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Clear goal of messages in the workplace

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update your team members, promote a service to a client, give an assignment, etc

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Goal of completeness means

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your message provides all the information necessary to meet that purpose

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3 strategies to achieve completeness:

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1) providing all relevant information 2) being accurate 3) being specific

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Accuracy is a basic objective of all business communications because

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your colleagues, customers, and clients base important decisions on your communications

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Accurate information is

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true, correct, and exact

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You should aim for accuracy in:

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facts, figures, statistics, and word choice

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Inaccuracies may result from

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miscalculations, misinformation, poor word choice, or simply typos

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Specific statements lead readers to believe you are/have/are:

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competent (know what you're talking about) character (that you are not hiding anything) caring (you want your readers to be informed)

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Your message is easier to read when it is

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concise

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Conciseness

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implies omitting needless words so that readers can rapidly process your main ideas. Not implying removing relevant information

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Use short paragraphs because

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readers form impressions about ease of reading by looking at paragraph length

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Aim for average sentence length of

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15 words or fewer For more analytical and complex business messages, you may have an average sentence length of 20 or fewer words.

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Avoid redundancies

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words or phrases that repeat the same meaning Ex: past history

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Avoid empty phrases

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Phrases that simply fill space without adding additional meaning. Common in conversations, but not needed for written messages.

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Ease of processing means

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your readers need less mental effort to understand your message the closer you match your writing style to the way your readers think and talk, the easier it is for them to process the information you present

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Use ____ ____ when possible to project a positive, can-do, action-oriented tone.

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action verbs

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Two types of revisions to achieve more effective action verbs

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1) find nouns that you can convert to action verbs. Ex: have a meeting becomes meet or have a discussion becomes discuss. 2) find forms of the verb to be (e.g., be verbs such as is, are, am) and convert them to action verbs. Ex: Sunrise is a great place to open a franchise with becomes Sunrise provides great opportunities for franchises

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Active voice, the doer-action-object allows for

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faster processing because most people's natural thinking occurs in this way. Emphasizes the business orientation of action, and specifies the doer.

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Active voice is the

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preferred writing style for most business writing

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Passive voice is sometimes better when

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attempting to avoid blaming others or sounding bossy (emphasize neutrality)

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Examples of Active and Passive voice:

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Active: Doer as subject + Verb + Object Passive: Object as subject + Be Verb + Verb + Doer (optional) Active: Sunrise provides free training for up to three people for each new store. Passive: Free training is provided for up to three people for each new store.

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Parallel language

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you apply a consistent grammatical pattern across a sentence or paragraph

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Parallelism is most important when

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you use series or lists

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Buzzwords

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workplace terms that become trite because of overuse, can stir negative feelings among some readers

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Figures of Speech

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such as idioms and metaphors, which contain nonliteral meanings, are generally out of place or inappropriate in business writing. Since they are nonliteral, they lack the precise meanings needed in business.

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Avoid It is/There are

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Readers naturally want to know precisely who or what they subject of a sentence is, specificity is important. Most sentences that begin with It is or There are fail to provide a specific subject and generally contain more words than necessary

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____ help readers identify key ideas and navigate the document to areas of interest.

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Headings

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Highlight

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Key words and phrases

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Use white space

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generously Documents with too much text and not enough white look daunting or cluttered

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Keep it

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Simple Get your message across in an easy-to-read manner.

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Expert business writers

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devote more time to planning and reviewing and proportionately less time to drafting. Carefully think about how the message will influence and affect others.

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Conduct a FAIR test

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a way of ensuring ethnical business communication. Facts Access Impacts Respect

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Facts

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Are you confident in your facts? Are you assumptions clear? Have you avoided slanting the facts or made other logical errors?

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Access

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Have you granted enough access to message recipients about decision making and information? Have you granted enough access to the message recipients to provide input? Are you open about your motives, or do you have a hidden agenda?

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Impacts

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Have you thought about how the message will impact various stake-holders? Have you evaluated impacts on others from ethical, corporate, and legal perspectives?

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Respect

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Have you demonstrated respect for the inherent worth of others: their aspirations, thoughts, feelings, and well-being? Have you show that you value others?

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Proofread

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Reread your entire document to make sure it is influential and accurate. Consider rereading each sentence several times, each time with a different focus.

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Get Feedback

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best way to ensure your communication is effective and fair is to get feedback from others your trusted colleagues are giving your message a trial run - trying to simulate how the intended message recipient will respond

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Questions to ask for feedback

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Framed the idea correctly? Does the business logic hold up? Does the message have the intended effects? Is the tone appropriate? etc.

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Which of the following can often be changed into action verbs in an effort to make your writing more dynamic?

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nouns and forms of the verb to be

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In business communication, how many ideas or topics does a paragraph usually address?

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one

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How many words should be in the typical paragraph of a business communication?

answer

40 to 80 words

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For routine messages paragraphs should be as short as

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20 to 30 words

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As the level of information and analysis grows deeper,

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some paragraphs will be longer

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