Business, Accounting and Finance

BSBWRT401 Write complex documents

Learner Materials and Assessment Tasks

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Level 1, 398 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000 Australia
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Table of Contents

About BSBWRT401 Write complex documents

................................................................................................. 4
Determine the purposes of documents
............................................................................................................... 8
Why is Writing Important in Business? ...............................................................................................................
12
Basic Spelling Matters .............................................................................................................................................
12
Activity 1 ......................................................................................................................................................................
16
Choose appropriate formats for documents ...................................................................................................
17
Establish means of communication ....................................................................................................................
64
Determine requirements of documents ............................................................................................................
66
Activity 2 .....................................................................................................................................................................
70
Determine categories and logical sequences of data, information and knowledge to achieve
document objectives ...............................................................................................................................................
71 Activity 3
..................................................................................................................................................................... 74
Develop overview of structure and content of documents
......................................................................... 80
Activity 4 .....................................................................................................................................................................
90
Review and organise available data, information and knowledge according to proposed
structure
and content ..............................................................................................................................................................
131
Ensure data, information and knowledge is aggregated, interpreted and summarised to
prepare
text that satisfies document purposes and objectives .................................................................................
138 Include graphics as appropriate
........................................................................................................................ 139
Identify gaps in required data and information, and collect additional material from relevant

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enterprise personnel .............................................................................................................................................
176 Draft text according to document requirements and genre
..................................................................... 177
Use language appropriate to the audience....................................................................................................
184
Activity 5 ..................................................................................................................................................................
205
Review draft text to ensure document objectives are achieved and requirements are met
........... 206
Check grammar, spelling and style for accuracy and punctuation .........................................................
208
Ensure draft text is approved by relevant enterprise personnel
............................................................... 210
Incorporate revisions in final copy .....................................................................................................................
211
Choose basic design elements for documents appropriate to audience and purpose
...................... 211
Use word processing software to apply basic design elements to text
.................................................. 212
Check documents to ensure all requirements are met ...............................................................................
214
Activity 6 ...................................................................................................................................................................
215
ASSESSMENT...........................................................................................................................................................
218
Assessment Outcome record ............................................................................................................................
233

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About BSBWRT401 Write complex documents
Application

This unit describes the skills and knowledge required to plan documents, draft text, prepare
final text and produce documents of some complexity.

It applies to individuals who work in a range of business environments and are skilled in the
creation of reports, information and general promotion documents that are more complex
than basic correspondence, memos or forms and that require review and analysis of a range
of information sources.

No licensing, legislative or certification requirements apply to this unit at the time of

publication.

Unit Sector

Communication – Writing

Elements and Performance Criteria

ELEMENT PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
Elements describe the Performance criteria describe the performance needed to
essential outcomes. demonstrate achievement of the element.
1 Plan documents 1.1 Determine the purposes of documents

1.2 Choose appropriate formats for documents

1.3 Establish means of communication

1.4 Determine requirements of documents

1.5 Determine categories and logical sequences of data,

information and knowledge to achieve document objectives

1.6 Develop overview of structure and content of documents

2 Draft text 2.1 Review and organise available data, information and
knowledge according to proposed structure and content

2.2 Ensure data, information and knowledge is aggregated,

interpreted and summarised to prepare text that satisfies
document purposes and objectives

2.3 Include graphics as appropriate

2.4 Identify gaps in required data and information, and collect

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 additional material from relevant enterprise personnel

2.5 Draft text according to document requirements and genre

2.6 Use language appropriate to the audience

3 Prepare final text 3.1 Review draft text to ensure document objectives are achieved
and requirements are met

3.2 Check grammar, spelling and style for accuracy and

punctuation

3.3 Ensure draft text is approved by relevant enterprise personnel

3.4 Incorporate revisions in final copy

4 Produce document 4.1 Choose basic design elements for documents appropriate to
audience and purpose

4.2 Use word processing software to apply basic design elements

to
text

4.3 Check documents to ensure all requirements are met

Foundation Skills

This section describes language, literacy, numeracy and employment skills incorporated
in the performance criteria that are required for competent performance.
Skill Performance Description

Criteria
Reading 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, • Interprets information to identify requirements
3.1, 3.2, 4.3 and prepares material suitable to target
audience and environment
• Proofreads texts for accuracy

Writing 1.6, 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, • Creates documents for a specific audience using
3.2, 3.4, 4.1 cohesive and well-structured language to
convey detailed and accurate information
• Ensures vocabulary, layout and grammatical
arrangement achieves meaning and intent of
document

Oral 1.1, 1.4, 2.4, 3.3 • Obtains information or clarifies requirements by

Communication asking questions and listening

Navigate the 1.4, 4.3 • Adheres to organisational policies and

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world of work procedures related to document production

Interact with 1.1, 1.4, 1.5, 2.4, 3.3 • Follows accepted communication practices and
others protocols when seeking advice about
documents from colleagues, supervisors and
managers
Get the work 1.1-1.6, 2.1-2.5, 3.3, • Plans, organises and implements tasks
done 4.1-4.2 required to produce documents
• Makes decisions based on standard
procedures, using more formal decision
making processes where required
• Uses the main features and functions of digital
tools to complete work tasks

Unit Mapping Information

Code and title Code and title Comments Equivalence status
current version previous version

BSBWRT401 Write BSBWRT401A Write Updated to meet Equivalent unit

complex documents complex documents Standards for
Training
Packages

Assessment requirements

Modification History
Release Comments
Release 1 This version first released with BSB Business Services Training
Package Version 1.0.
Performance Evidence

Evidence of the ability to:

• plan, draft and finalise complex documents that require review and analysis of a
range of information sources
• use business technology to apply formatting, and incorporate graphics
• edit the draft text to ensure accuracy and clarity of information, obtain feedback on
the draft and revise the draft
• apply the enterprise style guide/house style.

Note: If a specific volume or frequency is not stated, then evidence must be provided at least
once.

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Knowledge Evidence

To complete the unit requirements safely and effectively, the individual must:

• identify the enterprise style guide/house style

• outline formatting styles and their impact on formatting, readability and appearance
of documents
• explain rules and conventions for written English, as defined by general and specialist
sources.

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Determine the purposes of documents
Workplace Documents1

All workplaces use documents to record their business activities. Some documents need to
be completed as part of government acts or regulations, while others are developed to
ensure the efficient delivery of services and products to customers.

It is important to know which workplace documents, records and forms you will be expected
to complete as part of your job.

HOW TO WRITE BETTER IN THE WORKPLACE2

If there’s one important reason why you need to write better in the workplace, it is this: the
quality of your writing imprints a lasting impression on the reader. This reader may be your
boss, a client, or a person who is ready to make a billion dollar business deal with you.

Have you ever read a poorly-written document that made you lose interest right away? It
was so poorly-written that you lost trust in the author and asked yourself why the author was
wasting your time? How about those junk e-mails that sneak into your junk box like
annoying cockroaches? You know the ones I’m referring to: the ones pitching vitamins,
software, and sex aids. These e-mails are the biggest showcase of writing blunders, stricken
to death with grammar mistakes, misspellings, and sloppy sentences. I doubt these e-mails
pull a sale because their poor writing style immediately alienates the reader.

What impression does your writing leave on your boss, clients, or co-workers? Does your
writing alienate readers, cause you to lose sales or clients, or cost you job promotions? Or
does your writing build streams of loyal readers, increase sales for the company, and help
you earn six figures a year at your job?

Whatever type of writing you do in the workplace, always know this reality: readers believe
the quality of your writing reflects your skills, work ethics, and integrity as a person. If you
write eloquently, clearly, and lively, the reader trusts you and you are able to build rapport
quickly. If your writing is sloppy, disorganized, and riddled with errors, the reader assumes
the rest of your work is flawed, your work ethics are flawed, and perhaps as a person you are
flawed. Why should this reader waste his time reading the rest of your junk or even do
business with you?

This article provides fail-safe strategies to help refine your writing and help you to
communicate with clarity, simplicity, and impact so you will never write junk again. You will
learn five masterful steps to guide you in planning, writing, and refining an article; and you
will learn how to avoid common writing mistakes.

1
Sources: http://online.cit.edu.au/toolboxes/madefurniture/content/lo/lo_wrkplacedocs/fset.htm,
http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17951/seminar
2
Source: http://www.lousywriter.com/how_to_write_better_in_the_workplace.php

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AIM! FIRE! FIRE!

To become a superb writer, your first task is to establish your aim.

Yiddish novelist, dramatist and essayist, Sholem Asch, once said, “Writing comes more easily
if you have something to say.”

What message do you want to convey with your writing?

To establish your aim, ask yourself:

1) “Why am I writing this document?”

2) “What do I want to communicate?”
3) “Do I want to inform, educate, report, persuade, challenge, or entertain?”

Developing your aim will help you to adopt the best writing style for your reader. For
example, an educational document will likely be more formal than one written for
entertaining.

CONNECT WITH YOUR READERS

To write effectively, you need to connect strongly with your readers. Ask yourself:

1) “For whom am I writing this? Will I be writing for colleagues, my supervisor, my team
of employees, or our clients?”

2) “How much information do my readers need?”

3) “How familiar are my readers with the topic?”

4) “How much time do my readers have? Would my readers prefer a short, succinct
presentation of facts and statistics, or more narration and exposition?”

Knowing your audience will allow you to write content in a way that appeals to your readers.

SHAPE YOUR DOCUMENT

You know your aim. You know the people who will likely read your document. Now plan your
document. What information will it contain? What information will most likely grab the
reader and hold their interests? What points do you need to get across? Start with a rough

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outline of ideas. Then go through the outline and add more information and more detail. An
outline will create the structure for your document. Soon enough your writing will come
more easily, quickly, and with greater clarity.

