...as what makes them critical to writing a report. The four characteristics are completeness, conciseness, clarity, and accuracy. As stated in the textbook “A report may contain all the necessary information, but if it is poorly written, points may be lost in the prose” (P.189). Simply put, if it doesn’t contain all the key elements your report could otherwise become useless. The first characteristic of a well written report is its completeness. “Completeness means that the report contains all pertinent information” (P.190). Officers have a series of questions they should ask themselves before handing in a report to make sure that it is complete. Reports should contain any and all relevant information so that your report leaves no open questions whether it by a fellow officer or the court. Having all the necessary information in the report will show what actions were taken and it helps to avoid wasted time and effort of having to do it all over again. E-mail addresses have become important in report writing since it is the easiest way to deliver a statement to an officer. “An Added Benefit is that e-mail interviews can be printed out and attached to the supplementary report” (P.190). The importance of the completeness of a written report is crucial due to it needing every detail that was crucial to the investigation. The next characteristic of a well written report is its conciseness. “Reports should be as concise as possible while retaining all essential features and details...
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...Business Communications (X 109) Module 2 The Writing Process Creating Business Messages Organizing and Perfecting Business Messages Basics of business writing • Business messages are different from college essays, term papers, and messages to friends. • Conciseness and clarity count. The Writing Process • Planning and prewriting • Composing • Revising and editing Effective Business Messages • Have a purpose – General – Specific • Are clear and concise • Consider the needs of the audience Outlining • Define the main idea • State the three to five major points • Support with evidence Audience Analysis • • • • • • Primary audience Secondary audience Reaction of audience Knowledge level of audience Relationship to audience Expectations of audience Factors To Consider • • • • • • • Importance of the message Richness of the channel Formality of message Urgency and cost Need for a permanent record Immediacy of feedback required Organizational and audience preferences Approach: Direct or Indirect? • Direct – – – – Main idea first, followed by evidence Routine messages Positive messages Some negative messages • Indirect – Evidence first, build case towards main idea – Most negative messages Connect With Your Audience 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Adopt a “you” attitude Be sincere, respectful, polite Stress audience benefits Emphasize the positive Use plain, simple language Use bias-free language Use Plain, Simple Language • Use short, familiar...
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...understand the importance of communication as many employers are stressing the importance of it. Accountants that can communicate are better suited for the work environment. Employers are starting to place importance on these skills then they are technical accounting skills. This chapter focuses on how accountants should write and how it affects your work and problem solving. It is important to keep in mind that writing is essential to accountants. Accountants have to be able to read and write on an everyday basis. For example tax accountants have to write memos to describe the results that they found and at times they must write letters to the internal revenue service for their clients. Auditors for example have to write memos to file in the audit working papers that are essential to any audit. After the audit is completed auditors must be able to write a letter to management advising them on any changes that should be made. Accountants at times have the responsibility to write footnote disclosures in financial statements and at times accountants were using very technical language. This resulted in many investors being misinformed due to the fact that not ever investor is an accountant. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a disclosure rule that stated to write these notes in “plain English.” They are seven tips that writers recommend for business writing. These seven are content, critical thinking, appropriateness for readers, conciseness, clarity, coherence, and...
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...the message and then provides feedback. To communicate effectively you must consider the 6C’s of effective communication. The 6c’s relate to the communication process as I shall explain. The first C is courtesy. We work in a bank, therefore being polite and showing respect to colleagues and customers is of the utmost importance. Being polite and courteous is an aspect of paralanguage and helps the message get through easily regardless of channel chosen. The second C is clarity. The process of encoding involves converting ideas and thoughts into something that will be understood by the receiver. For this to happen, have a clear idea of what you are trying to convey. When picking a channel, use one that ensures the message remains clear, using clear sentences if written and using good tone and clarity in voice if oral. The third C is correctness and involves ensuring that all details of the message are correct so as to avoid confusion. The fourth C is completeness. When encoding the information, ensure that all information is correct and that it is in full. As Mary Ogola said, “The message should leave no question unanswered.” (Ogola, 2015). The fifth C is conciseness. Time is of the essence, therefore ensure you are straight to the point. Short, sweet but understandable. The final C is Consideration and it is the most important. Consider who your audience is, their background and educational level and if they have any preferences. This ensures that the communication...
