COMPLETE (Responsive)

CORRECT

CLEAR

CONCISE

APPROPRIATE IN TONE

Making corrections

If, after evaluating your work, you find loose ends, gaps, or any errors, you make the necessary changes or additions before presenting or submitting it.

This step is even more necessary in writing, for revising is part of the writing process. Few writers are expert enough to produce a good communication with their first effort. The more complex and significant the communication, the more essential the revising or rewriting. Even routine writing often requires editing, though its being routine means that it is not really a "first effort."

The steps that spell "power"

To make it easier to study these steps during the workshops, we expand the basic three to these five:

PLAN

ORGANIZE

WRITE (or dictate)

EVALUATE (appraise)

REVISE (edit) or REWRITE

It's no accident that the initial letters spell POWER! That's to make it easy for you to remember them and to remind you that taking these five steps will help you put more power in your writing.

Planning the Writing

Time devoted to planning represents an investment instead of an expenditure. Here, judgment and disciplined effort are necessary judgment in taking only the time essential to planning, and disciplined effort in changing work habits if you have not been accustomed to conscious planning.

Advantages of planning

Whether you are preparing a letter or a complex report, planning carefully before you write or dictate offers you and your reader many advantages; it—

1. Spares you the distraction of trying to phrase ideas while you are organizing your thinking.

2. Enables you to concentrate on one thought process at a time. 3. Lessens the probability of your omitting essential facts and including unessential ones.

4. Increases the likelihood that your ideas will be logically arranged and clearly expressed.

5. Increases the likelihood that your communication will do the job it is intended to do.

6. Permits you to maintain a consistent and appropriate tone throughout the communication.

7. Saves time-yours, the secretary's, the supervisor's and the receiver's.

Your primary consideration-the receiver

Throughout your planning—whether you are writing a letter to a taxpayer or his Congressman or writing a memorandum or an informal report to Internal Revenue Service managers—your main consideration should be the person who will receive the communication.

Keeping in mind who gets the information will help you

1. Consider, from his point of view, the problem or problemsituation that involves him.

2. Include only information that will be helpful to him

a. Give him only the background information that he needs b. Give him only as much technical information (references to, and quotations from, specific sections of the law, regulations, or manual) as he needs and will comprehend

c. Give him only the facts he needs to make decisions or take action

d. Give him only the discussion or explanation necessary to help him understand and accept your conclusions and/or recommendations and, if necessary, act on them.

This is a major point-requiring judgment and perception. Many communications fail because the writer RECORDS all the information he has taken into account in reaching his conclusion, instead of COMMUNICATING only the information the reader needs.

3. Decide what approach is best designed to bring about the desired results--what "tone" and what language will be both clear to the reader and appropriate for the situation.

Planning a reply

Though planning is planning-just as someone once said that "Pigs is pigs"-planning a reply presents a somewhat different problem than planning a communication that you originate.

a. Read the incoming letter or memorandum carefully, underscoring significant points or making marginal notes about them. Oddly enough, a comparison of our replies with the incoming document shows clearly that we do not always read the incoming item carefully-we overlook points raised and ignore questions that should be acknowledged if not answered.

b. Pin the problem down tightly. What EXACTLY is involved? Look beyond what the writer has said to what you, with your greater knowledge of the subject, know is implied in the situation. Search for "meaning" instead of relying solely on the written word.

c. Determine what course of action is necessary: exactly what needs to be done, what the receiver should be instructed to do, or what we should tell him we will do or have done. d. Consider what pattern of organization will best accomplish your purpose; what tone is appropriate; what language will be both clear to the reader and suitable for the situation.

Planning the communication you originate

However inadequate the incoming letter or memorandum is, it at least gives you some idea of what your reader is like and what information he has and needs. It also gives you a framework for your reply.

When you originate a communication, however, you must rely on your experience in similar situations and on your ability to speculate about the receiver:

⚫ how he will use the information

• how much he already knows about the matter (so you can decide how much background information he will need and how detailed your discussion or explanation should be)

(For the lay taxpayer, for example, with little knowledge of tax law, even a detailed discussion and explanation of the technical aspects or intricacies will be of little help. He lacks the "frame of reference" for it-has nothing to relate it to—and is usually confused more than helped by a lengthy explanation.)

what his "reaction" is likely to be (so you can choose an approach designed to persuade or convince).

In planning this communication—

a. Decide EXACTLY what you want him to DO or to KNOW as a result of your communication (list these points)

b. Plan to give him enough background information and explanation so he knows not only WHAT you want but WHY AND WHEN YOU WANT IT.

Organizing Your Writing

Organization is a communication tool

The speaker can use many tools in communicating-language, the organization of his material, gestures, facial expressions, voice inflection, and change of pace.

The writer has only two: language (word choice) and organization. His word choice is vitally important. But the way he organizes the whole communication and each of its parts (paragraphs and sentences) is equally important.

In this section, we speak only of organizing the whole communication; later sections deal with organizing paragraphs and sentences.

Organization is for the reader

Though organizing helps the writer in his thinking, all organization is for the reader.

It consists principally of:

1. sorting out, from the mass of data or information, what the reader needs

2. grouping those topics that belong together (these groups later become paragraphs in letters-sections in longer documents)

3. arranging these groupings into an overall pattern that shows how each relates to the others and how they add up to a conclusion.

This is the writer's job. The reader is often too unfamiliar with the subject matter (and with the way the writer is dealing with it) to do the

organizing job well. Even if he can, he should not be obliged to do for himself what the writer is expected to do as part of his job in the communication process.

Techniques of organizing

When we speak of organizing, we do not mean simply coming up with a format. Nor do we mean preparing a formal outline except for the long, complex communication (which requires one).

Since paragraphs show the organization of the document, we are referring to the process by which you decide how to assemble ideas or information on a given topic into a paragraph and how to arrange these paragraphs into a pattern suitable for the type of communication and for the reader.

Sounds formidable? It need not be. You can select a method (the simpler, the better) that fits in well with your work habits. Here are some suggestions that may help:

1. List the main points your communication will cover.

Each will probably become a paragraph unless, during the organizing process, you find that the point (topic) is too heavy to be manageable and needs to be broken into subtopics.

2. Jot down under each point key words, facts, statements, citations, etc., relating to it.

Don't try for a final arrangement at this point, especially if you have a number of items. Just get them down under their main headings.

3. Next, rework the items under each main heading. Put them in proper sequence. (You can do this by simply numbering them.)

Remember the natural emphasis points of the paragraph and let them work for you. Put the points you want to emphasize where the reader can't miss them at the beginning or the end of the paragraph.

If your reworking shows you that the topic is too heavythat you've included too much under one heading-come up with headings for subtopics. Each of them will become a paragraph.

4. Finally, decide on paragraph order on the pattern of organization for your letter, memorandum, or report.