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WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW BEST

At this stage, read over your outline and write the first draft. Establish the main idea of the
document and support your argument throughout. If a blank white page glares back at you
like headlights, just start writing on whatever topic you know best. According to American
novelist Jack London, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
Don’t worry about the sequence if the ideas come to you out of order. You can cut and paste
later.

WORDY WEIGHT LOSS

If you have time, step away from the document. Come back to it later with a fresh mind. Now
add material where needed. Trim away unnecessary sections. Refine the text to communicate
what you want to say. Remember: less is more. Try not to repeat ideas. Repetition, unless
necessary, is tiresome for the reader. Keep the piece moving along. Use a lively pace.
Progress through your points efficiently.

The following sections address some of the most common writing problems. Use these tips
to write more clearly, effectively, and lively.

I.) PUNCTUATION

a) Apostrophes

Do not use an apostrophe in the possessive form of “it.”

Incorrect: Our department submitted it’s reports for 2005 last week.

Correct: Our department submitted its reports for 2005 last week.

Do not use apostrophes in the possessive forms “his,” “hers,” and “ours.”

Incorrect: The window office is her’s.

Correct: The window office is hers.

Do not use apostrophes in plural nouns.

Incorrect: How many new computer’s are we getting?

Correct: How many new computers are we getting?

b) Commas

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Do not connect two complete sentences with a comma.

Incorrect: The meeting was cancelled, I finished my work early.

Correct: The meeting was cancelled, so I finished my work early.

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Correct: Since the meeting was cancelled, I finished my work early.

II.) MECHANICS

a) Split Infinitives

Do not insert words between “to” and the infinitive form of a verb.

Incorrect: I was told we needed to slightly tighten the deadline.

Correct: I was told we needed to tighten the deadline slightly.

III.) SPELLING

a) “A lot” is always two words.

Incorrect: I have alot of work to do.

Correct: I have a lot of work to do.

b) “To” is a function word often used before the infinitive form of a verb (to go).

c) “Too” is an adverb that means “excessively” (too difficult).

d) “Two” denotes the number 2.

Incorrect: This file cabinet is to heavy for me to move.

Correct: This file cabinet is too heavy for me to move.

e) “There” is an adverb indicating a place (over there).

f) “Their” is a possessive word that shows ownership (their computers).

g) “They’re” is the contraction form of “they are.”

Incorrect: There results for this quarter were excellent.

Correct: Their results for this quarter were excellent.

Incorrect: Their working very hard today.

Correct: They’re working very hard today.

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IV.) STYLE

a) Sentence Variety

To write more lively, vary sentence structure. Use alternate ways of beginning, and combine
short

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sentences to create different sentence lengths.

Before:

I organized the files for all the new accounts this week. Then I created a more efficient
labeling system. I color-coded everything. I made sure all paper files had been documented
electronically. I put these files in the empty file cabinet.

After:

This week I organized the files for the new accounts and created a more efficient color-coded
labeling system. After I documented all paper files electronically, I put these files in the empty
file cabinet.

V.) ACTIVE VOICE vs. PASSIVE VOICE

The English language has two "voices": active voice (the subject performs an action; and
passive voice (the subject is acted upon). In business communication, all good writers write in
active voice. Lazy writers write in passive voice. Writing in active voice shortens your
sentences and makes your writing sound more direct and formal.

Examples:

PASSIVE: The recipe book is read by her.

ACTIVE: She reads the recipe book.

PASSIVE: The radio announcement should be listened to by everyone.

ACTIVE: Everyone should listen to the radio announcement.

PASSIVE: The photo is being taken by the photographer.

ACTIVE: The photographer is taking the photo.

If you follow these guidelines, you’ll stop yourself from writing lousy in the workplace. Your
writing will be lively, clear, and concise, and you will build rapport with readers.
Why is Writing Important in Business?

Every business produces paperwork. The first thing a prospective new business needs to do
is to produce a business plan. Letters must be written to clients, trading partners and funding
bodies. Written applications must be made for a variety of reasons. Advertisements must be
designed, whether to promote products and services or to find the right people to fill staff
vacancies. At every stage, fluent, error-free writing can give you a big advantage.

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Basic Spelling Matters

Why do we have spelling standards in English? Why don't

we simply spell things the way they sound? This question is
often voiced by people who find spelling difficult and
bothersome. English spelling has complicated origins and
often it doesn't seem to make much sense phonetically, in
the modern age. However, standards in written English are
very important, and their early adoption is part of the
reason for its success as a language. If we spell things the
way we speak - as people used to do five hundred years ago
- we start to experience the same difficulties in reading as
we might in understanding the speech of people with
unfamiliar accents. It is standardized English which enables
speakers all across the world to understand one another. This has done a great deal to
facilitate trade and to establish English as one of the predominant languages of
business in the global marketplace.

For the convenience of the majority of students, this course is written in American Standard
English, which means that words are spelled according to the system used in the USA. Where
necessary, there are annotations to help speakers of other variants of English understand
words which differ. If you're trading internationally, it's important to be aware of these
differences. Less of them occur in formal discourse, so it's often safer to avoid casual, jokey
writing, even if it might otherwise seem appropriate. It's also wise to avoid the use of slang
terms and idiom, as these might not mean anything to the foreign reader; or worse, they
might mean something very different. The linguist Jeremy Smith has collected a list of such
terms in his British / American English Dictionary.

Although it's common for US academics to talk about 'British English', this is a conflation of
two established standards, English Standard English and Scottish Standard English. These
standards also use some words differently, have some unique words, and use some different
syntactical forms. Some of the features of Scottish Standard English will seem familiar to
Canadians, as the influx of Scottish settlers over the past three centuries has heavily
influenced the language there. Although it's best for you to try and stick decisively to one
standard version of English in your own writing, you should be aware of these variations so
that you don't misinterpret other people's communications.

Syntax is the system of arranging words which enables us to understand the meaning of
sentences. People speaking different variants of English tend to phrase the same questions in
slightly different ways. For instance, an Englishman may ask "Have you got the time?" where
an American would ask "Do you have the time?" Either of those people may ask "Where do
you live?" when a Scot would ask "Where do you stay?" Where an American or Englishman
would say "That desk needs tidying." a Scot or Canadian would say "That desk needs tidied."
All of these forms are correct in the context of the appropriate national speech.

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Besides the standard varieties of English which you are likely to encounter among native
speakers, there's English as spoken by people for whom it is a second language.
Communicating effectively with people in this position is becoming increasingly important
for businesses trading in Europe and the Far East, as well as in smaller markets elsewhere.
Most foreign businesspeople whom you encounter in this context will have very good formal
English, but, again, they may find idiom and casual language confusing. When
communicating with them, it's advisable to avoid using really new words (including a lot of
business buzzwords, which develop locally before becoming widely established); keep your
language straightforward and clear.

You may feel that it's unnecessary for you to pay a lot of attention to your spelling if you're
using a computer with a spell checker. Spell checkers, however, are far from perfect. They
may not be familiar with trade-specific terminology which you need to use, and if you run
them automatically they may switch such words for more familiar ones, creating a great deal
of confusion. Even a well established spell checker will often fail to spot real words which
have accidentally been written in place of other real words - missing the 'm' off the end of
'form', for example, to leave 'for'. Most spell checkers have a very limited understanding of
context (if any), so won't realize this sort of thing is a problem. Spell checkers also fail to spot
the substitution of words for homonyms - other words which sound the same but have
different meanings.

The best way to use a spell checker is to combine it with manual editing. Letting it run
through a document in the first instance, informing you when it thinks it has found mistakes,
will help to get rid of a lot of small errors, and will thus reduce the amount of time which you
need to spend on proofreading those documents yourself. Proofreading is a learned skill,
and can be trickier than it looks for the beginner, but with practice you'll find that you notice
errors more and more easily. This will occur as you learn what to look out for. You'll become
familiar with your own mistakes, which may help you to spell more accurately from the
outset in future.

Document Purpose

Selecting the goal of your document is the first and most important step. Expressing your
purpose clearly and concisely helps you to clarify your thoughts and prepare you for the next
step of constructing your document.

It is important to stick to the topic and not drift off course. If you do find that your writing
has taken you in a different direction you need to reassess what you are trying to achieve.
You can either write your document with a different focus or change your purpose to meet
the needs of the new information.

