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Create a graphic organizer using a Venn diagram, Web diagram, T-table, flowchart, or outline to summarize the steps in business writing.   Include various activities completed in each step.   Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper Use the information provided in Ch. 5 ofthe text.   Post the graphic organizer as an attachment.

 

hat many employers in the United
States are dissatisfied with their

employees’ writing skills is not a surprise
to individuals who frequently peruse the
professional literature in nearly any aca-
demic field or discipline (Gray, Emerson,
& MacKay, 2005; Wise, 2005). Although
the expressions of dismay are frequent
and often strong, educators have done
little to rectify the situation.

Costs of Employees’ Poor Writing
Skills

Deficiencies in employees’ writ-
ing skills have tangible and intangible
costs. In 2004, the National Commis-
sion on Writing (NCW) published the
results of a study for which it had
collected cost data from 64 of 120
large American corporations that were
affiliated with the Business Round-
table and that employed nearly 8 mil-
lion people. According to the report,
American firms may spend as much as
$3.1 billion annually to remediate their
employees’ writing deficiencies (Col-
lege Board, the National Commission
on Writing for America’s Families,
Schools, and Colleges, 2004).

The intangible costs of employees’
deficient writing skills are (a) image
degradation for both employees and
employers; (b) negative impact on pro-
ductivity when employees must reread,
perhaps several times, poorly written

material to decipher the intended mean-
ing; and (c) the outcome when an incor-
rect decision is made because of poorly
or ineffectively written material.

Employers in the public sector have
reported similar

writing deficiencies

among their employees. A 2005 NCW
publication summarized feedback from
the human resources divisions for 49 of
the 50 states:

Writing is considered an even more impor-
tant job requirement for the states’ nearly
2.7 million employees than it is for the
private-sector employees studied in the
Commission’s previous survey of leading
U.S. businesses. Still, despite the high value
that state employers put on writing skills,
a significant number of their employees
do not meet states’ expectations. (College
Board, the National Commission on Writ-
ing for America’s Families, Schools, and
Colleges, 2005, p. 3)

Employers have consistently ranked
oral and written communication skills
as among the most important, if not
the most important, qualifications their
employees should possess (Gray et al.,
2005; Kelly & Gaedeke, 1990; McDaniel
& White, 1993). Given the importance
of communication skills to job success
and the communication deficiencies of
employees, the frustration expressed
by American businesses is understand-
able. The following statement from the
2004 NCW report articulates the dis-
satisfaction of American employers:
“The skills of new college graduates

Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost
Generation of Business Writers?
ZANE K. QUIBLE
FRANCES GRIFFIN
OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA

TABSTRACT. Business professionals and instructors often view writing skills as
one of the most important qualifications

that employees should possess. However,

many business employees, including recent

college graduates, have serious writing

deficiencies, especially in their ability to

use standard English. As a result, American

businesses spend billions of dollars annu-

ally to remediate these writing deficiencies

(College Board, the National Commission

on Writing for America’s Families, Schools,

and Colleges, 2004). In this article, the

authors examine possible reasons for these

deficiencies and offer evidence that a modi-

fied context-based approach, the glossing

approach, and consistent error marking can

reduce the number of sentence-level errors

students make.

Keywords: context-based approach, gram-

mar, punctuation, rules-based approach,

writing deficiencies

Copyright © 2007 Heldref Publications

32 Journal of Education for Business

September/October 2007 33

are deplorable—across the board: spell-
ing, grammar, sentence structure. . . . I
can’t believe people come out of college
now not knowing what a sentence is”
(College Board, the National Commis-
sion on Writing for America’s Families,
Schools, and Colleges, 2004, p. 14).

The Role of Grammar Instruction
in Writing Classes

Educators have frequently debated
how grammar is best taught. Accord-
ing to Doniger (2003), whether teach-
ing grammar has a beneficial effect, no
effect, or even a harmful effect on stu-
dents’ writing has been a controversial
topic for at least 4 decades. Historically,
teachers have taught grammar using a
rules-based approach, also known as
traditional school grammar (Hillocks
& Smith, 2003), two prominent charac-
teristics of which are teaching parts of
speech and sentence diagramming.

Beginning in the 1960s, an abun-
dance of research data showed the inef-
fectiveness of the rules-based approach
(Braddock, Lloyd-Jones, & Schoer,
1963; Elley, Barham, Lamb, & Wyl-
lie, 1975; Harris, 1962; Hillocks, 1986;
Noguchi, 1991). According to Hillocks,
school officials who require that tra-
ditional school grammar be taught are
doing their students a “gross disservice”
(p. 248). Over the years, Hillocks has
repeated his thoughts and has cited the
works of others whose thinking paral-
lels his: “Research over a period of 100
years has consistently shown that the
teaching of traditional school grammar
(TSG) has had little or no effect on
students, particularly on their writing”
(Hillocks & Smith, 2003, p. 721).

Opposition to using the repetitive
drills and grammar or punctuation exer-
cises characteristic of the rules-based
approach was so strong that in 1985, the
National Council of Teachers of English
(NCTE) board of directors passed a
position statement that is still posted on
the NCTE Web page and states,

Resolved, that the National Council of
Teachers of English affirm the position
that the use of isolated grammar and
usage exercises [is] not supported by the-
ory and research [and] is a deterrent to the
improvement of students’ speaking and
writing . . . and that the NCTE urge [sic]
the discontinuance of testing practices

that encourage the teaching of grammar
rather than English language arts instruc-
tion. (NCTE, 1985, p. 1)

The NCTE (2006) affirmed its posi-
tion regarding the use of grammar drills
in a news release stating that most Eng-
lish teachers do not see themselves as
“grammar police” (p. 1) patrolling for
sentence-level deficiencies in their stu-
dents’ writing.

As the rules-based approach fell out
of favor, the context-based approach,
strongly advocated by Weaver (1996,
1998), became the preferred means of
teaching grammar and punctuation.
Rather than using the repetitive gram-
mar or punctuation drills characteris-
tic of TSG, the context-based approach
focuses grammar instruction on what
students are reading and writing (i.e.,
formal grammar instruction is cen-
tered on the text created by students).
Although most of the grammar instruc-
tion is likely based on the errors found
in the students’ writing, some grammar
and punctuation instruction also may
focus on error-free constructions. In
this context-based approach, as Weav-
er (1996) pointed out, the grammar
instruction that the students receive var-
ies from school to school, class to class,
and student to student, and teachers
generally offer such instruction at the
time of need. Thus, subject–verb agree-
ment may not be discussed until one
or more students make a subject–verb
agreement error, and the sentences in
which such errors were made will be
the focus of the instruction. In using the
context-based approach, teachers pres-
ent grammar and punctuation rules, but
the application of the approach is based
on text created or read by students—not
on isolated grammar exercises.

Weaver (1996) cited several studies
that show the advantages of the context-
based approach, including studies by
Calkins (1986), DiStefano and Killion
(1984), Harris (1962), Kolln (1981),
McQuade (1980), Noguchi (1991),
and O’Hare (1973). In each study, the
researchers found that students who
learned language conventions in the
context of their writing generally made
fewer mechanical errors in their writ-
ing than did students who studied the
language conventions in isolation—a
characteristic of TSG.

Although the context-based approach
has many proponents, it is not without
opposition. Sams (2003) indicated that
the grammar-in-context approach has an
inherent flaw because

it treats grammar as an isolated set of rules,
thereby considering the written product
under review as the only relevant con-
text for grammar instruction. It completely
ignores the context from which the rules
derive, the language system itself. Quite
simply, students have no background
knowledge about grammar, no vocabulary,
no concepts, no context, no means for
understanding teachers’ explanations of
rules or their application. Thus, someone
who attempts to teach grammar in context,
is, in effect, attempting to teach grammar
in a vacuum. (p. 63)

Although teaching grammar and
punctuation in the context of writing,
as advocated by Weaver (1996), has
been promoted as an effective alterna-
tive to the rules-based approach, our
observations correlate to those of the
employers interviewed by the NCW:
Students’ writing skills are no more—
and may be less—effective than they
were 15 to 20 years ago. Johansen and
Shaw (2003) have a possible expla-
nation for this observation: Some
English teachers decided not to teach
grammar at all when research findings
showed the ineffectiveness of the TSG
approach and recommended the use of
the context-based approach.

