Chapter XVIII Preparing Correspondence
In this chapter Dr Burnett discusses correspondence. This is a very important part of technical communication because it leaves a documented record. When used properly and professionally it is a powerful piece of evidence to show proof of professionalism. When used incorrectly it is a powerful piece of evidence that can destroy you and your career. This chapter lays out the rights and wrongs of correspondence.
Characterizing correspondence
Correspondence makes the workplace go, whether in the form of e-mail, memos, or letters accurate and unambiguous communication is the oil in the working machine. For every interaction there is documentation, simple interactions can be documented with e-mail while more complex interactions would be written. Several ways that correspondence can be distinguished from other genres of technical communications are: audience, composing and revising, datedness, and conventions.
Audience
Who is the correspondence to? Keeping things as simple as possible means that letters are for external correspondence while memos and e-mails are internal.
Composing and Revising
Make sure you always read and reread your own correspondence before you send it. Hurriedly sending off a message before you reconsider content and clarity can lead to major problems. Remember, email is not confidential or private.
Datedness
Due to the nature of e-mail messages, memos, and letters responding to a current situation, correspondence of this type needs to be updated more often than other technical communication.
Conventions
Neatness, grammar and punctuation always count. Projecting an image that lacks accuracy or attention to detail could lead to negative perceptions from your audience or readers.
Burnett goes on to explain three similarities of correspondence to other genres of technical communication, ownership, purposefulness, and factors critical for all technical documents.
Delivering correspondence
With the advance of overnight delivery, “Snail mail” as the U.S. Postal Service is affectionately called is rapidly becoming a carrier of yesterday. Now, faxes are common, and email is the most common type of asynchronous correspondence; also electronic mailing lists and bulletin boards are used a lot. As for synchronous correspondence, instant messaging is becoming very popular in workplaces, sometimes replacing phone calls.
"Netiquette" (network + etiquette) guidelines are important for all electronic correspondence:
- Headings: Be sure you are sending an email to the appropriate person(s). Include a description word or two in the subject line.
- Content: Cover one topic only per message, and keep it brief. Don't respond immediately to an upsetting message. A good rule is this: if it would be rude to say over the phone, it would be rude to send it in an email.
- Audiences: Write like the world will be seeing your message; it could be accidentally forwarded to someone who wasn't meant to see it. Ask for acknowledgement of receipt for an important message.
- Conventions: In the workplace, use appropriate salutations, spell with care, don't use emoticons or abbreviations, and don't type in all caps.
- Remember, email is NOT always private!! Once the SEND button is pressed the document is public record.
Burnett doesn’t say anything about this but, based on 30 plus years of working in the real world, never be the lowest ranking individual with a secret. What this means is that if you know something of importance and you don’t tell somebody, when the investigation reveals that the incident could have been prevented if you had shared your knowledge you will be held accountable. Whenever you correspond with someone keep all necessary personnel informed by using cc or bcc. When using paper use cc or via so others see the correspondence.
Composing E-mail Messages, Memos, and Letters
Burnett uses this section to lay out eight specific guidelines for effective correspondence. She also recommends considering the factors attitude and tone, organization of information and format when composing email, memos or letters.
Attitude and Tone
Creating a professional image in your correspondence is important because some people will know you only through online correspondence. To do this:
- Use simple, direct language
- Substitute "you" for "I" and "we" whenever possible
- Don't use exclusionary language
A) avoid words biased in terms of gender, race ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation, and religion
B) address people as individuals, not groups
Organization of Information
The content of correspondence should be organized so things can be read easily and quickly. This can be accomplished by fulfilling these three functions:
- Disseminating Information: This can be done through a variety of documents and forms the basis for organizing information for readers within your organization, other organizations, and the general public. In these, identify the five W's and H used in journalism. Internal information can be dispensed various ways and can be about many different subjects
- Making requests or inquiries: The people making these usually seek information, but may ask for product samples or action. Requests or inquiries usually contain six elements including the reason, the request, the benefit of what is being requested, assurance of confidentiality, if warranted, identifying time deadline, and thanking the recipient.
- Some request can be answered with a form letter. Others may be answered by sending out prepared info. Answering negatively in an original response is listed in Burnett’s text. When responding to requests or inquiries that require a positive original response use these steps:
* acknowledge the request or inquiry
* say "yes"
* include some info or a source for the info
* offer helpful suggestions (when appropriate)
* build goodwill
* conclude in a friendly manner
Format
There are so many variations that exist in formats that they all can’t possibly be listed in the text. The responsibility is on the sender to make sure that it is done correctly. Burnett provides information to find templates and other useful correspondence tools.
Domino Effect of Correspondence
In this section Burnett provides a whole scenario for the reader to see how the domino effect works in a corporate situation. I think that this is a very good example because it demonstrates the importance of keeping everyone informed of the “big picture”.
