Getting Started: Planning and Writing Business Messages

1. Getting Started: Planning and Writing Business Messages

CFR CHAPTER 2; CWH 6-16.

2. Learning objectives

Upon completing the readings from Week 3, you will be able to
Identify the components that make up the writing process specific to
the context of business.
Adopt individual techniques to plan a message, generate content, avoid
writer’s block, and revise/edit/proofread.

3. Writing is a process

As Boromir implies in this version of the noted
internet meme from Lord of the Rings, producing a
completed message is never achieved in a single step.
Whether composing an essay for university or a memo for
an organization, writing involves a number of steps from
planning to completing the final document. Even a “quick
email” requires some planning and proofreading. This
week, we look closely at the individual steps in the process
of writing.
(“One Does Not Simply”)

4. Overview: steps in the process

Planning and pre-writing
Organizing
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Proofreading
Feedback
Rinse and repeat
The writing process is a cycle rather than an entirely linear
progression, so, as a writer, you may circle back and revisit or
repeat any of the steps as circumstances demand. If you wish to
delete an entire paragraph after editing, you return to the
revising stage. If you receive feedback suggesting you change
your tone, you return to re-draft or revise. Ultimately, only
deadlines and due dates determine when the otherwise openended process must cease.

5. Planning and pre-writing

The first step for any writing project (and any communications endeavour)
is considering the rhetorical situation, the circumstances surrounding
the composition of the message. This includes, first and foremost,
establishing the nature of the audience (Who are they? What are they
like?), your intended purpose, the best channel for the message, and
any “limitations on what can be said” (Meyer 48). Planning effectively
reduces the chance of error and the need to redraft or clarify messages,
which costs time and money while diminishing the reputation of the
sender.

6. Purpose

Within the rhetorical situation, the first consideration when writing is
determining your purpose, why you are writing. Are you primarily looking
to inform your audience as in an expense report, or is your first goal to
persuade as in a proposal? All other purposes can fit under the umbrella
of these two, and the two may overlap. An advertisement informs about a
product or service while persuading the potential customer to use it. An
internal announcement to staff about how to submit a timesheet seeks to
inform. Perhaps it goes without saying that you need to know why you are
writing before getting started, but thinking consciously about purpose
helps ensure your message is focused.

7. Know the audience: The most important consideration

In case you hadn’t noticed in the previous
readings, the necessity of knowing your audience
has already been emphasized as part of both
cross-cultural and ethical communication.
Purpose and audience are usually the two
foundational aspects to think about when
preparing to write. It’s fairly easy to know your
purpose—you know if you have to give bad news
or if you need to persuade. Knowing the audience
can be more challenging, and given how crucial it
is for all the professional writing you do, we’re
going to take some time to talk about how to do
this in depth here.
(Ganzer)

8. Why does it matter so much?

As is the case when considering cultural
differences and ethics, empathizing with your
audience, putting yourself in their shoes and
understanding what they want, is the best way to
know what and how to write for them. If you know
your manager is very precise and likes detail,
you’d add more information to the memos you
send her and use a certain tone. If you know the
potential buyers for your product are bored by
complex information but like to feel happy, you
could decide to use the image of a puppy in an
advertisement to sell a beer. By understanding
“the needs and mindset” of your audience, you
can then tailor your message to appeal to them
(Meerman Scott 109).

9. How to do it?

David Meerman Scott, in his now classic book The New
Rules of Marketing and PR, talks about creating
buyer personas or buyer profiles, “fictional, generalized
representations of your ideal customers” (Vaughan). For
an audience analysis (your first writing assignment), you
do something similar, trying to get a thorough sense of
who your potential reader will be, then craft your written
work accordingly.
Audience analysis can encompass a range of items such
as whether your audience is likely to be resistant or
compliant, what they know (and need to know) in terms of
background, what their education level and other
demographic traits are, and what their personalities
are like. This is easier for a simple audience comprised
of one individual, especially one you already know, but
more difficult when writing to multiple people (a complex
audience) or those with whom you’ve never spoken.
(Vaughan)

10. Online Audiences

Analyzing your audience may seem particularly daunting when
writing online content, a situation where you have a potential
audience of more than a billion people with internet access
across the whole world.
You can’t realistically or effectively target the entire Web with
what you write but instead need to tailor digital content to
particular niche audience. For example, instead of blogging
about cars, you might write a blog for Canadian owners of the
second-generation Mazda 3 automobile. Odds are that more
general content will not be found or will be buried online while
the specific focus, the niche topic, will be found more easily by a
certain audience.

