Writing to recipients other than your workplace colleagues is known as external communication. When writing externally, the format and information written must change. Letters and e-mails must contain information that can be clearly understood. Using ambiguous terms is not recommended. Also, the reader must be able to only interpret the message in one way, the way it should be. Being clear, concise and courteous will ensure your message is delivered exactly as you would like. In some cases, providing necessary background information and key ideas is needed to bring the reader up to speed (Keller).
Pay attention to the level of detail you provide and take into consideration the possibility of others reading the document. Remember, letters and especially e-mails are very easily forwarded to eyes that you didn’t intend to show. Make sure that what you write to one person is appropriate for everyone else too. Following are five keys to follow if you find yourself stuck (Keller).
1) “During the plan phase consider the problem at hand.
2) Sometimes research is necessary.
3) Organization and design are crucial as you draft short documents.
4) Reviewing you documents is important.
5) How you distribute a short document can be especially important.”
Keller, Christopher, and Christian Weisser. "Chapter 12/ E-mail, E-Messages, and Memos." Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. By Sidney Dorbin. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002. 335-37. Print.
The text is helpful, and the picture matches. You also did a great job with the references. I think you're the first one that actually put citations in the text. I didn't even think about that during my text entry.
ReplyDeleteChad, the basis of your blog is great. The way it is presented is very easy to read and contains a lot of helpful information. At the end I think there may have been a minor formatting error, but that looks like the only issue. Everything else is great!
ReplyDeleteAs said above, well done! Be sure to use 'I' in your posts, and keep up the good work. If you can fix the formatting issue, that would be great, but if not I understand.
ReplyDeleteSee Penny's comment....more personality....write about your experience with your topic....use "I" and clean up that funny script that appears. Perhaps you are on HTML Editor rather than Compose???
ReplyDelete