deductive
• Start with the purpose
• State conclusion/findings/recommendation
• Offer support for the position
• Describe the methods used to reach the position
• Restate recommendation
• Keep it to 2-3 pages max.

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Resources

• Buy one really good style manual
• Strunk White Elements of Style
• William Zinssner On Writing Well
• MLA Style Guide (for citations particularly)

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Resources

• Mla.org
• Plagiarism topic under student resources on
  sba.pdx.edu
• Writing Center at PSU (Cramer Hall 188F)

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Last thoughts

• Outline
• Revise
• Proof