11. Examples

David Meerman Scott gives a concrete
example of how a targeted audience
analysis was used to generate campaign
materials for the 2004 Presidential election
in the United States. Instead of trying to
appeal to a general audience of voters,
individualized material was directed toward
specific niche groups like “’NASCAR Dads’
(rural working-class males, many of whom
are NASCAR fans) and ‘Security Moms’
(mothers who were worried about terrorism
and concerned about security)” (Meerman
Scott 122).

12. And specifically, online…

At right, Meerman
Scott (29) gives
another example of
how audience
analysis is used
specifically to
generate online
content or digital
writing in the form of
a college website
tailored to five
specific audience
types.

13. Keywords

A unique aspect of considering the audience when writing online
documents for an organization, whether it is promotional material, a
website, a blog or anything else available to the public, is knowing how
your desired niche audience thinks in terms of keywords – when they
search the Web, what will they be looking for when searching for
something related to your organization? Part of empathizing with your
audience therefore requires brainstorming search terms they might use
and working them into what you are writing. For example, if you are a
book publisher and are promoting a new novel about a vampire and
human in love, you might use “paranormal romance” or mention Twilight
in order to come up in search results of those who are searching these
terms.

14. Tools: Approaches to audience analysis

To begin, identify the audience or rather audiences.
Who is the primary audience, the main recipient
of the message? While the first reader(s)to get your
message, termed the initial audience, might be
the same, this could also be the person who
initiated the communication. This individual could
also be the gatekeeper audience, with the power
to stop your message. Are there additional parties
such as lawyers or the media who may read and act
on the communication after the primary audience?
These would comprise the secondary audience.
Finally, your message could have a watchdog
audience if there are any parties that don’t have a
direct part in your message but who can exert an
influence on it such as a political or regulatory
agency.
(Blackwell)

15. Research

Once you’ve identified who your audience is, learn about them
Demographics, the statistical data
on your reader(s), can be helpful in
identifying their attributes. Think of
common census data such as age,
education level, location, gender and
ethnicity. Targeting communications
to retirees would involve different
approaches than addressing young
parents as would writing a farmer in
Winnipeg as opposed to a banker in
Toronto.
Psychographics, the interests, attitudes and opinions (IAO
variables) of your audience are also a valuable tool, highly
used in marketing. Some examples are the goth subculture,
NFL football fans, or those interested in “green” living.
(Rupert)
(Pogrzeba)

16. Myers-Briggs Personality Type

In the 1940s and ‘50s, Elizabeth Briggs
Myers identified and described a set of
sixteen personality types based on
individual behavioral preferences such as
introversion vs. extroversion, feeling vs.
thinking. These indicators have since been
used as a means of understanding the
needs of employees, patients, clients,
audiences, and oneself. You can take an
unofficial online quiz to gain some sense of
your personality type. You can also view
the Myers-Briggs types of
notable individuals.
(Jordy)

17. Why?

Using some or all of these tools to analyze your audience helps you craft the
communication to appeal to them.
If your reader is known to be hostile to an idea, you would take more time
to develop its persuasive aspect.
If you’re writing a technical report for engineers with graduate degrees
you’d choose a different level of diction and use different vocabulary than
if you were creating a public service ad aimed at teens.
If you know your manager is an introvert, you might send an email to
request something rather than asking for a personal meeting, as
introverts prefer to mull over content and are more comfortable reading
material carefully than making an immediate face-to-face decision.

18. Which channel to use

As suggested in the previous slide, knowing your audience’s personality
can also influence which channel you select in order to convey the
message. Page 54 of our textbook, CFR, provides a detailed list of other
factors governing the choice of channel independent of audience
considerations, such as how quickly the information needs to be received,
how much information needs to be provided, and whether there needs to
be a “paper trail” recording the content.

