Memo (Elegant design)



interoffice memorandum

|to: |Steve Zimms |

|from: |Vicki Clark |

|subject: |developing a more effective writing process for the workplace |

|date: |July 11, 2013 |

|cc: |Brad tellers |

| | |

It can be easy to assume that all writing projects are the same whether they are completed for an employer or a professor. This perspective on writing is somewhat wrong. Writing for a professor is important as it serves as proof for what a student has learned in their class and results in the letter grade that a student will earn. Keeping that in mind, it is much more important to understand that an effective writing process is necessary in the workplace because more than a letter grade depends upon what has been written, especially when it is something that will be seen by a boss, potential employer or company client.

According to Pagel (2011), “Documents that are error free create a favorable impression. Letters that look attractive, contain no misspelled words, and use correct grammar and punctuation indicate to the reader that the sender is a competent person who is concerned about quality” (p. 2). In order to achieve a document that is written effectively is to go through the writing process that was learned in school, but sometimes skipped in order to get a paper done quickly for a deadline. The five steps are prewriting that includes researching, brainstorming, and determining the style for the audience being written towards, organization which includes outlining ideas, determining the style for the audience being written towards, revising for clarity, and proofreading for any errors.

Before writing anything it is important to go through the prewriting process, such as researching the topic being written about, brainstorming how to best showcase the idea being presented in the project, and what style to use for the audience. Think about the organization of the paper by creating an outline for how the document will flow better, such as introducing the problem that the solution would fix in the introduction, explaining how the fix would work and any other factors like cost in the following paragraphs with a conclusion that will provide an overview of what was covered in the document. This outline should then be fleshed out into a rough draft.

The next stages are easy to overlook because they may not seem as important as the prior steps, but revising for clarity and proofreading for errors are probably more important than any other stage. If the revision and proofreading steps are not completed, a document may contain a great number of errors. It can help to re-read a document out loud to make sure that it flows together. Proofreading can help spot errors that may have happened while writing the document out. Spell-check and grammar checks can help with many errors, but do not always catch them all, so it can be helpful to have someone else look over a document for something that was missed. Workplace documents should also go through a chain of command to be sure everything that a supervisor is looking for in a document is added before it goes to the person requesting the document to help eliminate problems from unprofessional documents being given to a boss or client.

References

Pagel, L. G. (2011). Proofreading & editing precision (6th ed.). Mason , Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.

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