There are many reasons why complex documents need to be written effectively and carefully
planned:

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1. Conveying research findings – depending on your audience this might be technical
from beginning to end or have a summary page for those who may not need all the
details but still need to be informed of the important points.
2. Documenting policies, procedures and processes:

• Policies are a plan of action that guide decisions and achieve outcomes.
States goals and conditions and is similar to a report in length. They are
formally written and may contain technical language
• Procedures are detailed actions which have to be executed in the same
manner to obtain the same result which was described in the policy. These
are written to make the policy workable and achieve the intention of the
policy
• Processes are the smallest actions or functions used to allow staff to perform
the actions that make up the procedures to enact the policy
3. Influencing attitudes, opinions, beliefs – these documents can be long and be a
report or they could be a short email depending on what you are trying to achieve
4. Proposing recommendations, options and actions in documents. These documents
are likely to have an appendix at the back and perhaps a glossary of terms as well as
tables and be referenced throughout with footnotes, and contain graphs and charts.
Facts and figures need to be presented, even if only as appendix material for the
reader to gain more in-depth information should they require it. Some of your
audience may need to know more about one section than the other but for
continuity it is best to keep the most technical information at the back or at least at
the end of every section. This way your report is consistent and organised
5. Meeting legal requirements. The length will vary according to the purpose but the
document will be dated, use formal language and may use words/phrases you will
require assistance to understand. They will usually require a signature and at least
one witness to that signature. Black ink is always used when writing and signing legal
documents. Be sure to check guidelines for witnesses of documents as there can be
restrictions, depending on what the document is for. It may need to be signed and
witnessed by directors of the company or a director and company secretary for
example. The requirements for individuals in relation to signing legal documents
vary slightly from State to State. To keep things simple, as a general rule a witness to
the execution of a legal document should:
• Be 18 years old or older
• Know the person whose signature they are witnessing
• Be satisfied as to that person's identity
• Not be a party to the document , that is, they should be signing the
document only as a witness

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 If the document is a trust deed, or an SMSF (self-managed super fund) deed, then in
addition to the above, the witness should not be a beneficiary of the trust or fund.3

6. Meeting other data, information or knowledge needs of an audience. Short amounts

of data may be included in a memo or email and there may be an attachment with
longer documents included with the email. For more substantial information, a
report may be required. It can be a public presentation or a speech which may
require a written version to be submitted for approval and printed to be provided as
a hand-out to the audience.
7. Proposing recommendations, options and actions. You may need to put these in
writing to present the background information and your recommendations even
though you may attend a meeting and talk to your paper. You may also need to
submit it for scrutiny along with others to be considered without being able to
discuss the contents.

The length of each document is variable and will depend on the ‘norm’ in your organisation,
the requirements of the person, group or organisation who need the document produced.
The more information you have to impart, the easier it will be if you use headings to ‘chunk’
your document into more manageable sizes for reading.

The Purposes of documents may include:

• Conveying research findings

• Documenting policies, procedures and processes
• Influencing attitudes, opinions, beliefs
• Meeting legal requirements
• Meeting other data, information or knowledge needs of an audience
• Proposing recommendations, options and actions

Activity 1

Make a list of documents that you would create in the workplace.

3
Source: Thomson Reuters, as at http://www.cleardocs.com/resources-legal-faq-signing-legaldocuments.html,
as on 12th March, 2016.

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Activity 1

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Choose appropriate formats for documents
Whilst document requirements may be set out by your organisation or a third party, at times
you may have the choice of format. In this case, it is important that you choose the most
appropriate format for the document. This may mean using a style which is not your
favourite or the easiest to compile, but is the best way to convey the information. There are
a few standard formats which are used in most if not all organisations in some form or
another.

Detailed business letters: although emails have taken over a large portion of business
correspondence, there are still occasions when business letters are used between
organisations or with their customers/clients. This form of communication is used to deliver
messages which can be an offer, a report, legal or debtor demands, requests, information,
claims or instructions.
Letters can run over a page and these are formal documents with their own etiquette:

Business letters are always printed on company letterhead which shows the formal name and
address of the organisation sending the letter. That is the minimum requirement but there
are often other details as well (these can be incorporated in the top or bottom of the page)
such as phone numbers, website address, any branch offices and in some cases lists of
partners of the firm. In Australia, it is not uncommon to see the ABN or Australian Business
Number printed on the letterhead as well.

If any address information is missing or you are not sending the letter from the address listed
then you need to include a return address before you date the letter. If this is required, you

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need to make sure you put your name on one line and the address of the branch you are
writing from on the others (you may put the postal address if you have one):

Mr Robert Thompson
100 Collins Street
Melbourne Vic 3000

It is important to date business letters with the day/month/year. You might have a file where
you keep correspondence and dated letters allow you to keep track of the flow of
information between your company and the receiver of your letters.
The address of the person you are writing to comes next. If we area already corresponding
with someone we can address the letter directly to them. In some cases we may have a title
but not a name so we use the Attention Line to make sure it is delivered to the correct
person:

Celebrate Catering Company

57 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Attention: Functions Manager

If the recipient is unknown to you Dear Sir, Dear Madam is still quite acceptable as is Sir or
Madam on its own. If you know the person then you can use a more informal style – Dear
Rachel or Dear Ms White. This is the formal, standard style of salutation in business letters
and this is where an existing Style Guide is invaluable or at least access to part
correspondence to find your organisational norms.

Once you have addressed and dated your letter and used the appropriate salutation, you
begin the body of the letter.

A good letter body should fulfil the following requirements:

• Concise/short: Never make up sentences just to make a letter look longer.

• Simple: Avoid making up complex sentences. Try to keep your sentences simple.
• Systematic: Always put your ideas in order from A to Z. (From opening paragraph to
closing paragraph, there should not be any repetitions.)

The body of the letter consists of 3 paragraphs:

• The opening paragraph

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 • The content paragraph

• The closing paragraph

Finally, you use the Complimentary Closing which usually consists of two or three lines – the
closing words and the name of the firm/your title – depending on the format of the
letterhead:

Yours faithfully
Robert Thompson
Catering Manager

When closing it is the correct form to sign off ‘yours faithfully’ to someone you do not know
and ‘yours sincerely’ to someone you do know or have dealt with before.

There are two other items used on business letters and this will depend entirely on the
guidelines of your organisation. Some firms are sticklers for both of these items i.e. law
firms, and others may use one or neither. These are:

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Identification Initials - are generally put at the bottom left-hand corner of the letter which
shows who the author is and who produced the letter. This allows other staff to contact
either person if they need to.

For example; most of your letters might look like this RT/jf. The capital letters are the
author’s and the lower case is the administrator. If your usual administration assistant goes
on leave their replacement would use their own initials: RT/kg. In this way, if there is a query
about the text staff can contact you or your administrator – depending on the query. They
would see straight away that your usual assistant did not produce the document and would
not be able to give them the same amount of detail as might normally be expected.

The Enclosure Reference - when our business letter has one or more attachment, such as
price list, brochure, invoice, resume etc., we must make sure that we state it in the main
letter. You might say ‘I have enclosed our price list for your information.’ The statement that
we send another item other than the main letter is called an enclosure reference. This
enclosure reference is usually shortened to Enc. or Encl.:

Encl. 1 (one) Illustrated Price List

Incl. 1 (one) Invoice #0180
Enc. Our 2014 Catalogue
Inc. Cheque No. 954646

Emails are less formal than business letters and they allow you to deal with issues quickly,
instantly in some cases! The recipient will probably not expect as much formality either
especially given that most business emails show a first name, for example:
[email protected]. In this case you may decide to use either Good
morning Ms White or Good afternoon Rachel, depending on the relationship between your
companies.

You can use this format to provide a small amount of necessary information and to indicate a
full report is to follow/attached or the request for tender has been sent by Registered Mail
and provide the tracking number;
For example - Discuss when emails are generally used and the advantages over sending a
business letter Refer to the list on p. 10. Email – or

Instructions and procedures - These are step by step instructions to accomplish a task
successfully.
They are detailed, objective and written in the third person.

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Instructions set out specific steps required to complete a task or a series of tasks – for
example installing the latest version of word processing software on your computer. When
you provide instructions you must remember that your audience might include people who
don’t know the first thing about the task but need to know, people who know a little about
the task and need guidance about how to do the task and people who think they know all
about the task but must comply with organisational procedures in the workplace (the
software may need to be installed differently to the version they have at home for example).

The amount of detail you need to include will depend on your audience. If you are writing
for a group of IT experts then you may not need as much detail or context to your
instructions. If you have a mixed audience you might need to have a summary which will be
all your techs will need and a more comprehensive, step by step set of instructions for new
users. Another crucial point to remember is that you may be writing for a culturally diverse
group, some of who do not speak English as their first language. All the more reason to
write clearly, avoid jargon where possible and use visual cues where you can.

Since you are the one writing the instructions, it is presumed that you know how to do the
task yourself. Try to remember what it felt like for you the first time you attempted it. Think
about:

• How is the task done?

• What materials do I need to complete the task?
• How many steps are in the task and in what order do I need to complete them?
• Are there any WHS/OHS issues?
• Will I need to have a troubleshooting checklist?
• How long will it take to do?

What do your instructions need to look like? Does your firm use brochures, post word
documents on the intranet or produce manuals? Whichever format you need to comply with
the most important thing is to make the instructions as simple to use as possible. They need
to be clear and easily understood by your audience.

Procedures are a special type of instructions and are the official guidelines of your
organisation. So you may have staff who feel very confident with installing software as they
have done so at home and for friends, however they need to follow the workplace
procedures as well as any specific instructions regarding the software. Procedures are
usually authorised by Managers, the CEO or the Board of Directors.

1. Manuals. Organisations use these to provide instruction or guidance in using their

processes. They are usually written by someone who is very familiar with the
organisation and its systems. Sometimes a professional technical writer will produce
manuals. They contain:

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 a. Instructions for using a product or piece of machinery

b. Descriptions and specifications of the item

c. Any necessary warnings

d. Maintenance and troubleshooting advice

2. You might produce quite a complex document and make it available on the intranet
with one manual provided in hard copy per branch or site for economic reasons. It
might also be possible for you to produce a ‘Getting Started’ version in hard copy to
include with induction material for new staff with a link to the website of the product
and guidance on how to access more information from the company intranet

3. Consider a table of contents or index for a large manual to assist staff who are more
familiar with the equipment to go straight to the topic they require. Your text might
include hyperlinks to take your staff member to a website on a new page without
them losing their place on your website as well. This can be convenient for you as it
allows you to update sections of the document without having to rewrite it all. So
you can direct staff to the catering website and under ‘booking venues’ there is a link
to the part of your site which shows available rooms, chairs, table configurations,
equipment available etc.

