Writing Skills For the MSM

1. Writing SkillsFor the MSM

2. Guiding Philosophy • Skills Refresher and Review • Individual Talents and Glitches • Rigorous Evaluation and Professional Standards • Positive Atmosphere of Respect and Teamwork

3. Writing to Get Ahead • Survey of Florida Businesses • West Virginia Study of Graduates

4. Why Study Writing Now? • Harvard Study of Writing Skills in Freshmen and Seniors • Quantitative Research on Writing and Learning Contexts

5. Business writing is shaped by three important factors: • Profit • Time • Hierarchy

6. An Effective (Read Profitable) Business Style Style Quiz

7. An Effective (Read Profitable) Business Style • Be Brief • Be Simple • Be Clear

8. Brevity and Efficiency Brevity is the soul of wit. --Shakespeare (Hamlet II,ii) Buy it low, stack it high, sell it cheap. --Sam Walton

9. Brevity and Efficiency • Research at the Naval Postgraduate School • Edit as if every word costs money . . . Because it does. • Eliminate every sentence or word that adds nothing new.

10. Trimmable Words and Phrases • Redundancies • at this point in time • true and accurate • eight A.M. in the morning • each individual • past history • popular with the people

11. Trimmable Words and Phrases • Wordiness • in spite of the fact that • due the fact that • in order to • concerning the nature of • the possibility exists for • during the time that

12. Trimmable Words and Phrases • Space Fillers • please be advised • in this day and age • aforementioned • in accordance with your request • to all intents and purposes

13. Trimmable Words and Phrases • Excess Qualifiers and Intensifiers • actually • basically • ultimately • very • somewhat • sort of • quite

14. More on Efficiency • Omit unneeded whichesor thats • The company, which was successful, . . . • (The successful company) • The meeting, which had been brief, . . . • (The brief meeting) • He told her that he was lunching with Smith. • (He told her he was lunching. . .)

15. More on Efficiency • Eliminate Surplus Prepositions • Procedures of accounting . . . • (Accounting procedures) • The Mann company, based in New York. . . • (The New York-based Mann company)

16. Prose Workout 1

17. Be Clear • Sentences • Use one idea per sentence. • Subordinate minor ideas. • Use (but don’t overuse) and or but as a transition

18. Be Clear • Sentences • Use one idea per sentence. Our company’s final decision not to purchase the thus far unimproved Johnson property with its access to the highway and its view of the river, despite our substantial preliminary investment in it in time and money, was based on the surveyor’s negative report emphasizing a public sewer located underground in the central portion of the property, where it cannot escape interfering with our building plans.

19. Be Clear • Sentences • Subordinate minor ideas. • Limit each sentence to a single major idea. • Add only secondary concepts that are closely related to that idea. • For any sentence, severely limit the number of secondary concepts.

20. Be Clear • Sentences • Subordinate minor ideas. Major idea: This month’s sales are necessary for projecting this quarter’s profit. Minor idea: We do not yet know this month’s sales. Together: When we know this month’s sales, we will be better able to project this quarter’s profit.

21. Prose Workout 2

22. Be Clear • Paragraphs • Keep paragraphs short. • Use topic sentences. • Use transitions between sentences

23. Be Clear • Paragraphs There are good reasons for keeping business paragraphs brief. A brief paragraph is more easily read and understood because the reader’s mind processes content in small “packets” of information. Short paragraphs will supply those ready-made packets. Occasionally, for emphasis, you may even wish to include a paragraph of only a sentence or two--as many effective business writers do. A very brief paragraph, among those of ordinary length, calls the reader’s attention to its contents.

24. Be Clear • Prefer Active, Personal Sentences Passive: Our office in Japan was communicated with by letter. Active: We wrote a letter to our office in Japan. Passive: A question is raised whether. . . Active: I question whether. . . Passive: It was recommended by the committee that. . . Active: The committee recommended

25. Be Clear • Prefer Active, Personal Sentences Try to edit this sentence: The suggestion is made that the utilization of company money to pay for executive vacations in Hawaii could be construed as suspicious to the Internal Revenue Service and make them think that an improper accountancy of these items may have been made.

26. Be Clear The suggestion is made that the utilization of company money to pay for executive vacations in Hawaii could be construed as suspicious to the Internal Revenue Service and make them think that an improper accountancy of these items may have been made. Revised: We suggest that if the company uses its money to pay for executive vacations in Hawaii the IRS might suspect that the company has accounted improperly for its expenses.

27. Be Clear • Pronouns • Avoid ambiguous reference. • Limit sentences begun with there and it. Example: It was the understanding of Burnet’s group that the price of Widgets had declined.

28. Prose Workout 3 or 4

29. Simplify Inflated Diction directionality scrutinization utilize transmit impact on render operative prioritize Avoid Jargon feedback input interface Be Clear

30. Be Clear • A. Murphy tends to obfuscate the significance of his conceptualizations by utilizing unintelligible encoding. • B. Murphy tends to blur the meaning of his thoughts by using language difficult to understand.

33. The Nuts and Bolts of Writing • Punctuation • Sentence Structure and Organization

34. Everything You Wanted to Know About Punctuation But Were Embarrassed to Ask. Everything.

35. Punctuation SVO

36. Punctuation SVO Joe writes his report.

37. Punctuation SVO SVOO Joe writes his report.

38. Punctuation SVO SVOO SVOVO Joe writes his report.

39. Punctuation SVO SVOO SVOVO Joe writes his report. Joe writes a memo and a report. Joe writes a report and goes to the pub.

40. Punctuation SVO SVOO SVOVO S, . . . ,VO Joe writes his report. Joe writes a memo and a report. Joe writes a report and goes to the pub.

41. Punctuation SVO SVOO SVOVO S, . . . ,VO SV, . . . ,O Joe writes his report. Joe writes a memo and a report. Joe writes a report and goes to the pub.

42. Punctuation SVO SVOO SVOVO S, . . . ,VO SV, . . . ,O Joe writes his report. Joe writes a memo and a report. Joe writes a report and goes to the pub. Joe, tired from his meeting, goes to the pub. Joe goes, dragging his feet, to the pub.

43. Punctuation SVO SVOO SVOVO S, . . . ,VO SV, . . . ,O . . . , SVO SVO, . . . Joe writes his report. Joe writes a memo and a report. Joe writes a report and goes to the pub. Joe, tired from his meeting, goes to the pub. Joe goes, dragging his feet, to the pub.

44. Punctuation SVO SVOO SVOVO S, . . . ,VO SV, . . . ,O . . . , SVO SVO, . . . Joe writes his report. Joe writes a memo and a report. Joe writes a report and goes to the pub. Joe, tired from his meeting, goes to the pub. Joe goes, dragging his feet, to the pub. Tired from his meeting, Joe goes to the pub.

45. Punctuation When the intervening word or phrase has to be there for the sentence to maintain its essential meaning, you may not use commas. When the intervening word or phrase does not have to be there for the sentence to maintain its essential meaning, you must use commas.

46. Punctuation Quiz: How should the following sentences be punctuated? Swimmers who dive in shallow water risk their lives. An office manager for a corporation, that had government contracts, asked her supervisor whether she could reprimand her co-workers for smoking.

47. Punctuation Joining Sentences: S V O S V O • Two errors: • Joe goes home Betsy writes the report. • Joe goes home, Betsy writes the report.

48. Punctuation Joining Sentences: S V O ? S V O , and : ; ( ) --

49. Punctuation Joining Sentences: S V O ? S V O , and S V O : S V O / list ; ( ) --

50. Punctuation Joining Sentences: S V O ? S V O , and S V O : S V O / list S V O ; S V O ( ) --