19. Generating content

Once you have completed the planning of your message, you
can apply a variety of techniques to develop written content and
overcome writer’s block. Brainstorming involves simply thinking
in a concentrated manner about your topic for a set period of
time, translating your ideas to a blank page (hardcopy or on
screen) by listing or freewriting. These are sometimes
considered part of brainstorming (see page 7 of the CWH)
though they really involve externalizing the ideas you have
generated.
(Marcos C.)

20. Freewriting

Freewriting involves writing non-stop,
with no heed of grammar or
correctness, for a set period of time
(often ten minutes). You may then
engage in “focused freewriting,”
selecting a particular aspect of what
you have freewritten and freewriting
again on that idea alone. Ultimately,
emphasizing the recursive nature of the
writing process, your job is to go back
and revisit the material, making use of
the best parts and putting order to your
output.
(Oliveri)

21. Questioning

Another approach is to make use of the six
“journalist’s questions”—Who? What?
Where? When? Why? How?—asking these
about your topic. Doing this provides a
guide for issues, topics, and considerations
that may be worth addressing in the
message. For example, in announcing a
policy change, you might ask “What
specific changes need to be mentioned?
Who is affected? Why are we changing the
policy? How will this affect employee
behavior?” Answering these questions
furnishes the content for your message.
(Thwip!)

22. Mindmapping

If you are a visual learner, mind-mapping (also known variously
as “clustering,” “web diagramming,” “bubble mapping” or by a
number of other terms) may be the approach for you. This
involves drawing a central shape with a particular idea in it,
then adding related ideas that you brainstorm and connecting
them with lines, helping you visualize the interrelationships.
This may be done on paper or with free online tools such as
Text2Mindmap, Bubbl.us or Freemind.
(Kaluri)

23. Organizing

To some degree organization occurs
naturally while moving from freewriting
to focused freewriting, from answering
the journalist’s questions, or from
drawing a mindmap, but, as a final part
of planning. many writers prefer to map
out the structure of a document using a
outline, which can be as formal as
having a hierarchical list using Roman
numerals, Arabic numerals, and letters,
or more casual, by grouping and
classifying similar ideas on paper.
I. Policy change
1. No alcohol in breakroom.
a)
Beer
b)
Liquor
2. No gambling in breakroom.
c)
Poker
d)
Blackjack

24. Outlines create structure

Formally written messages are
constructed with individual sections
such as an introduction, topic
sentences, body paragraphs, and a
conclusion. Just as one wouldn’t
construct a house without a blueprint,
so too some sort of organizational plan
—a blueprint for your house built of
words—is essential when writing.
(Collapsed House)

25. Drafting and Revision

When planning ends, writing (drafting)
and rewriting (revision) take place,
though some form of drafting and
revision may already have taken place
while freewriting and performing
focused freewriting as a means of
developing ideas.
During drafting and revising it is not
uncommon for writer’s block to occur.
Our text (Meyer 59-60) provides some
useful advice on getting around this.
(Coleman)

26. Beating writer’s block

A major cause of writer’s block while drafting (or re-drafting) is the desire for perfection,
especially a concern for lower-order issues like correct grammar or choosing exactly the
right word. This idea should be abandoned—one can edit the text later as endless tweaks
or a concern for correctness can hinder the completion of drafting. This is an occasion
where the stages in the writing process should be separated. Revision is distinct from
editing in that it focuses on the large-scale or macro issues such as content and
organization. You may want to move, delete, or add a paragraph. You may reconsider your
entire approach at persuasion in the message. This is part of revision.
Editing should occur later as a distinct step once the higher-order matters are completed to
your satisfaction. However, the ease of editing using word processing software makes it
tempting to do so while still in the middle of drafting or revising. This can be a wasted
effort if you later delete a large chunk of text you’ve spent time editing in addition to being
a major cause of writer’s block. So, leave the lower-order, micro concerns for later.

