Harty 115-167

Business and technical correspondence take on three forms; the letter, the memo, and now e-mail. Letters were commonly used to convey information to people outside of the company, while memos were used to do this inside. The invention of email acted to make these two forms slightly outdated, unfortunately this has led for some people to become sloppy with their writing styles due to the ease that these methods can be used. This can lead to a host of public relations problems due to messages being misinterpreted, or being too blunt.
When sending emails to people outside the company that you find yourself working for it is important to keep in mind that they will not be privy to the jargon of your company, as such you may find yourself causing more questions to be raised than answered by your letters, whey this was not your intent. It is also key to remember to keep the audience that you’re writing to in mind, if you make letter geared to the writer instead of the reader you may also cause unnecessary confusion. In order to persuade others to your point of view it helps to be able to show them why it will be worth their time to agree with you. Keep the readers self-esteem in mind as well, this is important to being able to persuade them to your side of the argument, if you offend them they will be more likely to reject you out of hand without hearing what you have to say. Keeping language up to date is also important, if you use outdated phrases such as “enclosed herewith” it will be regarded as an anachronism instead of have the meaning of showing the writer as learned as it would have years ago. To add to the likely hood that the letter will be read and not thrown out, the writer tries to keep a more personal tone that the reader will find inviting.
Difficulty in a number of the above mentioned tactics for writing a letter that the reader will be able to understand and not be offended by is seen in the use of “rejection letters”. It is exceptionally difficult to reject someone without hurting their pride due to simple human nature and the way that we take not being accepted. In situations such as this it helps to have a writer that has been well trained in rhetoric and can manipulate the tone of the letter to sound more favorable while still getting the underlying points across. This use of rhetoric though would bring up issues that have been addressed in previous classes about ethics. A good way to help to write letters to the average person is to keep the general ideas of how we talk on a daily basis in mind. If you use language that is similar to spoken vernaculars then it will be more likely to be well received.
There is a direct and an indirect method to telling someone bad news via an e-mail correspondence.
Direct: Thanks….Because…..Sorry…..Thanks
Indirect: Thanks….Sorry….Because……Thanks
Both ways of doing this letter begin with and end with thanks. This is to help keep the reader from having their pride or feelings damaged by the contents of the note any more than they have to be. The switching of “sorry” and “because” is where the biggest principle difference in the two styles lies. When starting with “because” it shows the reader an explanation first so that they will not have to be hit initially with the bad news, but rather they can be eased into it.
Primary functions of memos are to:
Inform people of a problem or situation
Nail down responsibility for action, and a deadline for it
Establish a file record of decision, agreements and policies
Secondary functions are:
Serving as a basis for formal reports
Helping to bring new personnel up-to-date
Replacing personal contact with people you cannot always get along with
And handling people who ignore your oral directions
There are three main things to consider when organizing a memo
What are the facts?
What do they mean?
What do we do from here?
When in a corporate environment it is important to keep in mind the fact that most high ranking executives will be turned off by overly wordy memos and letters. Length is in reality not that important, the important part of the memo comes with if it is efficient or not. It must be able to get its point across and be comprehensible. Most companies look for ways to cut down on the time that their employees have to spend reading and writing because it is money that the company is losing to pay them when they have to do it. A recent survey showed that it cost one company $10 for every one memo that they send out, and that they send out over 1,800,000 memos a year.
Be sure to keep proper punctuation in mind as well, an error here can cause a lot of heartache. While it can be useful to use a lot of exclamation marks in e-mails, make sure that you do not get carried away with this, it can subtract from your credibility and make you seem unprofessional. Contractions are okay to use in more casual situations, but should be avoided in more formal context.
Most people in the business world have to write reports of one kind or another. There is not however a clear definition of what a report is. It can be nothing more than an informative document or it can be something with a persuasive or argumentative tone.