4. Publications, leaflets, brochures. Promote your business to the targeted audience by

providing information which sways or influences the choices of those your
organisation wishes to attract as customers or investors

5. Reports these are formal documents which describe your findings on a particular
matter or describe the outcome of surveys or projects. Depending on the audience
and topic they may be simple or complex with sections headings and references
6. Speeches and presentations - Discuss when speeches and presentations are used and
how to use these forms of communication well and effectively.. In the workplace a
speech is a verbal report to a specific audience and needs to be fully researched, well
prepared and formally presented. There is often a requirement to submit the speech
for approval and for a hard copy to be available for reference afterwards
7. Submissions tender documentation and public notices. Discuss why it is important
that submissions and tender documentation be prepared properly
8. Submissions are a formal, structured response to a request for information
9. Tender documents are legal documents that provide all information necessary for a
purchase, development or activity that requires prices to be given by a supplier to
enable a decision regarding the supplier to be made. i.e. catering for a chain of aged
care homes
10. Website text. Discuss the type of information that is displayed on websites and the
guidelines that apply
11. Websites provide your organisation with an opportunity to interact with the public in
a less formal way. You can use less formal language to inform about or sell your

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 product or service. This area is often the least supervised in terms of content and it is
important that the material be proofed, formatted correctly and concise. Web
presence for your organisation can include blogging, Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram just to name a few.
Casual and approachable is not an excuse for sloppy grammar, spelling or inaccuracy

Remember that appropriate formats for documents may include:

• Detailed business letters
• Emails
• Instructions and procedures
• Manuals
• Publications, leaflets, brochures
• Reports
• Speeches and presentations
• Submissions tender documentation and public notices
• Website text

For example: What is a Report?

A report is a presentation containing logically organised information, based on an

investigation. Usually, it contains recommendations

What is the structure and layout of a report?

This is the basic format of a report:

1. Title Page
2. Introduction
3. Body
4. Conclusion
5. Recommendations

A report contains three sections:

Front section:

1. Title page: Shows concisely your topic, target audience, author and date prepared

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2. Letter of transmittal. This is a letter written directly to the reader and commissioner of
the report you can write in the first person (I) or plural (we). It should be written in a
friendly tone and express your thanks at being given the opportunity to write the report.
You may offer to be of further assistance if required
3. Summary - Sometimes called an “Executive Summary”. Contains everything the writer
wants to tell you. Be aware that many executives do not have time to read the whole
report so this is for them. Your summary is critical and must do justice to the report by
concisely summing up the main points and recommendations.
4. Table of contents - Helps the reader to find information

Body

1. Introduction. Introduces the key ideas, where you take the topic, scope and limitations if
any
2. Development. A carefully arranged sequence of ideas, information and data. Uses Direct
or Indirect order of organisation
3. Conclusion. Summarises your ideas, and position. May indicate what happens next in
terms of actions to take
4. Recommendations. If any recommendations they are summarised concisely in point
form

End section

1. List of references. All the sources you have consulted and used for this report
2. Appendix. Contains further information and data that you do not want to include in
the body of the report
3. Index (if appropriate)
4. Glossary (of unusual or uncommon terms, if appropriate)

Note: if a report is short it may not be necessary to have a Contents page, an Index, if there are
no technical or difficult words the Glossary may not be required. Not all reports contain
recommendations.

Audience Analysis

The audience of a technical report--or any piece of writing for that matter--is the intended
or potential reader or readers. For most technical writers, this is the most important
consideration in planning, writing, and reviewing a document. You "adapt" your writing to
meet the needs, interests, and background of the readers who will be reading your writing.

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The principle seems absurdly simple and obvious. It's much the same as telling someone,
"Talk so the person in front of you can understand what you're saying." It's like saying,
"Don't talk rocket science to your six-year-old." Do we need a course in that? Doesn't seem
like it. But, in fact, lack of audience analysis and adaptation is one of the root causes of most
of the problems you find in professional, technical documents--particularly instructions
where it surfaces most glaringly.

Note: Once you've read this section on audiences, try using the audience planner. You fill in
blanks with answers to questions about your audience and then e-mail it to yourself and,
optionally, to your instructor. Use the audience planner for any writing project as a way of
getting yourself to think about your audience in detail.

Types of Audiences
One of the first things to do when you analyze and audience is to identify its type (or types-
-it's

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rarely just one type). The common division of audiences into categories is as follows:

• Experts: These are the people who know the theory and the product inside and out.
They designed it, they tested it, they know everything about it. Often, they have
advanced degrees and operate in academic settings or in research and development
areas of the government and business worlds. The nonspecialist reader is least likely
to understand what these people are saying-but also has the least reason to try. More
often, the communication challenge faced by the expert is communicating to the
technician and the executive.
• Technicians: These are the people who build, operate, maintain, and repair the stuff
that the experts design and theorize about. Theirs is a highly technical knowledge as
well, but of a more practical nature.
• Executives: These are the people who make business, economic, administrative, legal,
governmental, political decisions on the stuff that the experts and technicians work
with. If it's a new product, they decide whether to produce and market it. If it's a new
power technology, they decide whether the city should implement it. Executives are
likely to have as little technical knowledge about the subject as nonspecialists.
• Nonspecialists: These readers have the least technical knowledge of all. Their interest
may be as practical as technicians', but in a different way. They want to use the new
product to accomplish their tasks; they want to understand the new power technology
enough to know whether to vote for or against it in the upcoming bond election. Or,
they may just be curious about a specific technical matter and want to learn about it--
but for no specific, practical reason.

Audience Analysis
It's important to determine which of the four categories just discussed the potential readers
of your document belong to, but that's not the end of it. Audiences, regardless of category,
must also be analyzed in terms of characteristics such as the following:

• Background-knowledge, experience, training: One of your most important concerns is

just how much knowledge, experience, or training you can expect in your readers. If
you expect some of your readers to lack certain background, do you automatically
supply it in your document? Consider an example: imagine you're writing a guide to
using a software product that runs under Microsoft Windows. How much can you
expect your readers to know about Windows? If some are likely to know little about
Windows, should you provide that information? If you say no, then you run the risk of
customers' getting frustrated with your product. If you say yes to adding background
information on Windows, you increase your work effort and add to the page count of
the document (and thus to the cost). Obviously, there's no easy answer to this
question--part of the answer may involve just how small a segment of the audience
needs that background information.
• Needs and interests: To plan your document, you need to know what your audience is
going to expect from that document. Imagine how readers will want to use your
document; what will they demand from it. For example, imagine you are writing a

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manual on how to use a new microwave oven--what are your readers going to expect
to find in it? Imagine you're under contract to write a background report on global
warming for a

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 national real estate association--what do they want to read about; and, equally
important, what do they not want to read about?
• Other demographic characteristics: And of course there are many other characteristics
about your readers that might have an influence on how you should design and write
your document--for example, age groups, type of residence, area of residence, sex,
political preferences, and so on.

Audience analysis can get complicated by at least two other factors: mixed audience types for
one document, wide variability within audience, and unknown audiences.

More than one audience. You're likely to find that your report is for more than one audience.
For example, it may be seen by technical people (experts and technicians) and administrative
people (executives). What to do? You can either write all the sections so that all the audiences
of your document can understand them (good luck!). Or you can write each section strictly
for the audience that would be interested in it, then use headings and section introductions
to alert your audience about where to go and what to stay out of in your report.

Wide variability in an audience. You may realize that, although you have an audience that fits
into only one category, there is a wide variability in its background. This is a tough one--if
you write to the lowest common denominator of reader, you're likely to end up with a
cumbersome, tedious book-like thing that will turn off the majority of readers. But if you
don't write to that lowest level, you lose that segment of your readers. What to do? Most
writers go for the majority of readers and sacrifice that minority that needs more help. Others
put the supplemental information in appendixes or insert cross-references to beginners'
books.

Audience Adaptation
Okay! So you've analyzed your audience until you know them better than you know yourself.
What good is it? How do you use this information? How do you keep from writing something
that will still be incomprehensible or useless to your readers?

The business of writing to your audience may have a lot to do with in-born talent, intuition,
and even mystery. But there are some controls you can use to have a better chance to
connect with your readers. The following "controls" have mostly to do with making technical
information more understandable for nonspecialist audiences:

• Add information readers need to understand your document.

Check to see whether certain key information is missing--for example, a critical series
of steps from a set of instructions; important background that helps beginners
understand the main discussion; definition of key terms.

• Omit information your readers do not need.

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Unnecessary information can also confuse and frustrate readers--after all, it's there so
they feel obligated to read it. For example, you can probably chop theoretical
discussion from

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 basic instructions.

•
Change the level of the information you currently have.

You may have the right information but it may be "pitched" at too high or too low a
technical level. It may be pitched at the wrong kind of audience--for example, at an
expert audience rather than a technician audience. This happens most often when
productdesign notes are passed off as instructions.

•
Add examples to help readers understand.

Examples are one of the most powerful ways to connect with audiences, particularly
in instructions. Even in noninstructional text, for example, when you are trying to
explain a technical concept, examples are a major help--analogies in particular.

•
Change the level of your examples.

You may be using examples but the technical content or level may not be appropriate
to your readers. Homespun examples may not be useful to experts; highly technical
ones may totally miss your nonspecialist readers.

• Change the organization of your information.

Sometimes, you can have all the right information but arrange it in the wrong way.
For example, there can be too much background information up front (or too little)
such that certain readers get lost. Sometimes, background information needs to
woven into the main information--for example, in instructions it's sometimes better to
feed in chunks of background at the points where they are immediately needed. (See
the sections on structure and organization of information in a report.)

