Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 1
Learning Objectives
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 2
3-1
Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 3
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (1 of 9)
• The faster you can articulate your ideas and the more efficiently you can explain
what needs to be said, the more successful and content you will be in your
career.
• Being able to write efficiently and clearly is also critical to promotions.
• The 3-x-3 writing process guides you through the steps necessary to write
confidently, but more important, clearly.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 4
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (2 of 9)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 5
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (3 of 9)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 6
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (4 of 9)
• Thoughtful writers collect information that answers several questions:
− What does the receiver need to know about this topic?
− What is the receiver to do?
− How is the receiver to do it?
− When must the receiver do it?
− What will happen if the receiver doesn’t do it?
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 7
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (5 of 9)
Informal Research
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 9
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (7 of 9)
• Secondary sources:
− Secondary data come from reading what others have experienced or
observed and written about.
− Books, magazines, journals, and online resources are all considered
secondary sources.
− Most writers conducting research begin with secondary sources.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 10
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (8 of 9)
• Traditionally, teams have generated ideas by brainstorming, the spontaneous
contribution of ideas by team members.
− A facilitator records these ideas.
− The emphasis is on quantity, not quality.
− Judgment is discouraged because the goal is to think freely.
− Critics charge that the practice may enable one noisy extrovert to dominate
the conversation.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 11
3-1 Drafting Workplace Messages Begins With
Research (9 of 9)
• Mind mapping is a process for generating and sorting ideas.
− Mind mapping emphasizes visual concepts, beginning with a single concept
drawn as an image in the center of a blank page.
− Associated words and images branch out treelike showing the relationship
between the ideas and the central concept.
• What idea-generating method works for you?
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 12
3-2
Organizing Ideas to Show Relationships
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 13
3-2 Organizing Ideas to Show Relationships (1 of 7)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 15
3-2 Organizing Ideas to Show Relationships (3 of 7)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 16
3-2 Organizing Ideas to Show Relationships (4 of 7)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 17
3-2 Organizing Ideas to Show Relationships (5 of 7)
• The direct method, also called frontloading, offers at least three advantages:
− Saves the reader’s time.
− Sets a proper frame of mind.
− Reduces frustration.
• Typical business messages that follow the direct strategy include routine
requests and responses, orders and acknowledgments, nonsensitive memos, e-
mails, informational reports, and informational oral presentations.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 18
3-2 Organizing Ideas to Show Relationships (6 of 7)
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 19
3-2 Organizing Ideas to Show Relationships (7 of 7)
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 20
Knowledge Check 1
True or False:
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 21
3-3
Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 22
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(1 of 8)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 23
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(2 of 8)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 24
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(3 of 8)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 25
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(4 of 8)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 26
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(5 of 8)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 27
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(6 of 8)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 28
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(7 of 8)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 29
3-3 Writing a First Draft With Powerful Sentences
(8 of 8)
8 words 100%
15 words 90%
19 words 80%
28 words 50%
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 30
3-4
Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 31
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (1 of 9)
Creating Emphasis
• Without verbal and nonverbal clues, when writing you must rely on other ways
to inform readers about which ideas are more important than others.
• Emphasis in writing can be achieved in two ways: mechanically and stylistically.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 32
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (2 of 9)
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 33
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (3 of 9)
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 34
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (4 of 9)
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 35
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (5 of 9)
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 36
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques
(6 of 9)
Active Voice Passive Voice
• Madison must submit a tax return. • The tax return was submitted [by
Madison].
• Officials reviewed all tax returns.
• All tax returns were reviewed [by
• We cannot make cash refunds. officials].
• Our CPA made a big error in the • Cash refunds cannot be made.
budget.
• A big error was made in the budget.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 37
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (7 of 9)
Creating Parallelism
• Parallelism is a writing technique that produces balanced writing.
• Sentences written so that their parts are balanced, or parallel, are easy to read
and understand.
• To achieve parallel construction:
− Use similar structures to express similar ideas.
− Try to match nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, and clauses with clauses.
− Avoid mixing active-voice verbs with passive-voice verbs.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 38
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (8 of 9)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 39
3-4 Mastering Four Helpful Writing Techniques (9 of 9)
• Be sure to follow introductory verbal phrases immediately with the words they
logically describe or modify.
• Try this trick for detecting and remedying many dangling modifiers.
− Ask the question "Who?" or "What?" after any introductory phrase.
− The words immediately following should tell the reader who or what is
performing the action.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 40
Knowledge Check 2
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 41
3-5
Building Well-Organized Paragraphs
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 42
3-5 Building Well-Organized Paragraphs (1 of 6)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 43
3-5 Building Well-Organized Paragraphs (2 of 6)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 44
3-5 Building Well-Organized Paragraphs (3 of 6)
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posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 45
3-5 Building Well-Organized Paragraphs (4 of 6)
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3-5 Building Well-Organized Paragraphs (5 of 6)
− Including Pronouns. Familiar pronouns, such as "we," "they," "he," "she," and
"it," help build continuity, as do demonstrative pronouns, such as "this,"
"that," "these," and "those."
− Employing Transitional Expressions. Transitional expressions are another
device for showing connections and achieving paragraph coherence.
§ Transitional expressions enable the receiver to anticipate what’s
coming, reduce uncertainty, and speed comprehension. They signal that
a train of thought is moving forward, being developed, possibly detouring,
or ending.
Guffey and Loewy, Essentials of Business Communication, 12th Edition. © 2023 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 47
3-5 Building Well-Organized Paragraphs (6 of 6)
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