Effective Writing for the Quality Professional

Jane Campanizzi

Description

Few skills are more powerful or influential in a company or organization than effective writing skills. A poorly written document, whether letter, memo, email, report, or procedure, can make its reader confused, impatient, and unresponsive. Effective writing can help organizations become more productive by eliminating waste from the communication process and enabling readers to spend less time understanding written materials. Therefore, becoming a more effective communicator enables you to become more valuable to your organization and advance more quickly in your career. This book shows how to apply effective writing techniques to meet the needs of your organization, your co-workers, and your customers. It provides you with practical guidelines for writing and designing clear, well-organized, and readable documents. The writing skills you learn in this book will help you to better organize your thoughts and write more directly and concisely. The book demonstrates how to format documents to allow for more effective communication, and provides the structure and content guidelines for writing letters, memos, emails, reports, proposals, and recommendations. Gives examples and templates of work-related written documents such as memos, letters, e-mail, reports, instructions, procedures, and glossaries.

Sujets

• Entrepreneuriat
• Business Writing
• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Economics
• Business
• Communication organisationnelle

Informations

• Publié par: ASQ Quality Press
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780873890090
• Langue: English

Extrait

Effective Writing for the
Quality ProfessionalAlso Available from ASQ Quality Press:
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The Six Sigma Path to Leadership: Observations from the
Trenches
David Treichler
To request a complimentary catalog of ASQ Quality Press
publications, call 800-248-1946, or visit our Web site at
http://qualitypress.asq.org.Effective Writing for the
Quality Professional
Creating Useful Letters,
Reports, and Procedures
Jane Campanizzi, Ph.D.
ASQ Quality Press
Milwaukee, WisconsinAmerican Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203
© 2005 by American Society for Quality
All rights reserved. Published 2005
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Campanizzi, Jane, 1947–
Effective writing for the quality professional : creating useful letters, reports,
and procedures / Jane Campanizzi.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87389-625-4 (soft cover, spiral bound : alk. paper)
1. Business writing. 2. Business presentations. I. Title.
HF5718.3.C364 2005
808'.06665—dc22 2004029255
ISBN 0-87389-625-4
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
Publisher: William A. Tony
Acquisitions Editor: Annemieke Hytinen
Project Editor: Paul O’Mara
Production Administrator: Randall Benson
ASQ Mission: The American Society for Quality advances individual,
organizational, and community excellence worldwide through learning, quality
improvement, and knowledge exchange.
Attention Bookstores, Wholesalers, Schools, and Corporations: ASQ Quality
Press books, videotapes, audiotapes, and software are available at quantity
discounts with bulk purchases for business, educational, or instructional use.
For information, please contact ASQ Quality Press at 800-248-1946, or write to
ASQ Quality Press, P.O. Box 3005, Milwaukee, WI 53201-3005.
To place orders or to request a free copy of the ASQ Quality Press Publications
Catalog, including ASQ membership information, call 800-248-1946. Visit our
Web site at www.asq.org or http://qualitypress.asq.org.
Printed on acid-free paper
Quality Press
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53203
Call toll free 800-248-1946
Fax [phone]
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E-mail: [e-mail] my mother, JeanContents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 The Value of Effective Writing at Work . . . 2
1.2 Five Elements of the Communication
Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Characteristics of Work-Related Writing . . 6
1.4 Phases of the Writing Process . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 The Importance of Plain Language . . . . . . 15
Chapter 2 Language Techniques for Effective
Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 Achieving the “You-Attitude” . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2 Maintaining a Positive and Unbiased
Tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3 Understanding Active vs. Passive
Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4 Being Clear, Direct, and Concise . . . . . . . 26
2.5 Avoiding Slang and Jargon . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.6 Maintaining Goodwill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.7 Considering International Readers . . . . . . 32
viiviii Contents
Chapter 3 Formatting Techniques for Effective
Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1 Using “Chunking” to Communicate . . . . . . 38
3.2 Using White Space Effectively . . . . . . . . . 39
3.3 Using Columns and Lists Effectively . . . . . 40
3.4 Considering Fonts and Heading Styles . . . 43
3.5 Incorporating Visuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Chapter 4 Writing Effective Basic