Perhaps one difficulty in this dis-
cussion is the definition of writing as
Hillocks and the NCTE use the term. In
his published work, rarely does Hillocks
(1996) mention correctness as a char-
acteristic of good writing. The NCTE
(2006) statement also seems to focus
on other aspects of good writing in
its reference to grammar as being an
important writing resource. However,
the comments in the two NCW reports
(College Board, the National Commis-
sion on Writing for America’s Fami-
lies, Schools, and Colleges, 2004, 2005)
place correctness at the sentence level
at the forefront. If educators distinguish
between teaching correct grammar
and mechanics and teaching writing,
perhaps they can start to address the
problem. Ironically, according to Baron
(2003), college professors were recently
reported in a study undertaken by the
publishers of the American College Test

34 Journal of Education for Business

(ACT) as indicating that grammar is
the most important skill for students
entering college, but high school teach-
ers consider it to be the least important
skill. According to the same study, the
discrepancy between college expecta-
tions and high school instruction may
explain why nearly 20% of students
entering college take a remedial writing
course. Although teaching correct gram-
mar and mechanics certainly does not
constitute teaching writing, we argue
that for business writing, correctness is
a critical characteristic of effective writ-
ten communication.

Doniger (2003) wrote that the oppo-
sition to teaching TSG may be weak-
ening because “recently, the armor of
the anti-grammar instruction stance has
shown chinks and dents” (p. 101). Hud-
son (2001) concurred:

The pendulum seems to be on the return
swing. It would be naive to think that
the pendulum is driven by academic
research—indeed, there has been very
little research on grammar and writing
since the flurry in the 60s and 70s. . . .
However, the result is that there is now
much more enthusiasm in some educa-
tional circles for the idea that conscious
grammar (resulting from formal teaching)
could have the useful benefit of improv-
ing writing. (p. 1)

Hudson (2001) reported that in the
United Kingdom, the government has
introduced two directives: the Nation-
al Literacy Strategy in 1997 and the
National Curriculum for English in
1999. These directives advocate reintro-
ducing the teaching of grammar into all
primary and secondary state-run schools
in the United Kingdom.

The instructors who teach writing
courses, including written business
communication courses, are chal-
lenged to develop new approaches
to help students remediate their sen-
tence-level errors. These courses are
likely the last writing-oriented courses
that the students take before receiving
their undergraduate degree. Given the
disparity between the ineffective writ-
ing skills of those entering the work-
force and the level of writing skills
American employers require of their
employees, the instructors educat-
ing future business employees cannot
ignore the disconnect. If instructors
continue to ignore it, the consequenc-

es will likely be as frustrating to the
instructors as their products are frus-
trating to those who hire them. If the
status quo is allowed to continue, gov-
ernment intervention becomes a much
stronger likelihood, as has occurred in
the United Kingdom.

Suggestions

Researchers have posed a num-
ber of alternatives to the rules-based
approach. However, unless these alter-
natives help students overcome their
sentence-level deficiencies, the writing
weaknesses of employees as identified
in the two NCW reports will continue
frustrate employers.

Hillocks and Smith (2003), who are
strong opponents of the TSG approach,
recommended the sentence-combining
technique as an alternative to the con-
text approach. When using the sen-
tence-combining technique, instructors
give students a series of short sentences
in a set (from two to as many as eight
or nine) and ask students to use all of
the ideas in these sentences to cre-
ate a new, more structurally complex
sentence. According to Cooper (1975),
“no other single teaching approach has
ever consistently been shown to have a
beneficial effect on syntactic maturity
and writing quality” (p. 72). However,
when considering the errors in the sen-
tences students create, Jackson (1982)
found that sentence-combining prac-
tice did not reduce errors among basic
writers. Hayes (1984) indicated that
sentence combining has the same level
of effectiveness in reducing mechani-
cal errors as TSG instruction.

We believe that a modified sentence-
combining technique in which sentence-
level errors are identified and the rules
governing the correction of these errors
are explained is a viable option. Illustra-
tion of the modified sentence-combin-
ing strategy is:

Directions: Using the ideas presented in
the following sentences, combine them
into one compound sentence.

John is my brother.

He is the oldest of the three boys in my
family.

He lives in New York City.

He plans to visit me this weekend.

Student’s sentence: My older brother John
lives in New York City, he is going to visit
me this weekend.

Instructor’s notations on student’s paper:
Superlative adjective error (“older” should
be “oldest”); comma-splice error (change
comma to semicolon or insert “and”); and
parallel structure error (“he is going to. .
.” should be “he plans to. . .”)

Note: In an actual situation, the codes of
the errors reflecting these three deficien-
cies would be placed at the location of
each error. For example, “sup. adj” may
be written at the location of the first error,
“CS” may be written at the location of the
second error, and “PS” may be written at
the location of the third error.

We believe that students’ sentence-
level errors should always be marked
as part of grading their work. If English
teachers do not see themselves as gram-
mar police and therefore do not mark
grammar and punctuation errors, students
remain unaware of the magnitude of their
writing insufficiency and have no way of
knowing what types of deficiencies need
to be corrected. The result is that they
continue to make the same sentence-
level errors. The instructors who teach
in other business disciplines also can
assist by marking sentence-level errors
in their students’ written work. They also
can consider writing quality, including
correctness, as one of the components in
determining grades on students’ written
work. This can be facilitated when an
academic unit (e.g., department or col-
lege) adopts a uniform error-code list or
writing style handbook that all instruc-
tional personnel use when grading their
students’ work. Thus, if a student’s paper
contains a comma splice, the instructor
records the code for the splice on the
student’s paper at the location of the
error and provides a correction.

Some researchers show that requiring
students to correct certain marked errors
is helpful. Johansen and Shaw (2003)
advocated this with their glossing
approach, which uses the following five
steps: (a) the teacher evaluates students’
writing and marks their sentence-level
errors; (b) the teacher highlights the
errors that he or she wants students to
further consider; (c) the teacher returns
the students’ work, asking them to cor-
rect all errors; (d) each student receives
a summary sheet on which he or she
writes the grammar rules that pertain to

September/October 2007 35

the highlighted errors on his or her piece
of writing; and (e) each student resub-
mits the corrected composition and the
summary sheet.

Feng and Powers (2005) recommend-
ed error-based grammar instruction that
analyzes the grammar errors students
make and creates minilessons that focus
on these errors. During follow-up writ-
ing, the instructors continue to analyze
the nature of students’ sentence-level
errors and provide additional remedia-
tion where needed.

Sams (2003) suggested the use of
sentence diagramming to teach grammar
fundamentals and presented a question-
ing process to help students differenti-
ate among various words and their use
within sentences. According to Sams,
this system works because in linguistic
structures, each word within a sentence
answers a question about another word,
and using the questioning process helps
students determine the proper relation-
ships between words.

Quible (2004) studied the use of an
error-labeling technique in eliminating
sentence-level errors that students in
business writing courses often make. In
his study, students were asked to iden-
tify and label errors in writing samples.
He found a strong correlation between
error labeling and error correction, sug-
gesting that the error-labeling technique
is an effective approach in helping stu-
dents eradicate sentence-level errors
involving grammar and punctuation.