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...Workshop Facilitated by: Halcyon Lawrence March 03, 2007 Table of Contents Topic 1: The Communication Model ............................................................................. 4 Topic 2: Five Cs of Technical Communication .............................................................. 7 Clarity ............................................................................................................................. 7 Structural Clarity (document level) ............................................................................ 7 Stylistic Clarity ........................................................................................................... 7 Grammatical Clarity.................................................................................................... 7 Contextual Clarity....................................................................................................... 7 Conciseness..................................................................................................................... 8 Document level Conciseness ...................................................................................... 8 Paragraph/sentence level Conciseness........................................................................ 8 Concreteness ................................................................................................................... 8 Coherence ...................................................................................
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...The importance of managing your men down to their basic fundamentals. Discipline is more than just a word. It is a set of ideals, mindsets and thoughts that have been developed, honed, and passed down through the generations, not just throughout the world’s armed forces but in many other industries as well, both private and public. Security firms, trade companies, even the chaos of the stock market is built on the foundations and principles of basic discipline. Such fundamentals allow for smooth running of tasks and operations in a variety of fields, whatever they may be. In the military, basic discipline takes on a key role with regards to the performance of armed forces personnel, be it man, specialist or officer. It is important for officers to manage the discipline of their men, and handle it well because of several factors. For one, a well disciplined platoon would perform their tasks with greater clarity, speed and conciseness than a platoon that is lacking in said field, and for good reason. Much of what the army does is grounded in basic discipline. From simple things such as keeping personal and common areas clean, foot drills, marching in step, to more advanced things like keeping in line during section live firing, IA drills during weapon stoppages or malfunctions. However, to get to the more advanced stages, one has to start at the bottom, with the basics. Simple physics states that in order for a structure to be stable, it must have a strong base, a solid foundation...
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...Organizational Communication, Speeches and Conversations. Com520 Organizational Communication Communication is key in any dynamic environment. It is how a person communicates that dictates how anything will be completed. To effectively communicate in business, it’s important to immediately emphasize the importance of the message that is being delivered. As the speaker you have to be informative, engaged, actively listen, clear, and concise. To achieve all of this you have to know your audience well. It is called taking the audience centered approach. When conveying the message effectively the audience will respond with positive feedback. There are instances where there are barriers to effective organizational communication. These barriers can change and block the intended message to the audience. It would affect their ability to receive, decode, and respond to the message. Some barriers are noise and distractions, filters, contending messages, and channel breakdowns. As the speaker you have to be aware of the internal and external barriers that can block your message. Filters can distort the message between the speaker and the audience. Channel breakdowns can destroy the intended message because depending on the method of delivery the message may not get to its target or the message may get misconstrued all together. Noise and distractions are external barriers such as cell phone usage, computers screens, I.M pop ups etc. The internal barriers are...
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...knowledge and experience should determine how much detail we should use in our business letters. Sometimes we much explain complex accounting procedures in the words that a non-accountant can understand. Our letter is organized into an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The introduction of the letter should address the main idea that we are trying to express and the purpose of the letter that we are writing. The body of the letter is divided into different discussions of each topic. Arrange the topics in descending order of importance from the reader’s point of view, this is really important. The conclusion may be a conventional courteous closing: thank you very much for your help. The conclusion is also a good place to tell the reader what we want him or her to do, or what we will do to follow up on the subjects we discussed in the letter. If the letter is really long, we should also summarize our main ideas and recommendations. Conciseness and clarity are particularly important in letters. Another important character of a well-written business letter is its tone, or the way it makes the reader feel. In general, effective letters reflect a personal, conversational tone. Good stationery is important:...
