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Letters, Memoranda, Email, and Other Media For Engineers

This document provides guidance on writing style for various types of business correspondence including letters, memorandums, and emails. Some key recommendations include stating the topic and purpose in the first sentence, keeping paragraphs short at 5-7 lines, using headings for communications over a page, and being brief and succinct. The document also discusses strategies for handling tricky situations such as denying a request, admitting a mistake, or issuing an unpleasant directive. Overall, the document emphasizes clarity, brevity, and professionalism in business writing.

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Osama Rashayda
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74 views5 pages

Letters, Memoranda, Email, and Other Media For Engineers

This document provides guidance on writing style for various types of business correspondence including letters, memorandums, and emails. Some key recommendations include stating the topic and purpose in the first sentence, keeping paragraphs short at 5-7 lines, using headings for communications over a page, and being brief and succinct. The document also discusses strategies for handling tricky situations such as denying a request, admitting a mistake, or issuing an unpleasant directive. Overall, the document emphasizes clarity, brevity, and professionalism in business writing.

Uploaded by

Osama Rashayda
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter 4:

Letters, Memoranda, Email, and Other Media for Engineers

WRITING STYLE FOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE Regardless of the medium you


use for your business correspondence, most of the guidelines for writing style are the same.
Whether you are writing a business letter, memorandum, or email, the following
recommendations are equally valid:

• Indicate the topic in the first sentence, So State the topic and purpose of your
communication in the very first sentence.

• Identify any situation or preceding correspondence to which your communication


responds. In the first paragraph, establish the context by referring to any previous
meeting, phone conversation, or correspondence.

• Provide an overview of the contents of the communication. If the letter, memo, or


email is lengthy, provide an overview of the contents—nothing more than an informal
list in a sentence within the first paragraph.

• Keep the paragraphs short. Ideally, paragraphs in business correspondence should


not go over five to seven lines. Readers are less willing to wade through long, dense
paragraphs in business correspondence than they are, for example, in textbooks or formal
reports.

• Use headings for communications over a page in length. If your communication is more
than a page or two and if the information in it is like that in a report, use headings to mark
off the boundaries where new topics start.

• Use lists and graphics as you would in a report. Business correspondence can at times
resemble reports; writers use the same sorts of headings, lists, and graphics in their letters and
memos. Look for ways to create lists, particularly in long paragraphs. Similarly, use
graphics and tables in your correspondence just as in regular reports.
• Be brief, succinct, to the point. Brevity is never so important as it is in business
correspondence—and still more so in email. Readers lack patience with unnecessary
background and wordiness.

• Use an interactive style in memos and email. Be as informal as the situation allows.
Whenever appropriate, use the ‘‘you’’ style of writing—avoid the impersonal third-person
and passive-voice styles.

• Indicate any action necessary on the part of the recipient. Let readers know what you
expect them to do as a result of reading your correspondence. What actions should they
take after reading your letter, memo, or email? Fill out a questionnaire? Where is it
located? Where should they send it? Make sure that all details like these are clearly and
specifically explained.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES FOR TRICKY SITUATIONS In your business


communications, you will at times have to deal with some tricky situations such as the
following:

• Tell the boss ‘‘no’’. If the boss has directed you to do something stupid, unethical, or even
illegal—knowingly or unknowingly—your job is to explain it to that boss, preserve your
position in the organization, and most likely protect the organization as a whole.

• Request reimbursement. If you have had a bad experience with a faulty product or service,
don’t just angrily fly into the details from line 1. Write a good introduction as described
previously. Segment your discussion into sections objectively describing the details of the
problem, explaining what reimbursement you expect and why, and then concluding by stating
your hopes that you can continue doing business with the recipient.

• Give bad news. Sometimes, you cannot approve what a client or customer has requested.
Say no after you’ve given the reasons and then find a way to keep that person’s business,
possibly by providing some token of good will. Bad news is often ‘‘buffered’’ by some
neutral statement so that the reader will read the rationale. But there are good and bad buffers.
Here’s a questionable one: Bank Two is delighted to have you as a mortgage customer and
hope to retain you as a valued customer. It’s a buffer all right, but there is no indication of
what’s coming. The reader must surely be wondering what’s this about. A nonbuffered
approach would bluntly state that the reader’s company cannot take on any further debt
financing. However, in this next example, the buffer is the fact that the writer does not reveal
what those conclusions are: I am writing to inform you of our conclusions reached regarding
your company’s pursuit of further debt financing.

• Admit a mistake. If you make a mistake, you must find a professional way to admit that
mistake, explain why it happened, outline what you’ll do to ensure it won’t happen again, and
protect your position and reputation in the organization. A buffer would be helpful here as
well; it would get readers to keep reading rather than throw up their hands in disgust.

• Assert that you did not make a mistake. In some organizations when a mistake is made,
fingers start pointing (blame-throwers). If you are seen as a culprit, you’ve got to find a
professional way to defend yourself.

• Issue an unpleasant directive. If as a supervisor you must issue an unpleasant directive


(for example, weekend work to meet a deadline), you must find a way to do that without
sounding like a dictator and by showing that it is in everyone’s best interest. Obviously, not
all of these situations require written documents. Sometimes, it’s best to let a problem go
away. However, if some record must be kept, your writing skills and awareness of strategies
become very important. Note See examples of business communications that address these
tricky situations in the companion website for this book. See the Preface for the URL

Letter format and style:


Home work:

You received a letter from Mr. jone Welson, customer service in apple company asking
you to confirm if you are happy from Iphone 9 you bought last month, and they inform
you that if you are not happy from the item; you can have it upgraded with Iphone 10
by paying 100 JD. The letter date 1/1102019.

(Apple address in Amman is: Sofifia Street, building 12, flat 7.)

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