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psychological pattern, we could improve the letter by making this statement first and then tracing the case history.

It's a matter of judgment

You will find no set rules to tell you when to use each of these three patterns. You must use judgment and empathy in choosing the one best suited to the communication and to the receiver.

Writing (or Dictating) the Communication

You have planned what to say and have decided how you will arrange your ideas. Now you're ready for the third step-writing or dictating.

Try dictating

Dictating your letters or memorandums will both increase your production and improve the final product. Writing drafts in longhand is a timeconsuming process. Dictating can cut this time drastically. And, because it's more like talking than writing, it can help you overcome poor writing habits that stand in the way of your writing directly and simply.

Don't think that you must dictate a final version of every letter or memo while you are trying to add dictating to your other skills. Instead, dictate a draft and use it as a working paper to edit and revise. Abandon this practice once you feel comfortable in dictating, reserving it only for the complex, significant letter, memo, or report.

The typed draft may bring to light ambiguities, vague expressions, wordiness, or other weaknesses. The pressure of time and of a heavy workload might make you hesitate to have a finished product retyped to correct such weaknesses. But a draft? No problem. Make the corrections—and you may take the step that makes the difference between a communication that almost does the job and one that can be counted on to do it.

While you write or dictate

Whether you write or dictate, follow these suggestions:

1. Stick to your plan-don't take side excursions.

2. Concentrate on one thing: capturing on paper the ideas you included in your plan.

3. Try to "talk to the reader" as you write. If you bog down

on a sentence, the chances are it's trying to say too much. Stop and ask yourself how you would SAY it. Then begin again.

4. Listen to your dictation. After you have completed your workshop training, you'll catch yourself slipping back into habit language. If you hear this taking place, quickly substitute. Gradually, you will find yourself revising the letter or memo while you write or dictate.

A bit of counsel

Don't consciously apply writing principles while you write or dictate. Subconsciously you will apply them-and that's good.

But if you concentrate too much on them, you may "freeze" and begin thinking more about the writing itself than about your reader and the purpose of your communication. (Like the centipede who managed very well until someone asked him which leg he moved first.)

As you work at improving your writing, you will subconsciously apply an increasing number of principles. The best time for making these improvements is during the next stage-when you evaluate or appraise your writing.

Evaluating (Appraising) the Writing

Appraising is reviewing, not editing

Appraising must precede editing, just as planning must precede writing. But appraising and editing are two separate operations.

Appraising writing is like appraising or critiquing a speech someone is giving, a session an instructor is teaching, or an audit a co-worker or subordinate is conducting. All are meant to be constructive.

In critiquing the speech, instruction, or audit, you look for ways it is being done well and for ways it could be improved. In rating the total effort, you base your judgment on standards that have been set up as a measuring stick. As a final step, you tell the person whose work you have critiqued about its strengths and suggest specific ways he can improve it.

During your critique, you don't interrupt the speaker, the instructor, or the agent at frequent intervals to tell him what he should do differently— how you might do it if you were in his place.

Writing should be appraised in much the same way. When you begin your appraisal, don't pick up your pencil and start editing. Read the entire document thoughtfully. Look for both strengths and weaknesses. Decide how you will rate it in terms of the standards agreed upon.

Then, and only then, call attention to its strengths and point out weaknesses that should be corrected in this, or the next, document.

(Appraising drafts, your own or someone else's, is a different story. The writing was put in draft form because the writer intended it to be reworked. Here, appraising and editing come close to merging into a single operation.)

Benefits of appraising

Increasing your skill in appraising your own and other people's writing will pay dividends. On the job, it will help you steadily improve the quality of your written communications and show that you are willing to assume responsibility for them. In the workshop, and back on the job, it will help you master writing principles and apply them with ever-increasing skill.

Appraising improves your writing because it requires you to apply your analytical skills to the writing job. To improve your writing, you need to be able to see it clearly and objectively-to recognize not only whether it does the job but why it does or does not.

Surprisingly, many of us have not been trained (and have not trained ourselves) to appraise writing critically. We need to learn what to look for-how to spot words and sentences that threaten clarity, conciseness, or appropriate tone. We also need to identify the basic writing principles these weaknesses violate so we can apply those principles in correcting them.

Taking part in appraising other people's writing, as well as your own, during the workshops will help you:

1. To develop your analytical skill.

It's easier (and less painful) to appraise someone else's writing. You can judge it objectively because neither your pride of authorship nor your language habits get in your way.

2. To learn from writing practices and styles different from your

own.

Since there's no one way of writing an effective communication or a sentence, studying how others have written and

comparing their writing with your own can give you good ideas for improving.

3. To see firsthand how your fellow trainees differ in their interpretation and evaluation of the writing being appraised. This experience will reinforce your understanding of the risks every writer runs of having readers fail to comprehend his message or react negatively to what he thought was "good" tone.

4. To find out how others view your writing. When your writing is appraised by the group, you will get perhaps the best feedback you have ever had on the strong and the weak points of your writing.

This workshop experience will prepare you to do a better and more objective job of appraising your writing when you return to your desk.

On-the-job vs. workshop appraisals

The main purpose of on-the-job appraisals is to determine whether the finished document you are reviewing (your own or someone else's) can be sent out. Your aim is to approve it if it is within the "acceptability range."

On-the-job appraisals can also be used to help the writer improve his writing skill, provided carbons of the accepted document are marked to call his attention to its strengths and weaknesses.

In contrast, workshop appraisals have, as their sole purpose, helping the writer improve his writing and editing skills. Letters are not appraised in terms of whether they are "within our tolerances”—but in terms of how they can be improved.

Techniques for appraising

All letters, memorandums, reports, etc., should be appraised in terms of:
PURPOSE-what they're expected to accomplish
RECEIVER-who gets them

For this reason, the first step in appraising is to read carefully the incoming document, if any.

Appraising next moves through these phases:

Phase 1-Overall evaluation-first-impression appraisal

Standard: Can the outgoing document be expected to accomplish its purpose in a way that reflects favorably on the Service?

This is a once-over-lightly appraisal. During it, you instinctively note the appearance of the materialwhether its typing is neat, its margins even, the whole a page that invites reading. You'll also "sense" the tone. But this is just a reaction, not an appraisal!

Make a mental note of your observations and consider them later when you rate the communication.

Phase 2-The basic appraisal

Standards: Content, organization, writing style (tone)
CONTENT

Is the letter RESPONSIVE?
(does it stay with its purpose?)
-Is it COMPLETE? Is it COR-
RECT?

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Standard: The "acceptability scale"

UNSATISFACTORY (must be revised or rewritten)
ACCEPTABLE

FULLY SATISFACTORY

Identify the factors on which you based your decision.

Phase 4 The painstaking review

Standards: See the detailed "Writing Appraisal Chart," page 10 of Unit 1.

This review is part of the "editing process." It pinpoints specifics that would improve the communication. Workshop appraisals emphasize this phase because of its value as a teaching device.

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