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...TO: Accountancy Project Discovery Students FROM: Communications Specialists DATE: Fall 2000 SUBJECT: How to Write a Successful Memo This memo's purpose is to explain how to write a memo that successfully conveys a message accurately, concisely, and coherently. Memos are the major form of internal communication in most organizations, so it is vital that business writers understand how to draft these important documents effectively. This memo will cover the correct memo format first. Then, it will discuss clarity and conciseness, consistency and numbers, passive voice, parallelism, sexist writing, agreement, comma usage and hyphen usage. USING CORRECT MEMO FORMAT Unlike conversations, memos leave a "paper trail," so the company can use directives, inquiries, instructions, requests, recommendations, policies and other reports for future reference. Depending on their purpose, memos can range from a few lines to four or five pages. Shorter memos do not require formal introductory and concluding paragraphs. However, most memos assigned in this class will be at least one page long. Therefore, writers should include the appropriate introductions and conclusions. Every memo should have a header containing the word (prominently displayed) MEMO or MEMORANDUM followed by the organization's name. Writers usually draft memos on company letterhead. Following the header are four crucial pieces of information: TO: Name and title (the title serves as a record for reference) ...
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...case as an example … Porsche Canada: + Selling Winter Driving 4 2 2015-‐09-‐13 + 5 Porsche Canada: Selling Winter Driving n Jasmin Rawlinson (Director of Marketing for Porsche Canada) asks: “How can we encourage Canadians to drive their Porsche vehicles in winter?” n Opportunity: creation of a new category of product (winter equipment) and new car sales to buyers who had not previously considered Porsche as a 4-season car; new service revenue n Challenges: overcoming a long-held consumer perception; limited marketing budget ($500K) due to recent sales drop (15%) n Timeframe: July 2009 n + Dealing with past time frames? A. Identifying the Issues 6 importance low high high III IV low I II urgency 3 2015-‐09-‐13 + 7 B. Analysis - Qualitative n SWOT n Internal analysis: Strengths & Weaknesses n External + analysis: Opportunities & Threats 8 B. Qualitative Analysis n Porter’s n 5-Forces The collective strength of the 5-forces determines the profit potential of an industry .. Or industry attractiveness - Time and cost of entry - Specialized knowledge - Technology protection - Brand identity - Switching costs - Number and size - Uniqueness - Switching cost - Substitute inputs - Substitute performance - Switching cost - Industry growth - Number of competitors - Quality/price differences ...
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...Executive Summary This document describes the entirety of the business in two or three pages. This will likely be the only document a prospective investor reads initially, and hence brevity, conciseness, and clarity are of the utmost importance. This document is designed to guide you on the creation of the critical components of this document, and provide examples of appropriate content for each section. Instructions: Read each section and fill it out using the instructions and examples to guide you. Once you have completed the section, erase the instructions that appear in italics. Overview This section consists of a single paragraph that succinctly describes the product you intend to develop, the target market for the product, the benefit the product provides to that target market, the competitors for the product, and how the product is different from competitive solutions in the market. A sample overview paragraph might look like this: is a that delivers . Unlike , provides . For example: PayPal is a web-based payment service that allows buyers and sellers to transfer funds instantaneously while protecting against fraud and identity theft. Unlike credit cards, PayPal allows any merchant to accept funds, and allows customers to pay for goods without disclosing sensitive banking or personal information. Lorem ipsum… Problem This section consists of either a short story or a handful of bullet points that concisely identifies the problems the product is...