Quible (2006) also studied the impact
on error eradication of remediation exer-
cises containing grammar and punc-
tuation deficiencies. These remediation
exercises (short narratives), most of
which were 100–120 words long, were
created to focus on certain errors often
found in students’ writing; for example,
an exercise may include several sen-
tences that contain subject–verb and
pronoun–antecedent disagreement. Stu-
dents were asked to identify the errors
by their label and subsequently correct
them. By the end of the semester, the
students who completed the remedia-
tion exercises made significantly fewer
sentence-level errors than did their
counterparts who did not complete the
remediation exercises.

Quible (2007) reported that the use
of strategies is a useful technique in

helping students master basic grammar
and punctuation concepts. Strategies
avoid the use of parts-of-speech labels
and grammar and punctuation rules. In
their place, students work with easy-to-
learn and easily remembered strategies.
An illustration of rules approach versus
strategies approach is:

Rule: “Who” is correctly used when it
functions as a subject in the sentence;
“whom” is correctly used when it func-
tions as an object.

Strategy: On the one hand, when you
can correctly substitute “he” (or “she”
or “they”) in a sentence when deciding
whether to use “who” or “whom,” then
“who,” not “whom,” is the correct choice.
On the other hand, when you can correct-
ly substitute “him” (or “her” or “them”)
in a sentence when deciding whether to
use “who” or “whom,” then “whom,” not
“who,” is the correct choice.

Application:

Sentence: The person (who/whom) sells
the most cars will earn a trip to Cancun.

Strategy: “Him (or her) sells the most
cars” or “he (or she) sells the most cars.”
Choose “who.”

Sentence: (Who/whom) did you ask to
give the keynote address?

Strategy: “Did you ask he/she/they” or
“Did you ask him/her/them?” Choose
“whom.”

Conclusion

Focusing instruction on grammar and
punctuation rules is a necessary part of
teaching written communication skills.
Researchers have shown that the ability of
students to eliminate their sentence-level
errors improved when instruction was
combined with other approaches (e.g.,
in-context writing, sentence combining,
glossing, error labeling). Without such
instruction, businesses will continue to
suffer the high costs of a lost generation
of employees whose writing is plagued
with sentence-level deficiencies.

NOTES

Dr. Zane K. Quible’s interests are business
writing and business pedagogy.

Dr. Frances Griffin’s interests are business
writing and cross-cultural business communica-
tion.

Correspondence concerning this article should
be addressed to Dr. Zane K. Quible, Profes-
sor, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
74078.

E-mail: zquible@okstate.edu

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Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition

I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages

5. Planning, Composing,
and

Revising

© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

C H A P T E R 5
Planning, Composing,
and Revising

Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, you will know:

1 More about the activities involved in the composing process,
and how to use these activities to your advantage.

2 New techniques to revise, edit, and proofread your
communications.

3 Ways to combat writer’s block.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages

5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising

© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

I N T H E N E W S

Always the Same, Always Different

W
e call it a “process” because, when we

write, there are certain steps we always

take. There’s always an element of plan-

ning and research, always a step where we actually

put words together, and always some kind of edit-

ing and revision.

Jane Garrard, the Vice President for investor and

media relations at Tupperware Brands Corporation is

responsible for producing an

earnings release statement for

the company Web site, every

quarter. Every quarter, that task

requires the same steps. She

gathers facts and data about

Tupperware’s business and

earnings; summarizes that information for Tupper-

ware’s shareholders and investors; produces the ta-

bles, graphs, and balance sheets that are part of the

standard earnings release “boilerplate,” or template;

and circulates the document for review. That’s a

writing process, and it’s the same every quarter.

But it’s also a communication process, because it’s

different every quarter. Every quarter brings different

numbers, different directions for the company, dif-

ferent market conditions with different investor ex-

pectations. Every quarter, it’s a different message,

requiring a different approach and different inter-

pretations. Garrard and her team must decide the

best ways to balance their responsibility to Tupper-

ware’s customers with regulatory requirements and

company interests. They have to interpret the data,

analyze their audience, consult

with their co-workers, and then

compose an earnings release

statement that meets every-

one’s goals. That’s a challeng-

ing job, and a “boilerplate”

won’t help with it.

It’s important to have a process to follow when

you communicate, because a process will help you

organize your time, information, and priorities. But

communication isn’t just about doing the same

thing in the same way, every time. Every communi-

cation task is different, so the first step in the

“process” is to

decide which steps in the process to

follow, and how.

135

“The first step in the ‘process’ is to

decide which steps in the process to

follow, and how.”

Adapted from Assaf Kadem, “Facts and Interpretation,” Communication World, December 2006, 30.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

136 Part 1 The Building Blocks of Effective Messages

Chapter Outline
The Ways Good Writers Write

Activities in the Composing Process

Using Your Time Effectively

Brainstorming, Planning, and Organizing Business Documents

Revising, Editing, and Proofreading

• What to Look for When You Revise
• What to Look for When You Edit
• How to Catch Typos

Getting and Using Feedback

Using Boilerplate

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Summary of Key Points

Skilled performances look easy and effortless. In reality, as every dancer, mu-
sician, and athlete knows, they’re the products of hard work, hours of prac-
tice, attention to detail, and intense concentration. Like skilled performances
in other arts, writing rests on a base of work.

The Ways Good Writers Write
No single writing process works for all writers all of the time. However, good
writers and poor writers seem to use different processes.1 Good writers are
more likely to

• Realize that the first draft can be revised.

• Write regularly.

• Break big jobs into small chunks.

• Have clear goals focusing on purpose and audience.

• Have several different strategies to choose from.

• Use rules flexibly.

• Wait to edit until after the draft is complete.

The research also shows that good writers differ from poor writers in
identifying and analyzing the initial problem more effectively, understand-
ing the task more broadly and deeply, drawing from a wider repertoire of
strategies, and seeing patterns more clearly. Good writers also are better at
evaluating their own work.

Thinking about the writing process and consciously adopting the processes
of good writers will help you become a better writer.

Activities in the Composing Process
Composing can include many activities: planning, brainstorming, gathering,
organizing, writing, evaluating, getting feedback, revising, editing, and proof-
reading. The activities do not have to come in this order. Not every task demands
all activities.

Ethics and the
Writing Process

As you plan a message,

• Be sure you have
identified the real audiences
and purposes of the
message.

• In difficult situations, seek al-
lies in your organization and
discuss your options with them.

As you compose,

• Provide accurate and
complete information.

• Use reliable sources of material.
Document when necessary.

• Warn your readers of limits or
dangers in your information.

• Promise only what you can
deliver.

As you revise,

• Check to see that your
language does not use
words that show bias.

• Use feedback to revise text
and visuals that your audience
may misunderstand.

• Check your sources.

• Assume that no document is
confidential. E-mail
documents can be forwarded
and printed out without your
knowledge; both e-mails and
paper documents can be
subpoenaed for court cases.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

Chapter 5 Planning, Composing, and Revising 137

Planning

• Analyzing the problem, defining your purposes, and analyzing the audience.

• Brainstorming information, benefits, and objections to include in the document.

• Gathering the information you need—from the message you’re answer-
ing, a person, a book, or the Web.

• Choosing a pattern of organization, making an outline, creating a list,
writing headings.

Writing

• Putting words on paper or on a screen. Writing can be lists, fragmentary
notes, stream-of-consciousness writing, incomplete drafts, and ultimately
a formal draft.

Revising

• Evaluating your work and measuring it against your goals and the re-
quirements of the situation and audience. The best evaluation results from
re-seeing your draft as if someone else had written it. Will your audience
understand it? Is it complete? Convincing? Friendly?

• Getting feedback from someone else. Is your pattern of organization ap-
propriate? Does a revision solve an earlier problem? Are there any typos
in the final copy?

• Adding, deleting, substituting, or rearranging. Revision can be changes in
single words or in large sections of a document.