15 comments:
This chapter concentrated on preparing corrospondence. Correspondance is basically documentation of communication in buisnesses, but you always have to remember ways of putting that documentation together. You have to consider your audience, word choice etc... If a coresspondence is not put together right it can be confusing as well as cause problems within a company or group of some sort. I thought that they did a very good job explaining corrospondence.
Correspondence is an important part of any work place or learning environment. For any business to run smoothly, good guidelines must be established that ensure effective communication channels. Many years ago, at the place I worked at, we used CB's to communicate. Since that time, we have upgraded to cell-phones. Although the technology has been upgraded, operator proficiency is still a concern: if you don't have your cell phone on, no one can get ahold of you. Considering this situation, there is a technology upgrade but not a communication upgrade. No matter how technical we get in our communication efforts, we are still human and capable of being complacent and negligent.
This chapter was very good. This was a very well written chapter. I feel that with out having guidelines you aren’t going to run very efficiently. Now companies can communicate a lot more then what they use to and also they have a lot better response time.
This chapter on correspondence is written and understood very well. I agree with Burnett on this chapter when she explains that it is one of the most important ways of modern day communication. There are many important factors to keep in mind when reaching an audience through email, overnight mailing, instant messaging, etc. Images for example can be mistook if the information does not describe the image the way it explains. Any one can mess up so it is always important to re-look over everything before it is sent.
There are many time where we are using different forms of correspondence to contact our co-workers, customers, and family or friends. Depending on the form of correspondence as the composer we have to be very careful in the tone of our words to avoid the angering the reader on the other end. With in our correspondence, we have to get our point across with out a story behind it. When you’re deciding on the form of correspondence you have to also look at who else may come in contact with the correspondence before you intended reader. There are many faxes that are received each day where the employees know of changes going on before the managers do.
At my last job, I had to work a lot with sending e-mails back and forth around the company. While most of the recipients were cool people, it was hard to know if they were the only ones to read it. It was easy to tell that they didn't always take the same into consideration. Here and there, I would receive funny e-mails that could be taken as offensive to certain people.
This chapter focused on preparing on the corrospondence. It is well summerised, i agree that there are different form of corrospondance, also different word choise, tone of the word, depending on the audiences. I think without a proper guidelines the correspondance will not be effective and can be confusing. And also before sending out it is always a good idea to look over so that the correspondance relays right message to the audience.
I feel that correspondence is a very important skill set to have when we get out college and begin our jobs in the real world. Communication is key to just about every aspect of business, and correspondence is just another way of doing it. As in every document you need to keep in mind the audience that you will be communicating with, but we can also use a more specific language to do so because the people that you will be preparing the document for will have the same basic knowledge as you.
This chapter provides useful information about preparing correspondence. This is so important in technical commnunication and therefore it is useful to be aware about various types and how to effectively use them. E-mails, memos, letters are some of the mostly used methods of communication in businesses, schools and other organizations. Memos are used within the organization while e-mails can serve both purposes. It is always appropriate to consider launguage, tone, word choice when addressing various audiences. I think this chapter is so important and Chris did a good job with the summary.
this chapter's main point was correspondance. i think that it did a very good job on putting an emphasis on how important correspondance is in the work place. correspondance will either make or break a company. bad correspondace can lead to mistakes, miscommunications, and even loss of business. if a company doesnt run smoothly it is going to suffer profit loses because time is not being utilized as it should, instead it is going to fixing something that could have been prevented by good correspondance.
Preparing correspondence is major task to do in any field.It is more in business field to communicate. Like email, letter,fax etc which is more important to interact each other. But we should think about the right order to make good document. this document should be understand by everybody with good follow of words as well. These things should have good guidance so that it will be effective.
The main type of correspondance I use is contacting or getting information from professors or if I am working in a group and we need to share information with eachother. It's important to be able to get your point across and give information to someone using email. It is sometimes harder to find the right words to use in an email as opposed to talking to that person face to face.
I've never had to personally deal with correspondance in the buisness world. The only job I've ever had is cooking. But I know that it is something I will have to deal with sooner or later, and also that my dad is constantly using it with his job. In fact he sometimes with out even knowing it he sends me what should be a short informal email in to the same format he uses when dealing with customers.
Chris did an excellent job on this summary. Preparing correspondance is very important in larger business. In large corporations they use anything: memos, faxes, emails, to telephone calls/walkietalkies. When your preparing corresponndance, you always need to think of who your audience/reciever is, so you use the right tone and word choices.
Preparing correspondence is not an easy task. It is also very important part of technical communication because it leaves a documented record. It’s a show proof of professionalism but if used incorrectly can ruin your career. I liked the domino effect of correspondence. The post was very helpful in understanding about how to prepare correspondence.
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