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...PRINCIPLES OF WRITING: 1. Clarity- It is the clarity of thought and expression. (a) Clarity of thought: This is important when the idea is being generated in the mind of the sender. At this stage, three points should be checked upon. (i) One is supposed to be clear about the objective of the communication. This begins with the generation of an idea in the mind of the transmitter. The writer should be able to answer the : What is the objective of writing (ii)What is to be communicated? E.g. A song, play, poem etc. (iii) Which medium is appropriate for the purpose of communication? E.g. letters ( b) Clarity of expression The following points deserve attention. (i) Use of simple words- simple words is more effective than heavy words. (ii) Use concrete expression- these provide visual images which are easy to register so instead of vague generalized statements give definite facts. (iii) Prefer active construction- these are easy to understand other than passive i.e in passive form “ your report will be discussed by the committee’’ but in active form ‘’the committee will discuss your report’’ (iv) Avoid excessive use of infinitive (v) Avoid jargon- these are special languages of a trade or a profession (vi) Avoid ambiguity- this is where a word has more than one meaning (vii) Use short sentences- short sentences are easier to comprehend for they are not complex and do not demand greater concentration...
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...Introduction General Electric (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate corporation which operate through the different segments e.g. energy, technology infrastructure, capital finance, consumer and industrial. [1]. Management of the GE Co. and CS Corporation concerned to improve employee productivity and empowerment by improving communication and cooperation among the different component of the business. For this reason, they need to develop appropriate communication strategies within the organisation. Report is prepared covering various related topics to produce communication strategies to contribute to the GE Co. business growth. This report on the GE Co. and CS Corporation is subdivided by the four Tasks (Task 1 to Task 4). Task 1 This task cover the assessment of information and knowledge needs internally and externally to improve decision making and taking process within the General Electric and Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. 1.1 Range of decisions to be taken Decision is a choice made between one or more alternatives (Robbins et al., 2004). According to George and Jones, decision making may be defined as "the process by which members of an organisation usually choose a specific course of action to respond to both problems and opportunities" [2]. Various types of decision such as structured, semi-structured and unstructured are in details below. [2] Structured decisions Structured decisions are repetitive and routine problems for which standard solution...
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...Sell, sell, sell! Here's the scenario. You manage the marketing department at your company. Your company has developed a new product or service. Now, the company wants to market this new product or service. To do so, write a sales letter. In selecting the product or service for your company, choose a topic that interests you. This could be a topic that you're currently involved with at work. It could be a topic related to your major at college. Perhaps you'll want to write about a hobby (dog training, wood working, gardening, parasailing, etc.). Whatever topic you select, have fun and be creative. NOTE: All subsequent assignments in this class (your flier, letter of inquiry, memo, user manual, and report) will ask you to write about the same topic you have chosen for the sales letter. Therefore, pick a good topic for your sales letter--one that you enjoy, one that you can live with for a few months, one that lends itself to a how-to user manual, and one that is mature and appropriate for a college class. Why write about the same topic over and over? I'm asking you to practice a very common skill in technical writing called "single sourcing." In "single sourcing," tech writers use and reuse content in different communication channels.You're not required to stick with the same topic. If you want to change topics from assignment to assignment, go ahead. But, reusing the same topic (and graphics) could save you time throughout the semester. | Now that you know the objectives...
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...Week 9 Assignment A. Harold PAD 500 6/11/11 Explain both the Pendleton Act and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act established the Civil Service Commission, which placed most federal government employees on the merit system and marked the end of the so-called spoils system. The act provided for some government jobs to be filled on the basis of competitive exams. The Pendleton Act served as a response to President James Garfield's assassination by Charles Julius Guiteau. The Act was passed into law on January 16, 1883. The Act was sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton, Democrat of Ohio, and written by Dorman Bridgeman Eaton, a staunch opponent of the patronage system who was later first chairman of the United States Civil service Commission (Theriault, 2003, p.56). The Pendleton Act was primarily an effort to eliminate political influence from administrative agencies and, secondarily, an effort to assure more competent government employees. It pursued these aims through the following major provisions: 1. A bipartisan commission called the U.S. Civil Service Commission was created within the executive branch to establish and implement personnel rules and procedures for the federal government. 2. Open and competitive examinations to test job-related skills were developed wherever practical within the agencies covered by the law and were to become the primary basis upon which to make hiring decisions. 3...
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