• Strengthen transitions.

It may be difficult for readers, particularly nonspecialists, to see the connections

between the main sections of your report, between individual paragraphs, and
sometimes even between individual sentences. You can make these connections
much clearer by adding transition words and by echoing key words more accurately.
Words like "therefore," "for example," "however" are transition words--they indicate
the logic connecting the previous thought to the upcoming thought. You can also
strengthen transitions by carefully echoing the same key words. In technical prose, it's
not a good idea to vary word choiceuse the same words so that people don't get any
more confused than they may already be.

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• Write stronger introductions--both for the whole document and for major sections.

People seem to read with more confidence and understanding when they have the
"big picture"--a view of what's coming, and how it relates to what they've just read.
Therefore,

make sure you have a strong introduction to the entire document--one that makes
clear the topic, purpose, audience, and contents of that document. And for each
major section within your document, use mini-introductions that indicate at least the
topic of the section and give an overview of the subtopics to be covered in that
section.
•
Create topic sentences for paragraphs and paragraph groups.

It can help readers immensely to give them an idea of the topic and purpose of a
section (a group of paragraphs) and in particular to give them an overview of the
subtopics about to be covered. Roadmaps help when you're in a different state!

• Change sentence style and length.

How you write--down at the individual sentence level--can make a big difference too.
In instructions, for example, using imperative voice and "you" phrasing is vastly more
understandable than the passive voice or third-personal phrasing. For some reason,
personalizing your writing style and making it more relaxed and informal can make it
more accessible and understandable. Passive, person-less writing is harder to read--
put people and action in your writing. Similarly, go for active verbs as opposed to be
verb phrasing. All of this makes your writing more direct and immediate--readers
don't have to dig for it.

And obviously, sentence length matters as well. An average of somewhere between

15 and 25 words per sentence is about right; sentences over 30 words are to be
mistrusted.
• Work on sentence clarity and economy.

This is closely related to the previous "control" but deserves its own spot. Often,
writing style can be so wordy that it is hard or frustrating to read. When you revise
your rough drafts, put them on a diet-go through a draft line by line trying to reduce
the overall word, page or line count by 20 percent. Try it as an experiment and see
how you do. You'll find a lot of fussy, unnecessary detail and inflated phrasing you
can chop out.

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• Use more or different graphics.

For nonspecialist audiences, you may want to use more graphics--and simpler ones at
that. Writing for specialists and experts tends to be less illustrated, less graphically
attractive--even boring to the eye! Graphics for specialists tend to be more detailed,
more technical. In technical documents for nonspecialists, there also tend to be more
"decorative" graphics--ones that serve no strict informative or persuasive purpose at
all.
• Break text up or consolidate text into meaningful, usable chunks.

For nonspecialist readers, you may need to have shorter paragraphs. Notice how
much longer paragraphs are in technical documents written for specialists. (Maybe a
6- to 8-line

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 paragraph is the dividing line.)

• Add cross-references to important information.

In technical information, you can help nonspecialist readers by pointing them to

background sources. If you can't fully explain a topic on the spot, point to a book or
article where it is.

• Use headings and lists.

Readers can be intimidated by big dense paragraphs of writing, uncut by anything

other than a blank line now and then. Search your rough drafts for ways to incorporate
headings--look for changes in topic or subtopic. Search your writing for listings of
things-these can be made into vertical lists. Look for paired listings such as terms and
their definitions--these can be made into two-column lists. Of course, be careful not to
force this special formatting--don't overdo it.

• Use special typography, and work with margins, line length, line spacing, type size, and
type style.

For nonspecialist readers, you can do things like making the lines shorter (bringing in
the margins), using larger type sizes, and other such tactics. Certain type styles are
believed to be friendlier and more readable than others. (Try to find someone involved
with publishing to get their insights on fonts.)

These are the kinds of "controls" that professional technical writers use to finetune their work
and make it as readily understandable as possible. And in contrast, it's the accumulation of lots
of problems in these areas--even seemingly minor ones--that add up to a document being
difficult to read and understand. Nonprofessionals often question why professional writers and
editors insist on bothering with such seemingly picky, trivial, petty details in writing--but they
all add up! It reminds me of some Chinese saying about "death by a thousand cuts."

Formatting in Microsoft Word4

Paragraph

We’ll first spend some time discussing paragraph controls, such as justification, line spacing,
and we’ll conclude the lesson with how to control and format various list and list styles in
Word 2013.

4
Source: How to Geek, as at http://www.howtogeek.com/school/microsoft-word-document-formattingessentials/,
as on 12th March, 2016.

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You can control paragraph behavior and appearance using the “Paragraph” tab. This tab has
several notable features including increase/decrease indent, line spacing, borders, and more.

There are many more options than are first apparent. To access that click on the icon at the
bottom corner of the paragraph tab.

The “Paragraph” dialog will give you further, more fine-grained control. You can affect
indenting, line spacing, as well as line and page breaks.

Alignment

Alignment, also known as justification, determines how the documents text aligns with
margins.

Left — line up the text or an image along the left margin. The right-hand side of the
paragraph is free to float.

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Center — When you center-justify, it means that the entire block of text will be aligned to the
center, between the margins.

Right — line up the text on the right hand side (or move the graphic to the right margin).

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Full — this means the left and right-hand sides of the paragraph and lined up. Word does
this by adjusting spacing between words. This can often lead to awkward looking paragraphs
with large holes in middle when working in narrow spaces.

In most cases, you will use left-justification for almost everything you write. Center is, of
course, useful for centering titles and headlines. Full-justification is typically used in
newspapers and many printed books because it creates nice square blocks of text.

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Indentation

We covered indents in the first lesson so you already know how to create a hanging indent if
you want to affect the first line of a paragraph, but what if you want to indent an entire block
of text. The increase and decrease indent buttons allow you to affect changes to a whole
paragraph, such as if you want to block off a quote.

Alternatively, you can select the entire block of text you want to affect and tab until you have
it where you want it.

Line Spacing

“Line spacing” is used to set the horizontal spacing between lines.

Here you can see the results of various line spacing schemes, note you’re probably never
going to want to space your line more than two, unless you want to produce really long
documents!

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You can tweak line spacing using the options:

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· “Exactly” indicate line spacing in points. A point is the smallest unit of measurement for lines
or fonts.

· “Multiple” lets you pick a number greater than double or something in between. You can
also set line spacing using the menu option.

Shading and Borders

You should have no trouble getting the hang of shadows and borders, but for the sake of
simplicity, check out the following screenshot for a quick run-down on the difference
between shadowing text and highlighting it.

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Borders, on the other hand, might be a little tricky. There’s a whole trick to borders that can
at first seem a little frustrating. The borders button gives you some rudimentary control over
how borders appear, but you really need to dig into the “Borders and Shading” dialog to get
the full appreciation for what you can do.

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First, there are two tabs for borders, the one we’re immediately concerned with is the first
one, simple titled “Borders.” Let’s say you have a block of text and you want to draw a 1-
point border around the whole thing, while having a ½-point dotted border between line
breaks.

How is this accomplished? Normally you could simply select the border option from the
dropdown menu on the “Paragraph” section.

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However, you still need to add dashed lines. For that kind of overall control, you need to
open up the “Borders and Shading” dialog and apply the style you want.

Once you choose a border style, simply click on each part of the “Preview” you want to affect.
In the above screenshot, note how the outside border is a solid line, but between lines we
were able to add our dashed line.

You probably won’t spend your days and nights formatting your documents with borders
and shading, but for those times you do, it’s nice to know exactly what you want, and how to
go about accomplishing it.

Lists

Lists! Lists! Lists! One of the things you will do a lot in Microsoft Word 2013 is create lists.
Lists are crucial to organizing text whether it be an unordered list using bullets, or an ordered
numbered list, or even a multilevel list, such as what you’d end up with an outline.

Lists can be affected using the lists functions on the “Paragraph” section.

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A Quick Note on AutoCorrect

Word will also automatically start a list for you if it thinks it detects that you’re trying to
create one.

For example, let’s say you type something “1. Don’t Mess with Texas!” and then you hit
“return.” Word will automatically indent that statement as soon as you press the space
button after the “1.”

1. Don’t Mess with Texas!

2. We have the best BBQ!

When you hit return, it will automatically indent the line and number it (2., 3., 4., etc.).

Some people might find this behavior annoying and may simply want to create lists using
the provided buttons. In such a case, you can turn off automatic lists in the options. Go to
the “Options” on the “File” tab and choose “Proofing.”

Then click “AutoCorrect Options” and choose the “AutoFormat as You Go.” You can see that
there’s a number of different stuff you can disable. In this case, you can turn off number lists
and/or bulleted ones.

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While you’re in the “AutoCorrect” options, you’d be well to check out the “AutoFormat”
options. Feel free to turn stuff off if it bugs you.

As you use Word, you’re going to find it does a lot of things for you, like changing 1/2 to ½
automatically, or changing — (two hyphens) to – (a dash). Check these options because
you’re likely to find the fix there (many of these same options can also be found on the
“AutoFormat As You Type” tab as well) In fact, you’d do well to check out the whole
“AutoCorrect” dialog to understand what formatting tricks Word is applying to your
documents.

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Let’s now move on to the business of actually building and formatting lists.

Bulleted lists

You can quickly create bulleted lists by selecting the text you want clicking the “Bullets”
button. Bullets will be placed at the head of each line after a line break.

