Business Communication: In Person, In Print, Online
INSTRUCTOR’S GUIDE
Chapter 4
The Writing Process
Overview
Successful business writing starts with careful analysis of the
audience. The writer then plans the purpose, content, and
organization of the message.
Learning Objectives
• Analyze the audience for your communication.
• Plan the purpose, content, and organization of your message.
9e
Quick Links for Chapter 4
PPT Slides | Solutions to Exercises | Handouts | Video Suggestions | Company Examples | BizCom in the News
Teaching Suggestions
Resources
INTRODUCE the concept that business writing should be approached
strategically, through a series of steps. The first step, of course, is
analytical—analyzing the audience.
characteristics about the audience, but explain that it’s important to
understand the audience to determine how to best communicate with
them. Ask students to identify ways that their analysis would affect their
communication. (See the solution to Exercise 1 for more detail.)
Additionally, each team may be asked to rewrite the email to make it more
audience focused.
Resources
Resources
INSTRUCT students to work in teams.
INSTRUCT each team to determine one general purpose statement for a
message in each example and several specific communication objectives.
Encourage students to evaluate how successfully the communication
objectives were achieved in their situation.
Students can share the results and provide feedback to the class using a
document camera or simply share the map with a partner.
INSTRUCT students to explore spicynodes.org for creating mind maps.
Have them work in teams in a computer lab or with laptops to mind map
the above situation.
Resources
LO3: Compose the first draft of your message.
drafting and revising. Introduce techniques to overcome writer’s block.
Discuss drafting for various genres and media: email, memos, letters, and
the Internet.
INVITE students to discuss why drafting is important for such short
messages as emails and why few emails actually get opened.
Resources
LO3: Compose the first draft of your message.
INSTRUCT students to complete the following tasks as homework:
• Now look at your sent box. Rewrite the subject lines of five emails to
make them more enticing for the receiver to open.
• What differences do you see among these emails, and why do you
believe companies took these different approaches?
• Which version do you find most effective? Consider the type of
company and its customer demographic as you decide which email
works best; for example, what’s the difference between Chase and
JPMorgan Chase?
14-week non-business: ASK students to share their experience with writer’s
block. Show the PPT slides “Procrastinating” and “Overcoming Writer’s
Block,” and ask students which strategies they have found successful and
which they might try.
Resources
LO3: Compose the first draft of your message.
To challenge students even more, you may ask them to imagine that the
emails will be written to someone in another country. They should then
Resources
LO4: Revise for content, style, and correctness.
INTRODUCE the process of revising. Ask students to explain the difference
between revising and proofreading based on the reading in Chapter 4.
DISCUSS with students the three steps to revising. Use the following
discussion starters:
• Why do we start revising with content, continue with style, and finish
with correctness?
• Which part of revising do you find the most difficult? Why?
• Which part of revising do you find the most familiar and comfortable?
Would it be a good idea to start with this part? Why or why not?
Resources
LO5: Proofread your message.
INTRODUCE proofreading as the final quality-control check for the
message. Discuss the most common challenges of proofreading.
Resources
LO5: Proofread your message.
SHOW the PPT slides “Hard-to-Spot Errors” and “Catch More Errors.”
Instruct students to work in teams. Ask each team to discuss the listed
items that they find the most common or useful (e.g., typical errors they
INSTRUCT students to proofread the sentences from the PPT slide. Ask
students to explain each correction.
A similar activity can be used with sentences taken from real student
projects (after receiving consent and removing all identifying
information). Encourage students to pay attention to the most common
errors and ways to avoid these errors.
homonyms. Invite students to research more homonyms and brainstorm
possible situations when confusing these words may cause serious
problems to businesses.
Solutions to Exercises
The 3Ps in Practice: Announcing Writing Skills Workshops
Process
1. What is the purpose of your message?
To encourage employees to attend the optional sessions and to help employees
understand the importance of good writing skills.
2. Describe your audience.
3. How will you explain why you’re offering the workshop? What background information
will you include—without embarrassing any particular employee?
We want to provide educational programs for our employees, and literacy is the most
4. How will you encourage employees to participate? Consider workshop topics that might
interest them and how employees will benefit from participating.
The restaurant will allow employees to take one hour of their paid workweek to spend at
5. What logistical information will you include? What do employees need to know about
the schedule, enrollment process, etc.? (You may invent details.)