Correspondence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.1 Writing Effective Memos . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.2 Writing Effective E-mail Messages . . . . . . 52
4.3 Writing Effective Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.4 Conveying Bad News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.5 Conveying Good News 71
4.6 Conveying Complaints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.7 Conveying Thanks for an Interview . . . . . . 75
4.8 Conveying Recommendations . . . . . . . . . 79
Chapter 5 Writing Effective Definitions, Summaries,
and Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.1 Writing Effective Summaries . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.2 Writing Effective Definitions (Glossary) . . . 86
5.3 Writing Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter 6 Writing Effective Instructions and
Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.1 Planning for Development of Instructions
and Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.2 Developing Instructions and Procedures . . 94
6.3 Developing Instructions or Pres
in a Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.4 Evaluating Instructions and Procedures . . . 103
6.5 Considerations for Placing Documents
Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Contents ix
Chapter 7 Writing Effective Reports and
Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.1 Guidelines for Short Reports . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.2 Guidelines for Long Reports . . . . . . . . . . . 112
7.3 Guidelines for Meeting Minutes . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 8 Delivering Effective Management
Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8.1 Planning the Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
8.2 Developing the Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.3 Delivering the Prion 126
Appendix A: Eliminating “Waste” Words . . . . . . . . . . 131
Appendix B: U.S. Postal Service State/Territory
Abbreviation Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Appendix C: User Manual Style Sheet (Example) . . . 137
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Preface
ew skills are more powerful or influential in aFcompany or organization than effective writing
skills. A poorly written document, whether letter,
memo, e-mail, report, or procedure, can make its
reader confused, impatient, and unresponsive.
Effective writing can enable you, as a quality
professional, to add more value to your organization, and
it can help you advance more quickly in your career.
Effective writers help their organizations be
more productive. How do they do this? Just as
effective companies eliminate waste from
operational processes, effective writers eliminate waste
or “noise” from the communication process by
enabling readers to spend less time
understanding written material. Companies know well that
“time is money.” Therefore, as you become a more
effective communicator, you become more
valuable to your organization by helping it become
more productive.
xixii Preface
This book shows you how to apply effective
writing techniques to meet the needs of your
company or organization, your coworkers, and
your customers. It provides you with practical
guidelines for writing and designing clear,
wellorganized, and readable documents that you
create each day as a quality professional.
The writing skills you learn in this book will
help you better organize your thoughts and
empower your readers to make more informed
decisions. You will learn how to write more
directly and concisely to save your readers’
valuable time. You will learn how to format
documents in order to communicate more effectively.
You will learn structure and content guidelines
for writing effective letters, memos, and e-mail.
You will learn techniques to develop effective
instructions and procedures, as well as
guidelines for developing reports, proposals,
recommendations, and management presentations.
The writing skills presented in this book
should serve you well, no matter where your
career takes you.1
Introduction
his chapter provides the framework uponTwhich all the other chapters of this book are
based. You need to understand the concepts in
this chapter in order to have a good foundation
for the concepts you will use throughout this book
to build effective writing skills. In this chapter
you will learn about:
• The value of effective writing at work
•Five elements of the communication
process
• Characteristics of work-related writing
• Phases of the writing process
• The importance of plain language
12 Chapter One
1.1 The Value of Effective
Writing at Work
You communicate in many ways at work. You
communicate to others nonverbally, through
gestures, facial expressions, clothing, eye contact, and
so forth. You also communicate verbally, through
the use of words, both in speaking and in writing.
As you progress in your organization, you will
spend more and more time communicating.
Supervisors spend 70 percent of the workday
communicating, managers spend 80 percent of the
day communicating, and CEOs spend 90 percent
of the day communicating (American
Management Association, 1992). A large amount of this
communication is in writing.
In a work environment, when would you
choose to communicate in writing? Typically you
will choose to communicate in wri