Editing

• Checking the draft to see that it satisfies the requirements of standard
English. Here you’d correct spelling and mechanical errors and check
word choice and format. Unlike revision, which can produce major
changes in meaning, editing focuses on the surface of writing.

• Proofreading the final copy to see that it’s free from typographical errors.

Note the following points about these activities:

• The activities do not have to come in this order. Some people may gather
data after writing a draft when they see that they need more specifics to
achieve their purposes.

• You do not have to finish one activity to start another. Some writers plan
a short section and write it, plan the next short section and write it, and so
on through the document. Evaluating what is already written may cause a
writer to do more planning or to change the original plan.

• Most writers do not use all activities for all the documents they write.
You’ll use more activities when you write more complex or difficult docu-
ments about new subjects or to audiences that are new to you.

Research about what writers really do has destroyed some of the stereo-
types we used to have about the writing process. Consider planning. Tradi-
tional advice stressed the importance of planning and sometimes advised
writers to make formal outlines for everything they wrote. But we know now
that not all good documents are based on outlines.

For many workplace writers, pre-writing is not a warm-up activity to get
ready to write the “real” document. It’s really a series of activities designed
to gather and organize information, take notes, brainstorm with colleagues,
and plan a document before writing a complete draft. And for many peo-
ple, these activities do not include outlining. Traditional outlining may lull

When Words Hurt

In the summer of 2006,
Iowa State University

was gearing up to host the first
national Special Olympics, a com-
petition featuring people with in-
tellectual disabilities. Visitors would
be arriving from all over the coun-
try, and the small university town
wanted to put on its best face for
the crowds. The student newspa-
per, the Iowa State Daily, created
a 14-page, full-color visitors’ guide
to the city of Ames and inserted it
into the campus paper. Unfortu-
nately, they named it “Ames for
Dummies” after the popular book
series.

The editor-in-chief quickly apol-
ogized for the insensitive choice
of wording, while the Daily re-
moved the inserts and replaced
them with reprinted publications
featuring a new headline.

Adapted from Lisa Rossi, “Olympics
Section Goof Sends Paper Run-
ning,” Des Moines Register, July 1,
2006, 1A, 4A.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

138 Part 1 The Building Blocks of Effective Messages

writers into a false sense of confidence about their material and organization,
making it difficult for them to revise their content and structure if they deviate
from the outline developed early in the process.2

Using Your Time Effectively
To get the best results from the time you have, spend only one-third of your
time actually “writing.” Spend at least another one-third of your time analyz-
ing the situation and your audience, gathering information, and organizing
what you have to say. Spend the final third evaluating what you’ve said, re-
vising the draft(s) to meet your purposes and the needs of the audience and
the organization, editing a late draft to remove any errors in grammar and me-
chanics, and proofreading the final copy.

Do realize, however, that different writers and documents may need differ-
ent time divisions to produce quality communications.

Brainstorming, Planning, and Organizing
Business Documents
Spend significant time planning and organizing before you begin to write. The
better your ideas are when you start, the fewer drafts you’ll need to produce a
good document. Start by using the analysis questions from Chapter 1 to
identify purpose and audience. Use the strategies described in Chapter 2 to
analyze audience and identify reader benefits. Gather information you can
use for your document.

Sometimes your content will be determined by the situation. Sometimes,
even when it’s up to you to think of benefits or topics to include in a report,
you’ll find it easy to think of ideas. If ideas won’t come, try the following
techniques:

• Brainstorming. Think of all the ideas you can, without judging them.
Consciously try to get at least a dozen different ideas before you stop.
Good brainstorming depends on generating many ideas.

• Freewriting.3 Make yourself write, without stopping, for 10 minutes or
so, even if you must write “I will think of something soon.” At the end of
10 minutes, read what you’ve written, identify the best point in the draft,
then set it aside, and write for another 10 uninterrupted minutes. Read
this draft, marking anything that’s good and should be kept, and then
write again for another 10 minutes. By the third session, you will probably
produce several sections that are worth keeping—maybe even a complete
draft that’s ready to be revised.

• Clustering.4 Write your topic in the middle of the page and circle it. Write
down the ideas the topic suggests, circling them, too. (The circles are de-
signed to tap into the nonlinear half of your brain.) When you’ve filled the
page, look for patterns or repeated ideas. Use different colored pens to
group related ideas. Then use these ideas to develop reader benefits in a
memo, questions for a survey, or content for the body of a report. Figure 5.1
presents the clusters that one writer created about business communica-
tion in the United States and France.

• Talk to your audiences. As research shows, talking to internal and exter-
nal audiences helps writers to involve readers in the planning process and
to understand the social and political relationships among readers. This
preliminary work helps reduce the number of revisions needed before
documents are approved.5

➠

The Art of
Brainstorming

“Do you want good
ideas? Do you want to

spark more good ideas with oth-
ers? [Researchers, managers,
and inventors say:] Relax. Play
music. Break bread with a col-
league. Read a poem. Open
yourself to eccentricity. Listen to
someone else’s story. Laugh.
Resist the tyranny of drones.
Seek catharsis. Get vulnerable.
Do something risky. Be a rebel,
with self-confidence. And, yes,
with love.”

Quoted from Robert Parker, “The Art
of Brainstorming,” BusinessWeek,
August 26, 2002, 169.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

Chapter 5 Planning, Composing, and Revising 139

Thinking about the content, layout, or structure of your document can also
give you ideas. For long documents, write out the headings you’ll use. For
short documents, jot down key points—information to include, objections to
answer, reader benefits to develop. For an oral presentation, a meeting, or a
document with lots of visuals, try creating a storyboard, with a rectangle rep-
resenting each page or unit. Draw a box with a visual for each main point. Be-
low the box, write a short caption or label.

Letters and memos will go faster if you choose a basic organizational pat-
tern before you start. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 give detailed patterns of organi-
zation for the most common kinds of letters and memos. You may frequently
customize those patterns to fit particular situations. Figure 5.2 shows plan-
ning guides developed for specific kinds of documents.

As you plan your document, pay attention to signals from your boss and
the organization’s culture. For example, if the organization has a style manual
that specifies whether data is singular or plural, follow its guidelines. If the or-
ganization has an ethics counselor, think about consulting him or her as you
decide what to write in a situation with ethical implications. Talk to people in
the organization who will be affected by what you are announcing or propos-
ing, to better understand their concerns. In some organizations, your boss
may want to see an early planning draft to see that you’re on the right track. In
other organizations, you may be expected to do a great deal of revising on
your own before anyone else sees the document.

Do the French
prefer oral or

written?
Isn’t it hard to

get a phone line?
Or is the problem only

one for individuals?

Channels

Do they use
Fax? E-mail?

Time lag?

Different for
job hunting than

for marketing
brochure?

Check
marketing
brochures

Formats
for letters

Dates
Different order
for month, date

Business Communication
USA/France

Time zones

Persuasion

What is persuasive?
Look at
Layout/white space
Headings
Organization
Content – what’s
included
Kind(s) of evidence
Importance of

People
Technology
Service
Price

Handwriting
vs.

typing

Language

Style

Culture

Influence of
European Common

Market

Do they see
themselves as French
or European?

“Franglais”?

Do French people know English well?
Do they know US or British English?

Problems translating?

Is it better to write and speak in English
if my French isn’t good?

The letters I’ve seen from
France are stuffy. Is that

considered good? Should I imi-
tate that style when writing in

English to a French business person?

How it affects
written communication

meetings and negotiations

Nonverbal
Distance to
stand apart

Body language
Handshakes

theirs is “weaker”

Are
reasons for
judgment the
same?
Results (as in
US) or something
else?

Figure 5.1 Clustering Helps Generate Ideas

Writing with
Information

Good writers write with
information. Michelle Russo
writes reports appraising how
much a hotel is worth. Gathering
information is a big part of her
composing process.