The classes will take place 1.2 miles from the restaurant. A map will be included with a
6. What will you use as your subject line?
Product
To: All Restaurant Employees
From: Courtney Miller
Subject: A New Opportunity for Restaurant Employees—Writing Workshops!
Dear Employees,
This year, we have decided to offer a new benefit for each of you—six writing workshops
offered by an instructor at Treleaven Community College. Literacy is the most fundamental
and important aspect to education, and we want to provide our employees with this
educational opportunity.
We want you to take advantage of these workshops, so we’ll pay for you to attend the six
weekly workshops. These workshops will cover an array of topics based on your interests
and will be located a short 1.2 miles away. (See attached map and public transportation
options.)
1. Complete an audience analysis of housekeeping staff.
Students may respond as follows.
Who is the audience?
My primary audience is the housekeepers whose hours will be changed by 30 minutes. My
What is your relationship with the audience?
I am a manager at this small independent hotel. Because the hotel is small, the housekeeping
How will the audience likely react?
This depends on each housekeeper’s personal situation. Housekeepers who have to navigate
What does the audience already know?
What is unique about the audience?
How does your analysis affect your approach for communicating the message?
Understanding the likelihood of mixed reactions changes my approach to communicating the
2. Analyze an instructor as the audience.
This one may look familiar! You might discuss an upcoming assignment here as an example.
3. Discuss a company’s public statement.
4. Evaluate audience focus in a company invitation.
Students may have different opinions on the effectiveness of the theater’s gesture and
5. Identify general–purpose statements and communication objectives for
several situations.
Situation
General-Purpose
Statement
Specific Communication
Objective
As the manager of a small
retail clothing store, you write
an email to let employees
know they’re getting a $1 per
hour wage increase.
To communicate a
pay raise.
To tell employees that they
are getting a raise and why so
that they feel good and are
motivated to stay with the
store.
As the assistant manager of a
movie theater, you write an
email to tell a customer you
found the earring she lost the
night before.
To help a customer.
To tell the customer how to
get her earring back and to
make her happy.
Situation
General-Purpose
Statement
Specific Communication
Objective
stock price.
with reasons to stay
committed to the
organization.
announcing a new product
that will be available in the
store starting next month.
start word–of–mouth
marketing.
As a student, you write a
letter to your college
newspaper editor about the
increase in tuition costs.
To complain about
college costs.
To explain that the increase
in tuition costs creates a
burden on college families
and to encourage people to
protest rising rates.
about the facility being left
unlocked last night.
the facility unlocked and to
encourage the employee to
be more careful in the future.
6. Plan the organization of messages.
Some of these situations are difficult—and are covered in more detail in other chapters. At
this point, you may just want to get students thinking about the consequences of the direct
and indirect organizational plans.
Situation
Audience Reaction
Direct/Indirect
email to tell a customer you
found the earring she lost the
night before.
soon as possible.
director, you write an email to
conservative)
managers prefer this style,
As the manager of a small
retail clothing store, you write
Positive
(excitement)
Direct approach—you want
to convey the good news as
Situation
Audience Reaction
Direct/Indirect
the president of the company
requesting a 10% increase in
your advertising budget.
but you want to provide all of
your reasons to help the
president understand the
need for finances first.
(Students could argue both
points here, and it may
depend on the CEO and the
advertising director’s
relationship.)
stock price.
maybe ready to
stop investing)
your reasons before reaching
your conclusion. However,
the bad news, so the CEO will
need to be careful about
building suspense (that is,
making the audience believe
an announcement is coming
at the end).
As a marketing manager, you
write a letter to customers
announcing a new product
that will be available in the
store starting next month.
Positive
(excitement)
Direct approach– you want to
convey the good news as
soon as possible.
Situation
Audience Reaction
Direct/Indirect
unlocked last night.
the severity of the mistake.
7. Brainstorm new ice cream flavors.
This exercise is a good way to get students involved in the brainstorming process. Many
students have not had the opportunity to use brainstorming techniques. The process might
8. Organize a restaurant review.
Students should gain an understanding of how to best plan and organize a message about a
restaurant review.
9. Write a draft restaurant review.
After planning comes drafting. The more work students did to plan and organize their
message, the easier this step will be. Encourage students not to edit as they write but to
practice free writing.
10. Write a draft email to the sales team at Herman Miller.
Here is a sample email:
To: Sales Associates at Herman Miller
From: Frances Johnson, Sales Manager
Subject: Take the extra step–make personal visits with prospective clients
Dear Sales Associates,
This year, we need to have more clients choose Herman Miller for their office furniture needs. To
increase our customer base and increase loyalty to Herman Miller, we ask that you make
personal visits instead of making phone calls and sending online brochures.