From the “Bullet Library” you can select a different bullet scheme. Below you can see which
bullets are being used in the document.

Finally, you can define a new bullet scheme from a symbol, picture, or font.

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So the end result, is the ability to create lists that adhere to a particular style, like a Pi
symbols for a nerdy list:

π Run for Chess Club

president π Buy new Magic

cards π Clean heat sink in

desktop π Dr. Who

marathon! π Play EVE Online

Or you could create a food-themed list with its own special bullet:

Bacon

Pizza

Mountain Dew

Toothbrush

Beer (sadly, not free)

The point is, you’re not limited in the stock bullets that come with Word 2013, so feel free to
express yourself and use them to your advantage!

Numbered lists

When you want to create a numbered list, you can usually begin a line with a number and
Word will automatically start formatting it as such. You can still create a list and apply
numbers to it though by clicking the “Numbering” button.

Similarly to the bullets window, you can choose a new numbering scheme from a
“Numbering Library” and see which numbering schemes are employed in the current
document.

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You can also define new numbering formats (font, style, and format).

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Calling them “Numbered Lists” is something of a misnomer. They’re really more ordered lists
because you can order them by any scheme that basically counts up.

So, you can have a numbered list (1, 2, 3, 4 …), or you can use letters (A, B, C, D …), or Roman
Numerals (I, II, III, IV …). It’s really up to you, once again showing the power of Word’s
formatting skills!

Multilevel lists

Finally, a multilevel list, such as you’d typically used to create outlines, can be applied by
selecting your text and clicking the “Multilevel List” button.

You can quickly manipulate levels in your outline by placing the pointer at the front of new
line and using “Tab” and “Shift + Tab” to increase and decrease them, respectively.

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You can also create a new list if the current selections don’t meet your needs. In this dialog,
you can select each level you want to modify and apply formats, styles, positions, and so on.

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Similarly, you can define a new list style. Here you see we can name our new style, define
levels and indenting, whether it’s bulleted, numbered, as well as choose symbols or pictures.
Note, this dialog originates from the “Multilevel List” options but it applies to all types of
aforementioned list styles.

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In most cases, you’re going to want to use bulleted and numbered lists most often while
multilevel lists are useful for creating outlines. Nevertheless, you have a huge amount of
flexibility with all three. Whether you’re just making a simple bulleted list with checkboxes for
your children’s chores, or outlining an epic 1000+ page novel with multiple chapters and
sub-chapters, Word allows you grab control of your creation process and produce winning
content!

Tables

One of the most common formatting elements you will use in Microsoft Word are tables, so
much so that it’s probably a surprise we aren’t covering them until now!

Tables are a tried-and-true method of presenting data in rows and columns. They are very
simple to insert and manipulate in Word. When you click on the “Tables” button on the
“Insert” tab, you’re given several options.

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Here you see a grid that allows you to quickly spec out a table but you can also insert, draw,
or pick from some predefined “Quick Tables”.

The fast way is to simply trace out the table you want using the provided grid. In the
screenshot, you see we trace out a 6 x 5 table, which is previewed in the document.

With your table now placed into your document, you can set out about formatting it, which
we’ll cover shortly.

Insert Table

Secondly, you can “Insert Table,” which means you just input the number of columns and
rows and how you want the column to “AutoFit.” If you choose fixed column width, you can
select “auto” or you can assign a size. Alternatively, you can AutoFit columns to fit the
contents, or you can have the content AutoFit to the window.

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Finally, if you intend to reproduce the table or you use that size frequently, you can have the
“Insert Table” dialog remember those dimensions for new tables.

Draw Table

When you draw a table, the cursor is changed to a pencil and you can “draw” out the column
and rows. In this way you can size the table to your liking.

Once you draw your first cell, you can then draw further cells, and create the table that is
more based on how you want it to look than necessarily what it requires.

Convert Text to Table

Let’s imagine you have a bunch of text and numbers, and you realize that it would be easier
to read if it were in neat columns and rows. Not to fear, text to table will allow you to quickly
and easily convert all that data into a table that you can then format to your heart’s content.

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So how does this work? Simply, when you want to convert a section of your document to a
table, you select the section using your mouse pointer and then select “Convert Text to
Table.” The resulting dialog box allows you to choose how many columns you want.

The number of rows will be automatically determined by line breaks, so for example, if you
have a block of text divided with flour line breaks, your table will have four rows.

Columns are determined by commas, tabs, paragraph breaks, or another symbol you can
manually assign.

Quick Tables

Quick tables are fairly easy to reason out. Let’s say you want to insert a quick calendar,
matrix, or a tabular list. You can also create your own table and save it to the list for later,
quick use. Simply select the table you want to save, and select “Save Selection to Quick
Tables Gallery.”

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There’s not a whole lot to master here. Keep in mind, when you insert a quick table, you can
then edit and format as you would any table that you created from scratch. And, on that
note, let’s actually dive into all that formatting information we’ve been alluding to
throughout this lesson.

Formatting Tables

On the Ribbon, the “Table Tools” tabs are contextual tabs that appears whenever you create
or click on a table. The functions found here give you an easier visual way of quickly
manipulating tables where you might otherwise use right-click options.

The “Table Tools” are divided into two tabs. “Layout” (pictured above), which lets you add
and remove columns, adjust height and width, and text alignment. Many of these controls

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can be accessed directly from the right-click context menu, but it’s nice to have all your
options arrayed before you.

Note though, the context menu you get, will depend on where you click. If you click on the
little table control in the upper-left corner:

You get a larger variety of tools at your disposal. Note also, you can delete a table easily this
way:

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Back to the Ribbon, on the far right side of the “Layout” tab, you’ll find some handy controls
for controlling your “Alignment” and “Data.”

So, for example, if you want your headers to be perfectly centered within their cells, while
having your data cells left-justified, you’d simply select the cells to affected and click the
alignment you desire.

You can also “Sort” cell data, insert formulas, convert your table to plain text, and repeat
header rows. The last option is useful if you have a table that spans multiple pages, you can
designate “header rows,” which will persist as you scroll through the table. This is useful for
keep track of what column is what in long tables.

The “Design” tab by contrast is all about how your table(s) appear.

Note when you click on the scrollbar in “Table Styles” a larger menu appears granting you
greater built-in options.

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At the bottom of this menu, you can modify your table’s style if the current selection of
tables doesn’t suit you. When you make changes, they will be previewed so you can see
them before you commit.

While formatting or modifying a table, if the built-in selections aren’t close to what you want,
you may just want to start from scratch. In this case, you can you the “New Style” dialog,
which will be allow you to build a new table style based on current table styles.

There’s little difference to this dialog and the modify dialog except that modifying is based
off an existing table design.

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In the end, formatting your tables is going to come down to what kind of data you’re
presenting and personal preference. We suggest that if you want to fully master tables, you
create a blank document and mess around to your heart’s content. We are certain you’ll be
creating and formatting eye-catching data-sets in less than it takes to say “columns and
rows!”

Excel Spreadsheet

You can actually create an Excel spreadsheet table in Word. This will act and function just like
a regular Excel spreadsheet. So you can copy and paste existing spreadsheet values in, or
make a new one with Excel formulas and functions.

Note, if you want to learn more about Excel formulas and functions, check out our How-to
Geek School series on Excel Formulas and Functions!

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Once you have inserted or filled in the spreadsheet with the values, it will appear similar to a
table though it is technically known as a “workbook object.”

With your data inserted and table created, you can right-click on it and do some basic
formatting like changing the borders and adjusting the shading, but it won’t be the same as
formatting a traditional Word table.

Other Formatting Controls

On the right half of the Insert tab are some further formatting controls you should be aware
of. Some of these may be of limited daily value to you, but we think it’s important to know
about them in case you ever have need for them.

Links

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Hyperlinks, bookmarks, and cross-references are all classified as “Links” on the “Insert”
toolbar.

Hyperlinks allow you to link pieces of text to locations on your computer, network, or the
Internet. You can also select your text, right-click and choose “Hyperlink” from the context
menu. In the “Insert Hyperlink” dialog, paste or type your address in the provided space.

It doesn’t have to be an Internet URL either, it can simply refer to a location on your
computer or another location in your document. Mostly though, you will probably want to
refer to an Internet location.

Header, Footer, and Page Number

Headers and footers are useful for repeating the same piece of information at the top and/or
bottom of each page, such as if you want to have the title of your book at the top of each
page, or similarly, page numbers.

When you click on either the header or the footer button, you can choose from an assorted
of predefined styles.

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When you choose a style, the header or footer will open and the Ribbon will change to
present you with special formatting options.

So you can type in your header or footer, and then decide where you want to position it,
whether it’s the same across each page, and so on.

In the same vein, when you add page numbers, you can place it anywhere within a header or
footer, picking from a pre-defined list of numbering styles.

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If you want to “Format Page Numbers,” you’ll be presented with dialog box, which will allow
you to change the number format, add chapter numbers, and dictate from where it starts.

Overall, the header and footer controls are quite easy to grasp and master. So, if you have an
instructor who’s a bit old-fashioned and demands you include them in your paper, or you
want the title of your book, or your name on every page, or simple page numbers – you
should have no problem adding and manipulating them.

Equations

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We’re not going to spend a great deal of time explaining the “Equation” functions in Word
2013. We’re guessing the vast majority of people using Word, will never have occasion to
insert an equation into their documents.

That said, let’s explain the function exists in the first place. In Word, you can write a simple
like “A=πr2” because you can insert the symbol for pi and then use superscript font to show
radius squared.