She visits the site. She talks to
the general manager. She gets
occupancy rates, financial state-
ments, and tax forms. She talks to
the tax assessor and all the man-
agers of competing hotels. If it’s a
convention hotel, she talks to the
convention bureau and gets the
airlines’ passenger traffic counts.
Gathering all this information takes
about four days. When she gets
back to the office, she uses data-
bases for even more information.

Adapted from Michelle S. Russo,
telephone conversation with Kitty
Locker, December 8, 1993.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

140 Part 1 The Building Blocks of Effective Messages

Revising, Editing, and Proofreading
A popular myth is that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address, perhaps
the most famous American presidential speech, on the back of an envelope on
the train as he traveled to the battlefield’s dedication. The reality is that Lincoln
wrote at least a partial draft of the speech before leaving for the trip and contin-
ued to revise it up to the morning of the speech. Furthermore, the speech was on
a topic he passionately believed in, one he had been pondering for years.6

Like Lincoln, good writers work on their drafts; they make their documents
better by judicious revising, editing, and proofreading.

• Revising means making changes that will better satisfy your purposes
and your audience.

• Editing means making surface-level changes that make the document
grammatically correct.

• Proofreading means checking to be sure the document is free from typo-
graphical errors.

What to Look for When You Revise
When you’re writing to a new audience or have to solve a particularly difficult
problem, plan to revise the draft at least three times. The first time, look for content
and clarity. The second time, check the organization and layout. Finally, check
you-attitude, positive emphasis, style, and tone ( Chapters 3 and 4). The Thor-
ough Revision Checklist on page 143 summarizes the questions you should ask.

Often you’ll get the best revision by setting aside your draft, getting a blank
page or screen, and redrafting. This strategy takes advantage of the thinking

➠

Planning guide
for a trip report

Planning guide
for a proposal

Planning guide for an
e-mail message

Planning guide for
a credit rejection

• Customer’s Concern #1
Our Proposal/Answer

• Customer’s Concern #2
Our Proposal/Answer

• Customer’s Concern #3
Our Proposal/Answer

• Customer’s Concern #4
Our Proposal/Answer

• Ask for Action

• Reason
• Refusal
• Alternative (Layaway/

Co-signer/Provide more
information)

• Goodwill Ending

• The Big Picture from the
Company’s Point of View:
We Can Go Forward on
the Project.

• Criteria/Goals
• What We Did
• Why We Know Enough to

Go Forward
• Next Steps

• My Purpose
• Points I Want to Make
• Document(s) to Attach
• Next Steps

Figure 5.2 Customized Planning Guides for Specific Documents

Source: E-mail and proposal guides based on Fred Reynolds, “What Adult Work-World Writers Have Taught Me
About Adult Work-World Writing,” Professional Writing in Context: Lessons from Teaching and Consulting in Worlds
of Work (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995), 18, 20.

When Roxanne Clemens
was asked by a profes-

sor to edit an article about meat
packing for the World Book En-
cyclopedia (WBE), she readily
agreed to help. As a technical
writer, Roxanne saw the project
as an opportunity to make tech-
nical text accessible to a non-
technical audience. The author
did not supply any style guide-
lines, so Roxanne researched
similar articles in the WBE and
created her own style guide for
the article. Here’s how Roxanne
describes to the professor her
edits to the article:

You may look at this and think, “this
is not what I wrote.” As you know, the
challenge lies in explaining such
complex concepts at a 6th-grade
level. . . . I based most changes on
the examples of WBE entries found
on the Internet. Major style choices
are the following:

• WBE uses short, concise sen-
tences (almost what we would
consider choppy). They use very
few compound sentences, so I
have broken up compound sen-
tences where I thought the
meaning would not be lost.

• Instead of using “however,” WBE
tends to use two sentences and
to start the second sentence
with “but.”

• WBE uses a terminal comma in a
series (e.g. red, white, and blue).

I did some reorganizing at the sen-
tence level, except for moving live-
stock marketing ahead of meat
because that’s the way the heading
reads and it also follows the process
of turning animals into meat.

Let me know if you want me to do
more or something different to the text.

Adapted and quoted from Roxanne
Clemens, e-mail to Donna Kienzler,
August 30, 2006.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

Chapter 5 Planning, Composing, and Revising 141

you did on your first draft without locking you into the sentences in it. Use
WIRMI (“what I really mean is”) to replace awkward phrasing with what you
really want to say.

As you revise, be sure to read the document through from start to finish. This
is particularly important if you’ve composed in several sittings or if you’ve used
text from other documents. Such documents tend to be choppy, repetitious, or
inconsistent. You may need to add transitions, cut repetitive parts, or change
words to create a uniform level of formality throughout the document.

If you’re really in a time bind, do a light revision, as outlined in the Light Revi-
sion Checklist. The quality of the final document may not be as high as with a thor-
ough revision, but even a light revision is better than skipping revision altogether.

What to Look for When You Edit
Even good writers need to edit, since no one can pay attention to surface cor-
rectness while thinking of ideas. Editing should always follow revision. There’s
no point in taking time to fix a grammatical error in a sentence that may be cut
when you clarify your meaning or tighten your style. Some writers edit more
accurately when they print out a copy of a document and edit the hard copy.

Check to be sure that the following are accurate:

• Sentence structure.

• Subject–verb and noun–pronoun agreement.

• Punctuation.

• Word usage.

• Spelling—including spelling of names.

• Numbers.

Punctuation errors are frequently difficult for writers to correct. Nancy Mann
offers a useful decision tree for punctuating clauses correctly (see Figure 5.3).

To catch typos use a spell checker. But you still need to proofread by eye. In
a University of Pittsburgh study, graduate students were asked to proofread a

Figure 5.3 The Punctuation Decision Algorithm

Nancy Mann offers a diagram for punctuating clauses. She believes it “comes close to articulating the
rules of thumb that practiced adult writers unconsciously use in making normal punctuation choices.”
Source: Nancy Mann, “Point Counterpoint: Teaching Punctuation as Information Management,” College
Composition and Communication 54, no. 3 (February 2003): 365.

Is there a linking word?

Can this linker move around within a statement?

Can a statement using this linker move within the statement pair?

Is the second statement in thsi pair essential to the first?

[no punctuation],

If no

If no
If no
If no

. or ;

. or ;

. or ,

If yes

If yes
If yes
If yes

Note: For readability, the algorithm is depicted here as moving in a straight line; note

that it actually “bends” at stage two, where the positions of no and yes reverse.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

142 Part 1 The Building Blocks of Effective Messages

one-page business letter. Students who were not allowed to use the spell
checker tool in the word processor found an average of five more errors than
those who were allowed to use the tool.7

Spell checkers work by matching words; they will signal any group of let-
ters not listed in their dictionaries. However, they cannot tell you when
you’ve used the wrong word but spelled it correctly.

You also need to know the rules of grammar and punctuation to edit. Errors
such as sentence fragments and run-on sentences disturb most educated read-
ers. Errors in punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence. Lynne Truss,
author of the New York Times bestseller on punctuation Eats, Shoots & Leaves,
offers “a popular ‘Dear Jack’ letter” to show the need for care:8

Dear Jack,

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful.
People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me
for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can
be forever happy—will you let me be yours?

Jill

Writers with a good command of grammar and mechanics can do a better
job than the computer grammar checkers currently available. But even good
writers sometimes use a good grammar handbook for reference. On the other
hand, even good editors—such as Bill Walsh, Copy Desk Chief for the Busi-
ness Desk of the Washington Post—warn writers that handbooks should be
used with a clear goal of clarifying text, not blindly following rules.9

Appendix B ➠ reviews grammar and punctuation, numbers, and words
that are often confused.