27. Beating writer’s block

Another tip is to escape writer’s block is to
leave the work for a time, either getting
away your desk for a while, even a day or
more, to revisit your content with a
recharged mind.
Alternatively, skip to another section in
the work. If you are having difficulty
drafting the introduction, do the body first.
There’s no rule that you need to progress
through the document in linear order.
If all else fails, try freewriting again as a
way to generate content in the middle of
the drafting process.
(Albaih)

28. Revising, editing, proofreading

Revising usually refers to large-scale changes to a draft such as
those involving content or structure. It implies “seeing again,”
which requires you to visit your work with fresh eyes. Thus, it is
best to leave the work for some time, ideally a day or more,
before reviewing it. Sending the draft to other readers for
feedback can be valuable during the revision stage as well. You
will have the opportunity to engage in this sort of peer review
process for some of the assignments during the term.
(Humpohl)

29. Editing, proofreading

A similar principle applies to editing and
proofreading at the end of the writing process.
Besides setting the work aside before looking for
individual issues of wording or grammar, printing
a hardcopy can help. We tend to skim when we
read on screen and therefore miss errors.
Reading the text aloud is also a fantastic way
to hear issues of wording (awkward phrasing,
wordiness) or sentence structure (run-ons,
fragments). Better yet, have someone read the
document to you or use a text-to-speech feature,
so you can concentrate on hearing the content.
Lastly, run a spell check on your document but
realize it will not catch everything (as the widely
circulated poem at right reveals), so scan it closely
yourself.
Eye halve a spelling chequer 
It came with my pea sea 
It plainly marques four my revue 
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word 
And weight four it two say 
Weather eye am wrong oar write 
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid 
It nose bee fore two long 
And eye can put the error rite 
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it 
I am shore your pleased two no 
Its letter perfect awl the weigh 
My chequer tolled me sew.

30. It takes time

If there is one overarching idea that we
can take away from the readings this
week, it is that the writing process can—
and should—take time. Not only do we go
through the steps but we may go through
them multiple times for a single document.
Paralleling the Slow Food and Slow Travel
movements, Slow Writing is the best way
to optimize the writing experience. Of
course, in real life, deadline pressures can
hasten the process, so it is important to
budget and manage your time effectively.
(Depolo)

31. Study Questions

Do you make use of any of the methods of content generation and
revision detailed in the readings of the week? If not, would you? Does
one of them seem particularly appealing to you? Why?
Consider question 4 on page 69 of CFR. Identify for yourself the
purpose for each of the forms of writing listed there.

32. Works Cited

Albaih, Khalid. “Waiting.” Illustration. Flickr. 12 Sep. 2012. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Blackwell, David. “Silvester the Guard Dog.” Photograph. Flickr. 14 Apr. 2012. Web. 5 Jul.
2014.
Collapsed house. Harris & Ewing. Photograph. Library of Congress. 1923. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Coleman, Marie. “2.19.10.” Photograph. Flickr. 19 Feb. 2010. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Depolo, Steven. “SLOW.” Photograph. Flickr. 24 Apr. 2010. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Ganzer, Rupert. “KOL Audience.” Photograph. Flickr. 9 Dec. 2010. Web. 5 Jul. 2014.
Humpohl, David. “eye see you.” Photograph. Flickr. 30 Oct. 2005. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Jordy. “I Will Not Be Graphed.” Photograph. Flickr. 22 Sep. 2008. Web. 5 Jul. 2014.
Meerman Scott, David. The New Rules of Marketing and PR. New York: Wiley, 2013. Print.
Meyer, Carolyn. Communicating for Results: A Canadian Student’s Guide. Don Mills:
Oxford UP, 2014.

33. Works Cited (continued)

Kanuri, Kalyan. “Travel Planning – Mindmap.” Image. Flickr. 26 Jul. 2008. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Marcos C. “Brainstorm.” Photograph. Flickr. 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Oliveri, Mike. “Brainstorm.” Photograph. Flickr. 30 Jun. 2007. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
“One does not simply.” Image. Imgflip. n.d. Web. 5 Jul. 2014.
Pogrzeba, Norbert. “Létain.” Photograph. Wikipedia Germany.16 Dec. 2006. Web. 5 Jul.
2014.
Rupert, Nathan. “Ready for War.” Photograph. Flickr. 27 Sep. 2009. Web 5 Jul. 2014.
Thwip! “more at eleven.” Photograph. Flickr. 15 Dec. 2004. Web. 6 Jul. 2014.
Vaughan, Pamela. “How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business.” 28 May
2015. Web. 3 Sep 2016.