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 The invention of email acted to make these two forms slightly outdated, unfortunately this has led for some people to become sloppy with their writing styles due to the ease that these methods can be used.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 Keeping language up to date is also important, if you use outdated phrases such as “enclosed herewith” it will be regarded as an anachronism instead of have the meaning of showing the writer as learned as it would have years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.

Outline

Ethics

Ethics has always been an important topic in most any field, but has recently started to become a bigger topic in the realm of technical communication. Ethics is generally involves the process of making judgments about a set of values. Some say that the internet is the most fair and balanced system of communication that the world has seen to date, due to the fact that no one person or group can claim to have ownership over it. Others however argue that it is in face biased and unfair in that people that are already privileged can gain easier access to it and have an easier time manipulating it. The purpose of studying ethics is to give us the ability not to understand what is right and wrong, but rather to allow us to articulate to others what this difference is. It is also important to allow you to take your own personal prejudices out of the equation and make a decision without a previous bias. Historical views only become relevant to our daily lives in a very broad way; they do not allow for the change that occurs in the world and do not consider how ethical viewpoints may change. Ethics is considered to be a branch of philosophy, which was established by Plato. Plato believe that following the “soul” would lead to the correct interpretation of ethics. Socrates believed in following ethics and doing what was right regardless of the consequences, he believe that it was a way of following God, and that it also required social interactions. Perelman showed that there is no absolute basis or authority for values, and therefore for ethics. He stipulated that our language was our value. Weaver said that our values are the foundation for rhetoric. If you take both of these as true, does it lead to a certain amount of circular logic?

Harty 49-115

Jargon is a technical language unique to a particular business and becomes a problem when this language is used outside of that business. Gobbledygook must be avoided whenever possible as it is an extreme version of jargon that leads to little other than confusion. I personally think that jargon should generally be kept to a minimum as much as possible so that communication will flow as freely as possible. Unfortunately gobbledygook has found its way into most places in the world that require higher education, such as legal areas as well as academic ones. A good way to keep such language to a minimum is to not over embellish phrases; instead of saying “give consideration to” say “consider” for example.
When writing in the workplace it is important to use specific examples and references. Do not try to be overly vague. It can be very tempting to use jargon to fill space in a memo and to actually say very little, but this should be avoided whenever possible.
Non-sexist communication in the workplace and in any setting is important. Many companies are developing their own ways of doing away with such language. One example is Franklin and Marshall College who have developed 9 ways of doing this.
1) Address your reader
2) Eliminate the pronoun
3) Replace the pronouns with articles
4) Use plural nouns and pronouns
5) Alternate male and female pronouns throughout text
6) Use both pronouns and vary their order
7) Use specific genderless nouns
8) Substitute job titles or descriptions
9) Repeat the noun or use a synonym
English has become the language of choice in the business community across the world. As such many people devote large amounts of time and energy into perfecting the use of it. The problem arises though, that since they are not native speakers they have the potential to make errors that are taken as offensive or that cause massive misunderstanding. The better their grasp of the English language becomes the more dangerous and likely these mistakes become because people are not expecting them.

Elbow Style Exercise

A new student organization always has a need for people to invest time and energy into startup. There is a need for technical documents that show how the officers should conduct themselves in matters pertaining to the running of the organization. It should reflect how the meetings will be held, what the different officers will do what at the meetings, and the various other duties of the members. It should also have information that tells how the treasurer should handle the money that comes in through both membership dues and donations to mission outreach projects. One of the goals for the organization is to eventually start sending people to other countries on mission trips, in order to do this a large amount of money will have to be raised and collected. Keeping such a stockpile of money in a lockbox on one person would be an unnecessary risk. Therefore there needs to be a guideline on how to handle dealings with a bank for the treatment of these funds, and clear setup for a way to make sure that no one person can have easy access to the funds in a way that would lead to the temptation to steal from the organization’s goals and have the money used for other means.

After the initial technical manual, that will show the members and officers how the organization should be run, is complete there is also a need for a website that will explain many of these concepts to an audience at a level that is easier for the average reader to understand. The technical manual will have to use very complex language in order to be precise enough so that its purpose and goals are not misunderstood, as such it could have language in it that makes it difficult for some potential members to understand. The website’s primary goal will be the recruiting of new members and keeping existing members up to date on the dealings of the organization. It will feature sections that allows for people to sign up for a mailing list, it will also feature the technical manual in pdf format, but retain the easiest access to sections that are designed for recruitment.

Project Brainstorming

1) Big O Dodge
Big O Dodge in Greenville S.C. has numerous technical documents that are used on a daily basis for every aspect of the dealerships operation. Everything from the offices that have to have forms and manuals that explain the process of buying a new or used car both to the sales person and to the customer interested in purchasing the vehicle. The back of the dealership is also reliant upon manuals and other documents of a technical nature that are used by the technicians for the repairing of the vehicles that are brought there.
2) Carolina Dermatology
Doctors offices such as Carolina Dermatolgy require technical manuals that are both complicated enough to explain extensive medical procedures, while still retaining a simplicity so that the average patient can understand the procedures that the doctors will be performing. Such manuals are not easy to come by and generally require hours of work to perfect before they are ready to be used. A document that could help in this seems like it would be an ideal starting point for the project outlined by this class.
3) The Bridge Ministries
The Bridge Ministries is a new Clemson University Student Organization that has just been created. As a new organization many technical documents are required to depict what the organizations goals will be and how meetings and other club buisness will be dealt with. These docmuments must have a certain amount of professional touch in order to be taken seriously by the university and as such would appear to be something that would be useful as a project and a way to help a new campus organization get off the ground.