Most writers make a small number of errors over and over. If you know
that you have trouble with dangling modifiers or subject–verb agreement, for
example, specifically look for them in your draft. Also look for any errors that
especially bother your boss and correct them.

How to Catch Typos
Don’t underestimate the harm that spelling errors can create. For instance, a
police officer who responded to a traffic accident wrapped a blanket around
the female victim as she lay on the side of the road waiting for an ambulance.
In court, the defendant’s lawyer asked the officer if everything in his written
report was accurate, and the officer confirmed that it was. The lawyer then
pointed out that the officer had written that he “raped the woman on the side
of the road.” Reminding the officer that he had just sworn that everything in
his report was correct, the lawyer cast doubt upon the officer’s entire report.10

Dear Jack,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful
people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me.
For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart I can
be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours,

Jill

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

Chapter 5 Planning, Composing, and Revising 143

Checklist Thorough Revision Checklist
Content and clarity

Does your document meet the needs of the organization and of the reader—and
make you look good?
Have you given readers all the information they need to understand and act on
your message?
Is all the information accurate and clear?
Is the message easy to read?
Is each sentence clear? Is the message free from apparently contradictory statements?
Is the logic clear and convincing? Are generalizations and benefits backed up with
adequate supporting detail?

Organization and layout
Is the pattern of organization appropriate for your purposes, audience, and context?
Are transitions between ideas smooth? Do ideas within paragraphs flow smoothly?
Does the design of the document make it easy for readers to find the information
they need? Is the document visually inviting?
Are the points emphasized by layout ones that deserve emphasis?
Are the first and last paragraphs effective?

Style and tone
Does the message use you-attitude and positive emphasis?
Is the message friendly and free from sexist language?
Does the message build goodwill?

The moral of the story? Proofread every document both with a spell checker
and by eye, to catch the errors a spell checker can’t find.

Proofreading is hard because writers tend to see what they know should be
there rather than what really is there. Since it’s always easier to proof some-
thing you haven’t written, you may want to swap papers with a proofing
buddy. (Be sure the person looks for typos, not content.)

To proofread,

• Read once quickly for meaning, to see that nothing has been left out.

• Read a second time, slowly. When you find an error, correct it and then re-
read that line. Readers tend to become less attentive after they find one er-
ror and may miss other errors close to the one they’ve spotted.

• To proofread a document you know well, read the lines backward or the
pages out of order.

Always triple-check numbers, headings, the first and last paragraphs, and
the reader’s name.

Checklist Light Revision Checklist
Have you given readers all the information they need to understand and act on
your message?
Is the logic clear and convincing? Are generalizations and benefits backed up with
adequate supporting detail?
Does the design of the document make it easy for readers to find the information
they need?
Are the first and last paragraphs effective?

Little Things Make
a Big Difference

In Ottawa County,
Michigan, 170,000 bal-

lots had to be reprinted because
the letter “L” was missing from
the word “public.” Although at
least five people proofread the
text, the error was not noticed un-
til the ballots were printed.
Reprinting the ballots cost the
country $40,000.

Meanwhile, an Arizona effort to
create an 80-cent-per-pack tax
on cigarettes to benefit early
childhood education and health
programs was threatened by a
decimal point. The ballot featur-
ing the proposition calls for a
“.80-cent/pack” increase instead
of an “an 80-cent increase.” The
faulty wording means that the bill
would raise only $1.8 million, or
less than 1 cent per pack of cig-
arettes sold, instead of the antic-
ipated $180 million dollars.

Medicare programs faced em-
barrassing typos in Iowa and
Texas. In December 2005, a let-
ter to Medicare beneficiaries in
Iowa included a toll-free number
that was off by one digit. The
readers who tried calling Hu-
mana Health Insurance found
themselves calling a phone sex
operator instead. The following
month, Medicare beneficiaries
in Texas also called a phone sex
number instead of United Health
Care because of a typo in the
phone number.

Adapted from Mary Jo Pitzi, “Tiny
Typo, Big Effect on Ballot,” Arizona
Republic, October 25, 2006, http:
//www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic
/news/articles/1025ballot1025.html
(accessed January 31, 2007); “Typo
Means Ballots Must Be Reprinted,”
Des Moines Register, October 11,
2006, 8A; and “Health Care Briefs:
Typo Sends Medicare Beneficiaries
to Phone Sex Line,” National Public
Radio, January 5, 2006, http:
//www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId�5128173 (accessed Jan-
uary 31, 2007).

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

144 Part 1 The Building Blocks of Effective Messages

Getting and Using Feedback
Getting feedback almost always improves a document. In many organiza-
tions, it’s required. All external documents must be read and approved before
they go out. The process of drafting, getting feedback, revising, and getting
more feedback is called cycling. One researcher reported that documents in
her clients’ firms cycled an average of 4.2 times before reaching the intended
audience.11 Another researcher studied a major 10-page document whose 20
drafts made a total of 31 stops on the desks of nine reviewers on four different
levels.12 Being asked to revise a document is a fact of life in businesses, gov-
ernment agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

You can improve the quality of the feedback you get by telling people which
aspects you’d especially like comments about. For example, when you give a
reader the outline or planning draft, you probably want to know whether the
general approach and content are appropriate, and if you have included all ma-
jor points. After your second draft, you might want to know whether the reason-
ing is convincing. When you reach the polishing draft, you’ll be ready for
feedback on style and grammar. The Checklist on page 145 lists questions to ask.

It’s easy to feel defensive when someone criticizes your work. If the feed-
back stings, put it aside until you can read it without feeling defensive. Even if
you think that the reader hasn’t understood what you were trying to say, the
fact that the reader complained usually means the section could be improved.
If the reader says “This isn’t true” and you know the statement is true, several
kinds of revision might make the truth clear to the reader: rephrasing the
statement, giving more information or examples, or documenting the source.

Reading feedback carefully is a good way to understand the culture of your
organization. Are you told to give more details or to shorten messages? Does
your boss add headings and bullet points? Look for patterns in the comments,
and apply what you learn in your next document.

Using Boilerplate
Boilerplate is language—sentences, paragraphs, even pages—from a previ-
ous document that a writer includes in a new document. In academic papers,
material written by others must be quoted and documented. However, be-
cause businesses own the documents their employees write, old text may be
included without attribution.

In some cases, boilerplate may have been written years ago. For example,
many legal documents, including apartment leases and sales contracts, are al-
most completely boilerplated. In other cases, writers may use boilerplate they
wrote for earlier documents. For example, a section from a proposal describ-
ing the background of the problem could also be used in the final report after
the proposed work was completed. A section from a progress report describ-
ing what the writer had done could be used with only a few changes in the
methods section of the final report.

Writers use boilerplate both to save time and energy and to use language that
has already been approved by the organization’s legal staff. However, research has
shown that using boilerplate creates two problems.13 First, using unrevised boiler-
plate can create a document with incompatible styles and tones. Second, boiler-
plate can allow writers to ignore subtle differences in situations and audiences.

To effectively incorporate old language in a new document,

• Check to see that the old section is well written.

• Consciously look for differences between the two situations, audiences, or
purposes that may require different content, organization, or wording.

Writing the College
Admission Essay

When college admis-
sions officers review

applications, part of the infor-
mation they consider is the per-
sonal essay. Now students are
getting help on those essays.

A thriving industry has grown
up around the college essay.
Numerous books, Web sites,
and training seminars have
been developed to help stu-
dents write college essays that
will win them admission into
their college of choice. None of
the sources actually write the
essay, but all offer advice, sug-
gestions, and examples to help
students craft their own papers.

