Preparing to Write 

• Timing (productivity) + concentration

  • Writer’s block biggest problem against time

• Think critically: (your ideas aren’t always as clear out loud as they are in your head)

  • Avoid confirmation bias 

    • More comfortable with ideas that relate to us

  • Avoid egocentrism

    • Your way is the best way 

  • Acknowledge your tendency to dismiss audience perception

    • Likely to assume the audience thinks the way that you do 

• The fear of writing 

  • Overthinking, don’t wanna be wrong, etc.

Clear and Concise Business Writing – General Practices

• Present an “executive summary” at the beginning of the document

• Use bold headings

• Make your heading informative

• Topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph

• Lists of points, questions, or considerations, formatted with bullets

• Clean summative conclusions 

Compiling Your Research and Investigation Results

• sensitivity (openness to go and look for info) → 

• → exposure (fine new info) → 

• → assimilation (understand the new info) → 

• → accommodation (filter what’s useful) → 

• → incubation (think about the new info) → 

• → incorporation (include the new info into your line of thinking) → 

• → production (actual writing) → 

• → revision (editing and improvements)

Organization, Introductions, and Outlines

• The rhetorical appeals:

1. Ethos: establish your credibility

2. Logos: use logic, chain of reasoning

3. Pathos: play on feelings

• General purpose, or thesis statement: short, specific, and to the point

  • Consider the 5Ws&H, but only if manageable 

• Organizing principles:

  • Decide on a logical principle that helps you organize your text:

1. Chronological 

2. Compare and/or contrast

3. Causal

4. Problem → solution

5. Classification

6. Process and procedure

7. Etc. (check full list pp. 162-164)

• Outlines:

Logic, Credibility, and Passion

• Logic, credibility, and passion are the 3 elements that constitute rhetoric

  • Credibility is the most important — will get your audience to listen to you the most 

• Rhetoric: the art of presenting an argument, an idea

• Cognate strategies: ways of framing, expressing, and representing message to an audience (strategies under the elements of rhetoric)

  • Logos

    • Clarity

      • Clear understanding

    • Conciseness

      • Key points

    • Arrangement

      • Order, hierarchy, placement

  • Ethos

    • Credibility

      • Character, trust, appearance (perception from others)3

    • Expectation

      • Norms and anticipated outcomes

    • Reference

      • Sources and frames of reference

  • Pathos

    • Tone

      • Expression

    • Emphasis

      • Relevance

    • Engagement

      • Relationship 

Writing Styles

• Internal comm VS external comm

• What styles NOT to adopt: colloquial and casual

• What’s acceptable in business writing? Formal language and proper syntax

Proving Your Point

• Classical rhetorical strategy:

1. Exordium – prepares the audience to consider your argument 

2. Narration – provides the audience with the necessary background or context for your argument 

3. Proposition – introduces your claim being argued in the document 

4. Confirmation – offers the audience evidence to support your argument 

5. Refutation – introduces to the audience and then discounts or refutes the counterarguments or objections 

6. Peroration – your conclusions of your argument e

• GASCAPT:

1. Generalization: if true of sample, true of whole

2. Analogy: if sample characteristics are true, rest of characteristics are

3. Sign (semiotics): symbols (including # or cases) coincide with meanings 

4. Cause: if A and B occur together, there is casual relation 

5. Authority: if source is credible, then statement is true

6. Principle: if statement generally accepted, the statement is true 

7. Testimony: if it is personal experience, then it is true

• Evidence:

1. Supportive

2. Relevant

3. Effective 

• Emotional appeal:

  • Use only if appropriate and if it does not take away from message – rare in professional and business writing

Business Writing and AI

• AI can be useful at 6 levels (Bloom’s taxonomy, 2001—hierarchical model of cognitive skills)

• Level 1: Know

  • Who? What? Why?

  • What it is…? When did…happen?

• Level 2: Understand

  • Compare. Contrast. Demonstrate

  • How would you compare…? What is the main idea of…?

• Level 3: Apply

  • Apply. Build. Choose 

  • How would you use…? How would you organize…to show…?

• Level 4: Analyze

  • Analyze. Categorize. Classify 

  • What conclusions can you draw from…? How would you classify…?

• Level 5: Synthesize

  • Build. Choose. Combine. 

  • How would you improve…? What changes would you make to solve…?

• Level 6: Evaluate

  • Criticize. Decide. Defend 

  • How would you justify…? What is this better than…?