However, if you want to write out anything more complicated than that, you’ll need to insert
it using the “Equation” function. You can either select a pre-built equation from the
dropdown list:

Alternatively, you can build your own by simply placing the cursor at your desired insertion
point and clicking the “Equation” button, which will place something akin to an equation text
box into your document.

Note, the Ribbon immediately changes when you insert an equation to the “Equation Tools,”
which offers a wide array of math symbols and operators, so you don’t have to try to figure
out how to do it on your own.

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So, if you’re a bit of a math geek or you’re taking a class and need to write a paper on a
mathematical theory, you can present it ϥώwith all the necessary equations to show your
work.

Symbols

Symbols are characters that aren’t immediately found on your everyday, run-of-the-mill
keyboard. For things like the copyright symbol and British Pounds, you need to insert the
symbol using the “Symbols” function on the “Insert” tab.

Most recent and commonly-used symbols are displayed first, such as for foreign currencies
(€, ₤, ¥), the aforementioned copyright symbol (©), and others. To access symbols beyond
what is immediately displayed, click “More Symbols” at the bottom of the menu.

For example, if you want to write “façade” and using the cedilla (ç), you’d pick it from the
“Latin” subset. Similarly, something like café with its acute accent, can be added using the
“Symbol” dialog box.

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Note that you can also insert foreign letters using shortcut keys. You can see which shortcut
key is used for each symbol at the bottom of the “Symbol” dialog box.

If you want to change the shortcut (keep in mind, other symbols or functions might be
mapped to other shortcuts), you can click the “Shortcut Key” button and change it to
something else.

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Note, that in the above instance, you’re not going to type “CTRL + ‘ + , + E” rather it’s “CTRL
+ ‘ + E.” The comma is simply there to tell you must first hold down the “CTRL” button, then
press the apostrophe and “e” to insert an “é” in your document. Similarly, hold down “CTRL”
plus comma and “c” to insert a “ç” and so on.

Establish means of communication

The best communication methods succeed in putting across the right message in a clear,
unambiguous way that gets noticed by the target audience, whilst also saving on time and
cost. Good communicators succeed in choosing the best medium of communication for the
particular purpose in mind. For external communications, the average Australian business
typically uses:

• Written communications dispatched by mail e.g. statements detailing tax liabilities

and payment schedules. Paper-based items sent by mail have the advantage of
providing a clear, file-able statement that is likely to reach its intended recipient

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 • Oral communications: customers can 'phone in' with their queries. They can also
speak directly to the employee who is managing their account. Oral communication
allows most misunderstandings to be resolved immediately

• Face-to-face communications e.g. a visit to the local office by arrangement. This can
save time and subsequent communications
• Online communications. Today consumers can complete their Tax Return, claim tax
credits and do a variety of other business with the Inland Revenue directly online,
thereby saving a great deal of time. An important advantage of this method is that
ongoing 'help' is provided by pop-up help facilities. This is a cheap, quick and
efficient means of communication
• Advertising on TV and in the press e.g. to alert people to tax payment deadlines or to
eligibility for tax credits. By this method the Inland Revenue is able to communicate
with millions of customers cost effectively

PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNICATION
Communication is a two-way process of giving and receiving information through any
number of channels. Whether one is speaking informally to a colleague, addressing a
conference or meeting, writing a newsletter article or formal report, the following basic
principles apply:
• Know your audience
• Know your purpose
• Know your topic
• Anticipate objections
• Present a rounded picture
• Achieve credibility with your audience
• Follow through on what you say
• Communicate a little at a time

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 • Present information in several ways
• Develop a practical, useful way to get feedback
• Use multiple communication techniques

Communication is complex. When listening to or reading someone else's message, we often

filter what's being said through a screen of our own opinions. One of the major barriers to
communication is our own ideas and opinions.

There's an old communications game, telegraph, that's played in a circle. A message is

whispered around from person to person. What the exercise usually proves is how
profoundly the message changes as it passes through the distortion of each person's inner
"filter."

When writing you document you need to be competent in use of software packages such as
Word, Excel, PageMaker, and PowerPoint. If your skills are weak here, your document will be
poorly presented.

Master the skills appropriate to the level of your document such as:

• How to select fonts

• How to make a contents page
• How to use bullets and numbering

Means of communication may include:

• Software packages such as MS Word, MS Excel, MS PageMaker, MS PowerPoint and

templates

Determine requirements of documents

Most organisations go to some effort to project a ‘look’ and that will include preferences for
the way their documentation looks. To ensure their corporate look is maintained there will
quite likely be a Style Guide and you will need to follow this. If your organisation does not
have a Style Guide, ascertain what the preferences are. In some cases, you may find that
there is no guide and your position may be newly created so you will have to design a guide.
Look at previous correspondence and reports if any are available to gain some notion of
what has been acceptable in the past and use that knowledge to create your style guide.

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The first thing to decide is the style you want to use. Microsoft Word allows you to select a
style from the home ribbon and you can choose the font that seems used most often or if
you are fortunate enough to be given free rein, the font of your choice.

This will dictate the way the Headings, subheadings, style and placement look. Styles can
also be modified to allow you to create your own organisational style. Once you decide how
you will apply the style you must be consistent. You might decide to use some example text
from your document to begin your Style Guide which can then be used across the
organisation.

The layout and design of your document will depend on what you are producing and why.
When considering formatting you need to take into account:

• Will your document be bound?

• Graphics placement
• Margin size – especially if the document needs to be bound, you might need a wider
left margin
• Indentation use and hanging paragraphs
• Text justification – left aligned or justified

Will your document use highlighting – icons, logos, boxes, colour, italics, underlining?

When choosing your style, make sure there is enough variation in style and size as a large
document can be hard to read and you need to make sure you hold your audience’s interest.

Does your document contain lists, headings, graphs and charts to help you summarize and
show forecasting information?

If your document does have graphics are they:

• Arranged according to your style guide (centred, embedded in the text?)

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• Are they appropriate for your report i.e. no cartoons or clip art, only photos
(depending on the reason for your report and following your style guide)
• Are they labelled correctly and referenced so that your audience can seek further
information if they require it?
• Does the colour fit in with the rest of the document?

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 •
Is the graphic able to be interpreted correctly and not just there to ‘fill a gap’ in the
material?

As you can see, there is a great deal of work to be done before you start to write. If you have
a style guide a lot of this work has been done for you and if there is not, if you do it once and
do it well, you won’t have to spend a large amount of time on these decisions again.

Now you have to consider what you want to say and, importantly, who is your audience?
This will affect the format, language, amount of detail and length of the report.

There would be little point in producing a long, technical report to present to an audience
who do not understand the jargon or who have low literacy and numeracy. In that case, an
email with an attachment giving further information might be sufficient. Those who want
further information can seek it if they wish by reading the attachment. This is also useful
where an organisation has a policy of informing all staff as it is seen to be equitable however
a lot of the information might not be relevant to some.

If there is a particular reason for writing a long and complex document such as a tender
document you will be provided with information regarding the style of writing, the length of
the document (there may a word limit) and the kind of information you need to provide.

Once you know why you are writing and have consulted the style guide or either your own
organisation or the one requesting the document, you can organise your material.

Each document has its own special requirements. In planning of your document you will need
to ask the following questions:

1. When does it need to be completed? What deadlines must you meet?

2. How long should it be?
3. What format and style should you follow?
a. Is there standardised format or a house style?
b. What writing style, use of technical language, and plain English will
you use?
c. Are there legal requirements to fulfil?
d. Or compliance with specific genres?
e. Are illustrations necessary or other visual materials required such as
charts or diagrams?
f. What are the standards for references and acknowledgements in the
document?

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 •
Requirements of documents may include:
• Compliance with genre
Compliance with proformas standardised reporting requirements or undertakings
made by the organisation about reporting
• File types and sizes for online documents
• Languages other than English requirements
• Legal or traditional requirements for the particular document format
• Organisational policy, procedures and guidelines applying to writing
documents, including house style
• Point numbering systems
• Requirements for illustrations, photographs, graphs, charts, maps and other
illustrative material to explain texts
• Standards for references, footnotes, citations, acknowledgements
• Time lines, including deadlines
• Word length
• Writing styles, including simplicity of English and use of technical language
•

Languages requirements
Depending on your audience, you may need to consider producing your document in
languages other than English. This may be common in large manufacturing companies in
which a significant portion of staff do not speak English as their first language.

Unless you have the skills to translate it yourself, you may need to include translation of
materials in the budget and time line for developing your document. Alternatively, you may
choose to write your document very simply for those who don’t speak a lot of English.

Some professional applications have specific file requirements. Professional printers may
have quite rigid requirements about how proofs should be presented, image resolution, input
on colours to be used and so on. You may incur cost for modifying files if they are provided
in the wrong format, so check carefully before delivering your material.

Time-line requirements
You will usually be advised of the deadline for your document when you are asked to
complete it. If not, you should definitely clarify this. You should also clearly understand what
this deadline means. For example, printed promotional materials have a reasonably long lead
time. If the deadline you are given is for the date of distribution to the end customer, then
you need to develop interim milestones to ensure you meet this date.

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 •
Some considerations for setting interim milestones include:

• Gathering source information

• Receiving internal approvals
• Obtaining legal approvals of final text

Editing and proofreading

• Formatting of documents
• Obtaining approvals of format and layouts
• Printing of documents
• Distributing documents

Your organisation may have additional procedures, so make sure you consider these when
developing your time line. This should be done as part of the planning process.

Activity 2

What influence do organisational requirements have on the way documents are prepared?