People in the new industry claim
they are doing nothing wrong. Af-
ter all, parents have always been
able to help their children write
and revise their applications. The
authors also blame the universi-
ties themselves for creating the
demand for writing assistance.
Yet admissions officers worry that
the college essay industry is do-
ing more harm than good. They
note that the prep services lead
to formulaic essays that look
prepped and may not match the
information on the application
form. Outstanding essays may
not be matched by writing and
verbal skills scores. Plagiarism
site Turnitin.com says 11% of the
admissions essays it checked
contained at least one-quarter un-
original material. Other critics
claim that the costly services put
students who cannot afford the
extra help at a disadvantage.

What do you think? Are the es-
say prep services ethical?

Adapted from June Kronholz, “Per-
fect College Essay Takes Lots of
Practice–and Extra Help,” Wall Street
Journal, July 11, 2005, A1, A8; and
“The Admissions Police,” Wall Street
Journal, April 6, 2007, W1, W10.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

Chapter 5 Planning, Composing, and Revising 145

Checklist Questions to Ask Readers
Outline or planning draft

Does the plan seem on the right track?
What topics should be added? Should any be cut?
Do you have any other general suggestions?

Revising draft
Does the message satisfy all its purposes?
Is the message adapted to the audience(s)?
Is the organization effective?
What parts aren’t clear?
What ideas need further development and support?
Do you have any other suggestions?

Polishing draft
Are there any problems with word choice or sentence structure?
Did you find any inconsistencies?
Did you find any typos?
Is the document’s design effective?

Your Edits May
Be Showing

When SCO Group, a
litigious Lindon (Utah)

software company, filed a breach
of contract suit in Michigan
against DaimlerChrysler[, . . . a]
CNET News reporter, poking
through the Microsoft Word filing,
discovered that the case had
originally been drawn up as a
suit against Bank of America in a
California court. . . .

[H]idden in a Word, Excel, or
PowerPoint file may [be] the
names of the author and any-
one who edited the document,
reviewers’ comments, . . . and
deleted text. . . .

A Wired News analysis of a
Word document circulated by
California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer urging other attorneys
to crack down on file-sharing
showed that the text had been
edited or reviewed by an official
of the Motion Picture Associa-
tion of America. . . .

Nearly every business ex-
changes electronic documents
with partners, competitors, and
customers. . . . [To remove sen-
sitive information,] select “Track
Changes” from the tools menu
and view the document as “Final
Showing Markup.” Make sure
that all your changes have been
either accepted or rejected by
the program—a step that re-
moves the tracking information.
And make sure all versions but
the last have been deleted.

Quoted from Stephen H. Wildstrom,
“Don’t Let Word Give Away Your Se-
crets,” BusinessWeek, April 19,
2004, 26.

• Read through the whole document at a single sitting to be sure that style,
tone, and level of detail are consistent in the old and new sections.

Overcoming Writer’s Block
According to psychologist Robert Boice, who has made a career study of
writer’s block, these actions help overcome writer’s block:14

1. Prepare for writing. Collect and arrange material. Talk to people; interact
with some of your audiences. The more you learn about the company, its
culture, and its context, the easier it will be to write—and the better your
writing will be.

2. Practice writing regularly and in moderation. Try to write almost daily.
Keep sessions to a moderate length; Boice suggests an hour to an hour and
a half. Many successful writers plan to write at the same hour each day.

3. Talk positively to yourself: “I can do this.” “If I keep working, ideas will
come.” “It doesn’t have to be perfect; I can make it better later.” Good
writers think more about the document than about their feelings.

4. Talk to other people about writing. Value the feedback you get from your
boss. Talk to your boss about writing. Ask him or her to share particularly
good examples—from anyone in the organization. Find colleagues at
your own level and talk about the writing you do. Do different bosses
value different qualities? Which aspects of your own boss’s preferences
are individual, and which are part of the discourse community of the or-
ganization? Talking to other people expands your repertoire of strategies
and helps you understand your writing community.

Other researchers have found that noise can distract writers and interfere
with the “inner voice” that helps them compose their texts.15 If you are having
difficulty drafting your document, try eliminating distractions. Turn off mu-
sic that has lyrics. Try to find a quiet room where you can’t hear the voices of
your co-workers.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

146 Part 1 The Building Blocks of Effective Messages

Summary of Key Points
• Processes that help writers write well include not expecting the first draft

to be perfect, writing regularly, modifying the initial task if it’s too hard or
too easy, having clear goals, knowing many different strategies, using
rules as guidelines rather than as absolutes, and waiting to edit until after
the draft is complete.

• Writing processes can include many activities: planning, gathering, brain-
storming, organizing, writing, evaluating, getting feedback, revising, edit-
ing, and proofreading. Revising means changing the document to make it
better satisfy the writer’s purposes and the audience. Editing means mak-
ing surface-level changes that make the document grammatically correct.
Proofreading means checking to be sure the document is free from typo-
graphical errors. The activities do not have to come in any set order. It is
not necessary to finish one activity to start another. Most writers use all ac-
tivities only when they write a document whose genre, subject matter, or
audience is new to them.

• To think of ideas, try brainstorming, freewriting (writing without stop-
ping for 10 minutes or so), and clustering (brainstorming with circled
words on a page).

• You can improve the quality of the feedback you get by telling people
which aspects of a draft you’d like comments about. If a reader criticizes
something, fix the problem. If you think the reader misunderstood you, try
to figure out what caused the misunderstanding and revise the draft so
that the reader can see what you meant.

• If the writing situation is new or difficult, plan to revise the draft at least
three times. The first time, look for content and completeness. The second
time, check the organization, layout, and reasoning. Finally, check style
and tone.

• Boilerplate is language from a previous document that a writer includes in
a new document. Using unrevised boilerplate can create a document with
incompatible styles and tones and can encourage writers to see as identical
situations and audiences that have subtle differences.

• To overcome writer’s block,

1. Prepare for writing.

2. Practice writing regularly and in moderation.

3. Talk positively to yourself.

4. Talk about writing to other people.

5. Eliminate distractions.

C H A P T E R 5 Exercises and Problems

5.1 Reviewing the Chapter

1. What are some techniques of good writers? Which
ones do you use regularly? (LO 1)

2. What activities are part of the composing process?
Which one should you be doing more often or more
carefully in your writing? (LO 1)

3. What are ways to get ideas for a specific
communication? (LO 1)

4. What is the difference between revising, editing,
and proofreading? Which one do you personally
need to do more carefully? (LO 2)

5. How can you get better feedback on your writing?
(LO 2)

6. What can you do to help yourself if you get writer’s
block? (LO 3)

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

Chapter 5 Planning, Composing, and Revising 147

5.2 Interviewing Writers about Their Composing Processes

Interview someone about the composing process(es) he
or she uses for on-the-job writing. Questions you could
ask include the following:

• What kind of planning do you do before you write?
Do you make lists? formal or informal outlines?

• When you need more information, where do you get it?

• How do you compose your drafts? Do you dictate?
Draft with pen and paper? Compose on screen?
How do you find uninterrupted time to compose?

• When you want advice about style, grammar, and
spelling, what source(s) do you consult?

• Does your superior ever read your drafts and make
suggestions?

• Do you ever work with other writers to produce a
single document? Describe the process you use.

• Describe the process of creating a document where
you felt the final document reflected your best work.
Describe the process of creating a document you
found difficult or frustrating. What sorts of things
make writing easier or harder for you?

As your instructor directs,

a. Share your results orally with a small group of stu-
dents.

b. Present your results in an oral presentation to the
class.

c. Present your results in a memo to your instructor.

d. Share your results with a small group of students
and write a joint memo reporting the similarities
and differences you found.

5.3 Analyzing Your Own Writing Processes

Save your notes and drafts from several assignments so
that you can answer the following questions:

• Which practices of good writers do you follow?

• Which of the activities discussed in Chapter 5 do
you use?

• How much time do you spend on each of the activities?

• What kinds of revisions do you make most often?

• Do you use different processes for different
documents, or do you have one process that you use
most of the time?