For this reason, please find time in your schedule to visit at least three businesses each week.
The investment will pay off!
If you have any questions or additional ideas, I would like to hear them.
Thanks,
Frances
11. Write a company memo to announce a new organizational structure.
This could be an engaging activity for students and a way for them to learn more about each
other. Students can be creative in what details they include about each other. In a two–
page memo, following format guidelines in the Reference Manual, students should include
the following:
• An introduction, referencing the change to a new management team
12. Format a letter.
Students can be creative in designing letterhead and may choose an appropriate salutation
and closing. Their letter template should follow the guidelines in the chapter and the
13. Write blog posts.
14. Set goals to overcome writer’s block.
Student responses in methods to overcome writer’s block will depend on personal
15. Revise your email to sales associates at Herman Miller.
This exercise is intended to teach students how to revise an email in order to communicate
16 Revise another student’s Herman Miller email.
Students should follow the revision process described in the exercise. Have students reflect
on their peer revisions. Were their peer reviews helpful? Did their peers find errors the
student overlooked? Check that students are providing useful suggestions to each other.
17. Revise a previous message.
18. Revise an email gone wrong.
delete messages all in one day. Also, calling out an individual in the final line of the message
is unprofessional and distasteful. Both he and coworkers who respect him will react quite
negatively to that statement.
A better approach to this email is more strategic: how can the IT department convince
employees to manage their messages? Below is a sample revision of the email:
To: All University Employees
From: IT Department
Subject: Decreasing the Size of Email Inboxes
Hello Everyone,
We need your help in managing the size of email inbox sizes. Recently, our email system has
been experiencing problems due to large inboxes. Our server cannot process the amount of data
We are asking you to please keep no more than 250 emails in your inbox. With this cap, email
performance will be much improved and more reliable; therefore, we ask that you take the time
to eliminate or archive old messages.
18. Revise another email gone wrong.
This is another variation of a real message (from Business Wire) and can be found at
2
No
Manger (should be Manager)
3
No
@ (should be &)
5
No
MI (should be MN)
6
No
Thomas (should be Johnson)
to such an email: employees will feel that this reprimand is harsh and unprofessional. Many
will retaliate in anger and defensiveness instead of cooperation.
Here’s a sample revision:
To: All SF Employees
From: Zach Frazier
Subject: Reminder of Expense Policy and Procedure
Good morning,
I have just reviewed expense reports from July and have noticed a few areas that I would like you
to improve. With the budget tightening, travel is one area where we need to manage expenses
particularly carefully.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation with company policies.
Zach
19. Proofread a letter.
Line
Spell
Check
Error
1
No
31 (April has only 30 days.)
1
No
Punctuation error (should be a comma between day and year)
7
aksed (should be asked)
7
Yes
aud- (incorrect word division)
8
Yes
teh (should be the)
9
Yes
allways (should be always)
9
Yes
surprized (should be surprised)
9
No
the (should be they)
10
No
the result being that (The need for proofreading skills is not a result.)
11
No
advise (should be advice)
11
No
proof read (should be one word)
12
Yes
aviod (should be avoid)
12
No
error (should be errors)
13
Yes
that (doubled from the previous line)
14
Yes
preparred (should be prepared)
15
No
(missing word after to)
15
No
JoAnne (spelled JoAnn in letter address)
15
Yes
Freinds (should be Friends)
16
No
you (should be your)
question mark, although students may argue that this is a polite request,
which does not require a question mark.)
18
Yes
Sincerly (should be sincerely)
18
No
Yours (should be yours, with a lowercase y)
18
No
, (missing comma after yours)
19
No
Mr. (Omit a personal title in the signature.)
20
No
Punctuation error (No comma needed because the title is on the next
line.)
21
No
Enclosure (Could add a notation line because an enclosure is indicated in
the letter.)
20. Proofread a job posting.
Review this passage, and see how many errors you can find. Look for spelling, formatting,
and punctuation errors.
Company Scenario: Writeaway Hotels
You’ll find an instructor’s guide and PowerPoint for the full email simulation on
Hello Janet,
Thank you for taking the time to notice! I can’t believe it’s been a year already.
Work is going very well. I’m really enjoying my position at Writeaway and am glad to work with such a
nice group of people.
I appreciate your checking in.
Pat