Chapter 3: Organizing and Drafting Flashcards
business writers collect and research background info to answer several questions: (5)
- what does the receiver need to know?
- what is the receiver to do?
- how are they to do it?
- when must the receiver do it?
- what will happen if the receiver doesn’t do it?
5 informal research methods
- search company files
- talk with manager
- interview target audience
- conduct informal surveys
- brainstorm ideas
what research method should you use to find background info
searching company files
4 research methods
electronic sources, search manually, primary sources, conduct scientific experiments
use when you expect the reader to be please or mildly interested
direct startegy
when using the direct strategy you put the main idea
first
3 advantages of direct organization for receptive audiences
- saves the reader time
- sets a proper frame of mind
- reduces frustration
easy and quick to read, clear opening and main idea first are advantages of
the direct strategy
use when audience may be uninterested
indirect strategy
explanation first and main idea follows
indirect strategy
the indirect strategy works well with 3 kinds of messages:
- bad news
- ideas that need persuasion
- sensitive news
3 benefits of indirect organization for unreceptive audiences
- respects the feelings of audiences
- facilitates a fair hearing
- minimizes a negative reaction
what determines direct or indirect organizations
audience response
contains one independent clause
simple sentence
The entrepreneur saw the opportunity is an example of
simple sentence
contains 2 complete but related thoughts. May be joined by a conjunction, or semicolon.
compound sentence
The entrepreneur saw the opportunity; and she responded immediately. is an example of
compound sentence
contains an independent clause and a dependent clause
complex sentence
When the entrepreneur saw the opportunity, she responded immediately. example of
complex sentence
contains at least 2 independent clauses and 1 dependent
compound-complex sentence
When the entrepreneur saw the opportunity, she responded right away; however she needed capital. example of
compound-complex sentence
avoid these 3 common sentence faults
fragment, run-on-sentence, and comma splice
broken off part of a complex sentence (often begin with words like “although, because, even”
fragment
2 independent clauses run together with no punctuation
run-on sentence
many jobs prepare traditional resumes some also use websites as electronic portfolios. is an example of
run-on-sentence
2 independent clauses joined with a comma
comma splice
how to show emphasis through mechanics (6)
underlining, italics and bold, font changes, caps, dashes, and listings
using vivid words, placing important ideas first or last, and giving important ideas the spotlight are ways to
show emphasis through style
subject performs the action. example: Justin must submit a tax return
active voice
subject receives the action. example: the tax return was submitted.
passive voice
creates balanced writing
parallelism
uses similar structure to express similar ideas, and matches nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs and clauses with clauses
parallelism
“after working overtime, the report was finally finished.” is an example of
dangling modifier
when modifier is not close enough to the phrase to be clear
misplaced modifier
“Firefighters rescued a dog from a burning car that had a broken leg.” is an example of
misplaced modifier
4 steps to drafting well-organized and effective paragraphs
- craft a topic sentence
- develop support sentences
- build paragraph coherence
- control paragraph length