• What parts of your process seem most successful?
Are there any places in the process that could be
improved? How?

• What relation do you see between the process(es)
you use and the quality of the final document?

As your instructor directs,

a. Discuss your process with a small group of other
students.

b. Write a memo to your instructor analyzing in detail
your process for composing one of the papers for
this class.

c. Write a memo to your instructor analyzing your
process during the term. What parts of your
process(es) have stayed the same throughout the
term? What parts have changed?

5.4 Checking Spelling and Grammar Checkers

Each of the following paragraphs contains errors in gram-
mar, spelling, and punctuation. Which errors does your
spelling or grammar checker catch? Which errors does it
miss? Does it flag as errors any words that are correct?

a. Answer to an Inquiry
Enclosed are the tow copies you requested of our
pamphlet, “Using the Internet to market Your prod-
ucts. The pamphelt walks you through the steps of
planning the Home Page (The first page of the web
cite, shows examples of other Web pages we have de-
signed, and provide a questionaire that you can use
to analyze audience the audience and purposes.

b. Performance Appraisal
Most staff accountants complete three audits a
month. Ellen has completed 21 audits in this past six
months she is our most productive staff accountant.
Her technical skills our very good however some
clients feel that she could be more tactful in suggest-
ing ways that the clients accounting practices courld
be improved.

c. Brochure
Are you finding that being your own boss crates it’s
own problems? Take the hassle out of working at
home with a VoiceMail Answering System. Its al-
most as good as having your own secratery.

d. Presentation Slides

How to Create a Web Résumé

• Omit home adress and phone number

• Use other links only if they help an employer
evalaute you.

• Be Professional.

• Carefully craft and proof read the phrase on
the index apage.

How to Create a Scannable Résumé

• Create a “plain vanilla” document.

• Use include a “Keywords” section. Include
personality traits sas well as accomplishments.

• Be specific and quantifyable.

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

148 Part 1 The Building Blocks of Effective Messages

5.5 Revising Text for Non-Native Speakers

The following terms are common idioms used in
American business. For each term, write an explana-
tion that would help a non-native speaker understand
the meaning of the term.

• Across the board

• Ballpark figure

• Banker’s hours

• Captain of industry

• Write off

• Turnaround

• Red ink

• Downhill/uphill

• Number-cruncher

• In the black

• Give someone the green light

• Cut corners

• Cold call

• Big gun/cheese/wheel/wig

• Sell like hotcakes

• Strike while the iron is hot

Now imagine that the non-native speaker wants to un-
derstand the origin of the idiom to help remember its
meaning. Pick one term from the list and research its ori-
gin and its evolution to the contemporary usage.

As your teacher instructs,

a. Share your research results orally with a small
group of students.

b. Present your research results orally to the class.
c. Write a memo to your instructor describing the

meaning and evolution of the idiom.

5.6 Revising Documents using “Track Changes”

“Track Changes” is a feature in some word processors
that records alterations made to a document. It is partic-
ularly useful when you are collaborating with a col-
league to create, edit, or revise documents. Track
Changes will highlight any text that has been added or
deleted to your document but it also allows you to de-
cide, for each change, whether to accept the suggestion
or reject it and return to your original text. In addition to
Track Changes, many word processors include a com-
ment feature that allows you to ask questions or make
suggestions without altering the text itself.

For this exercise, you will exchange a document
with one of your classmates. With the Track Changes
feature turned on, you will review each other’s docu-
ments, make comments or ask questions, insert addi-
tions, and make deletions to improve the writing, and
then revise your work based upon the changes and
comments.

As your instructor directs, select the electronic file of
the document you created for exercise 4.19 “Writing
Paragraphs” or another document that you have created
for this class. Exchange this file with your peer review
partner.

• Open the file in Microsoft Word.

• In the Tools menu, select Track Changes to turn
the feature on.

• Review the document and make suggestions that
will help your peer improve the writing. For
instance, you can

• Look for accurate, appropriate, and ethical
wording as well as instances of unnecessary
jargon.

• Look for active verbs, gerunds, and infinitives;
try to eliminate words that say nothing.

• Look for structural issues like topic sentences,
tightly written paragraphs, varied sentence
structure and length, and focus upon the thesis
statement. Suggest where sentences can be
combined or where sentences need parallel
structure.

• Look for you-attitude.

• Ask questions (using comments) when the
text isn’t clear or make suggestions to tighten
the writing or improve word choices.

• Return the document to its author and open
yours to review the changes and comments your
partner added to your document.

• For each change, decide whether to Accept or
Reject the suggestion.

Continue to revise the document. Then submit a copy of your
original version and the revised version to your instructor.

5.7 Mosaic Case

“OK folks,” said Yvonne to the Communication Depart-
ment during their staff meeting, “it’s that time of year
again for the annual Mosaic headquarters employee pic-
nic. Since we rotate the honor of creating the invitation
every year within the Communication Department,” she
said while making air quotes around honor, “who made
the invitation last year?”

“I did!” shouted Demetri and Sarah simultaneously.
“Wait a minute, you both didn’t do it,” said Yvonne.
“Well, I did it last year when the picnic was at Grey’s

Lake Park,” said Sarah.
“No, no, no,” retorted Demetri. “That was two years

ago. Last year the picnic was at Waterworks Park, and I
made the invitation.”

Locker−Kienzler: Business
and Administrative
Communication, Eighth
Edition
I. The Building Blocks of
Effective Messages
5. Planning, Composing,
and Revising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008

Chapter 5 Planning, Composing, and Revising 149

“Oh, yeah. You’re right. Sorry,” said Sarah. “Then I
guess that means it is Trey’s turn to create the invitation
this year.”

“I knew this was coming,” Trey mumbled to himself.
“Ok, I can do it. It’s only an invitation, so it shouldn’t

take too much effort. Where is the picnic at this year?”
asked Trey to no one in particular.

“It’s going to be at Blank Park Zoo in two weeks
from tomorrow,” answered Yvonne. “Corporate has
arranged free admission for all employees and their
guests from noon to 5pm. The event will also be catered
this year. Food will be available from 12–2:30pm. In ad-
dition, the zoo is setting up a special giraffe petting area
from to 2–4pm.”

“Don’t forget about the door prizes,” chimed
Demetri. “And there will be free camel rides for kids of

Mosaic employees all afternoon. Oh, and there’s the
plasma TV raffle at the end.”

“However, be sure to remind employees that they
need to sign up ahead of time to get tickets if they’re
planning on attending. Carol in Human Resources is
handling that,” said Sarah to Trey.

One hour later, Trey gave his invitation to Sarah for
approval before he passed it onto Yvonne.

“What do you think?” he asked Sarah, “Great job,
right? This task is by far the easiest I’ve completed here!”

“Trey, just because something is short doesn’t neces-
sarily mean it’s easy. You should know better,” said
Sarah. “Let’s have a look.”

The content of the invitation was on the minimal side.
It had a picture of giraffe on the front and the following
text was found inside:

Mosaic Employee Picnic

Blank Prak Zoo

Fun starts at 12pm.

Pet the Giraffes starring at 1pm.

Free Camel Rides For Kids!

see Carol in HR for details.

“Trey, I mean this in the nicest way possible . . . but
this invitation is absolutely horrible!” said Sarah.
“You’ve left out vital information, have inaccurate infor-
mation, and have grammatical mistakes.”

“Oh,” said Trey, a bit embarrassed.
“Don’t rush through writing tasks, even when they ap-

pear to be simple,” said Sarah. “Yvonne would never send

something like this out; the Communications Department
would be the laughing joke at Mosaic! You need to re-do
this invitation. Bring another version back for me to ap-
prove later today.”

Take on the communication task of Trey. Revise, edit,
and proofread the employee picnic invitation. Refer to
Chapter 5 for distinctions of each.