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•

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Activity 2

Determine categories and logical sequences of data, information

and knowledge to achieve document objectives
It is important that when you are writing a document that you determine the categories and
logical sequences of data, information and knowledge to achieve document objectives.

Categories and logical sequences of data, information and knowledge may include:

• Arguments and rebuttals

• Categories and sequences traditionally used for the particular type of
document being prepared
• Chronological, alphabetical or operating sequences
• Facts, observations, conclusions and recommendations
• Illustrative case studies and other examples
• Linking and summary statements
• Recommendations and supporting arguments

What is a Document Sequence?

A document sequence uniquely numbers documents generated by an Oracle E-Business

Suite product. Using Oracle E-Business Suite, you initiate a transaction by entering data
through a form and generating a document, for example, an invoice. A document sequence
generates an audit trail that identifies the application that created the transaction, for
example, Oracle Receivables, and the original document that was generated, for example,
invoice number 1234.

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Document sequences can provide proof of completeness. For example, document sequences
can be used to account for every transaction, even transactions that fail.

Document sequences can also provide an audit trail. For example, a document sequence can
provide an audit trail from the general ledger into the subsidiary ledger, and to the
document that originally affected the account balance.

Document sequences generate audit data, so even if documents are deleted, their audit
records remain.

Defining a Document Sequence

To define a sequence, you select a sequence name and an application to “own" the
sequence.

• A sequence can number documents stored in database tables belonging to its

owning application.
• Audit records for a sequence are stored in the application's audit table, titled
Application Short Name_DOC_SEQUENCE_AUDIT. For example, the audit table for a
sequence owned by Oracle Payables is AP_DOC_SEQUENCE_AUDIT

Important: Your database administrator must grant access to an application's audit table for
all ORACLE usernames associated with responsibilities that will use the sequence
(responsibilities that access forms using the sequence).

You can set start and end dates for when the sequence is available. The start date defaults to
the current date. By default, there is no end date, so the sequence definition does not expire.

You can choose whether a sequence numbers documents automatically, or accepts numbers
manually entered by a user.

Automatic Numbering - Initial Value and Message Display

If you define a sequence to automatically number documents, you can:

• Enter an initial value for your sequence. The default is "1"

• Choose whether you want to display a message when a document is generated,
telling the user the name of the sequence, and the sequence value (document
number)

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Two examples of sequence definitions, one with automatic numbering and the other with
manual numbering, are represented in the table below.
Field in Document Sequences EXAMPLE 1 Sequence with EXAMPLE 2 Sequence with
form Automatic Numbering Manual Numbering
(Sequence) NAME AUTOPAY ADJUSTMENTS
(Owning) APPLICATION ORACLE PAYABLES - ORACLE RECEIVABLES -
Sequence can number Sequence can number
documents stored in an documents stored in an
Oracle Payables database Oracle Receivables database
table. table.
EFFECTIVE DATE - START CURRENT DATE & TIME OCT-01-94 User defines
(Default value) sequence “Adjustments" not
to be available until Oct 1,
1994.
EFFECTIVE DATE - END Field left blank. Sequence DEC-31-94 User defines
does not expire. sequence “Adjustments" to
no longer be available after
Dec 31, 1994.
(Numbering) TYPE AUTOMATIC - Unique MANUAL - User must enter a
numbers are automatically unique number before
generated in sequence. transaction can be
GAPLESS No omissions or completed, and document is
gaps in numbers are possible, generated. User may skip or
due to a rollback if the omit numbers.
document creation is
unsuccessful.
INITIAL VALUE 1 (Default value) User could Not Available when
enter their own initial value, numbering type is Manual.
for example, 5700.
MESSAGE YES - When a document that Not Available when
is automatically numbered is numbering type is Manual.
created, a message displays
the sequence name and the
sequence value (document
number).
Defining Document Categories

Document categories organize documents into logical groups.

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 • A document category (also called a document type) is one of the rules you use to
define which documents a sequence assigns numbers to
• You can separately number each document category by assigning a different
sequence to each category

A document category identifies the database table that stores documents resulting
from transactions your users enter.

When you assign a sequence to a category, the sequence numbers the documents that are
stored in a particular table.

Use categories to more precisely classify your documents. For example, you can categorize
accounts receivable invoices into several different categories, such as:

• Chargebacks
• Deposits
• Guarantees
• Debit Memos
• Credit Memos
• Sales Invoices
• Customer Service Invoices

Similarly, you can categorise accounts payable or purchase invoices into several
different categories, such as:

• Standard
• Expense Report
• Prepayment
• Interest
• Credit Memo
• Debit Memo

To assist your audience to comprehend your ideas you should use a summary at the end of
each section or chapter in extremely long documents. It can be a set of bullet points but you
need to recap to give the reader a chance to review what they have just read and check that
they understand all the major points.

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The temptation to write long winded sentences full of industry jargon makes a report difficult
to understand yet many people believe it makes them look credible and intelligent. The
secret is to get your information across as simply as possible using specialist terms only
where required.

There is no point to writing just for the sake of it, or so that your report looks impressive
because it is long. If each paragraph doesn’t have something important to impart, your
reader will become bored or confused, and once you have lost their attention it is difficult to
get it back. It also damages your credibility and perhaps even that of your organisation if
the report is perceived as ‘waffle’.

Activity 3

What are the benefits of document sequencing?

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Activity 3

Extending your Writing Skills

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The business environment includes many more areas where good writing is important than
simply producing letters. Improving the quality of your written language can also help to
improve your spoken language, especially if you take the time to plan out conversations
beforehand. When you are going to make a telephone call or enter a meeting, make notes
on what you intend to say. You don't need to write down precise lines (if you do, other
people will quickly come to the conclusion that you're reading from a script), but a general
outline will help you to keep your thoughts organized and avoid missing anything important.
It will help you to go over matters in a sensible order, increasing your apparent
professionalism. It will help you to maintain the initiative if other people interject and distract
or confuse you. You should plan a conversation is much the same way as you would plan the
contents of different paragraphs in a letter.

At most formal business meetings, somebody representing each company involved is

required to take minutes. Even if you can delegate this task to a secretary, it's useful to know
how to do it yourself, and to take your own notes where possible. Minutes of meetings
provide a record for the government of how your business is operating, and they also
provide recourse when people who were at the meeting later dispute what happened there.
Minutes do not need to include a record of absolutely everything which was said. They
should note all of the decisions which were arrived at during the meeting and all of the
conclusions which were drawn and agreed upon. These items must be presented in order.
Minutes must also record the names of everyone present at a meeting, and they should note
when any of those people left the room or arrived late, so that it's clear who was present
when decisions were made.

Rather than attending formal meetings, many people now make important business
arrangements over the phone or via e-mail. In these cases, it's important that a proper
written record of those conversations be maintained. Conversations should ideally be
recorded, though in many places recording someone on the telephone without first getting
that person's permission is illegal, so you should verbally establish that you're both aware of
the recording at the start of the call. Phone conversations which are not recorded should be
minuted by both parties in the same way that a meeting would be minuted, with the date
and time at which they took place clearly noted. E-mail messages in which business decisions
are made should be saved. Do not rely on your computer to do this. Computers are always
vulnerable to malfunctions which can cause them to lose data. Ideally, you should print out
important e-mail messages and store them with the rest of your paper files. A back-up copy
on a DVD , CD or floppy disk is also advisable. E-mail messages must be stored with their
headers intact. The headers are the technical information, usually appearing at the top of the
message, which determine who sent it to whom, when, and via which machines. In case of
dispute, this information will help to prove that your record is genuine.

Internal Communications

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E-mail bulletins can be a useful way to keep colleagues and staff informed of what's
happening in your business, from major decisions to minor changes in working practices.
We'll discuss the formatting of email messages later in the section on external e-mail.
Internal e-mail doesn't require much special attention, as you will usually be sending these
messages to other people who are using the same system as you are. Internal e-mails can be
somewhat informal, but you should still make sure they're spelled and punctuated correctly if
you want to set a good example.

Electronic bulletin boards can also be used for internal communications. Such a board is
essentially a web page which only people working for your company can access.
Announcements and memos can be posted there. If you are using an electronic bulletin
board, remember to check it regularly, and to remind your colleagues and/or staff to do
likewise. The danger of using this system is that people will forget to pay attention to it.

Physical bulletin boards are more difficult to ignore, especially if you position them in a
prominent area of the workplace, such as by the front door. The problem with this system is
that it makes your internal communications visible to anyone who is visiting the workplace,
reducing your company's privacy.

Some larger companies opt to distribute an internal newsletter to keep staff up to date on
changes. Because it's impractical to produce a new newsletter every day, or more than once
a day, you'll generally be unable to use this system to make urgent announcements.
However, a newsletter is something which your staff are more likely to keep and remember,
long after they have forgotten the contents of single posted notices. You can also use a
newsletter to create a friendly team atmosphere in the workplace by including (with
permission) some personal articles, such as notices of retirement or of awards received by
staff members. Including photos can help staff in a larger workplace to become familiar with
one another. Getting other staff members involved in producing the newsletter also
encourages team spirit.

Newsletters can take quite a bit of time and effort to produce, though you'll find that this
becomes less of a problem as the process of production becomes familiar. A team of two to
four people working for an hour each is ideal for producing a weekly newsletter
approximately four pages long. Unlike other business communications, newsletters should
be printed using both sides of each sheet of paper, so that they look like ordinary magazines
or newspapers. Big headlines and the use of columns (rather than writing right across the
page) add to this impression. People are used to seeing this format in publications which
they read for pleasure, so they are more likely to read the whole newsletter attentively than
they would be to read four pages of ordinary text.

If you intend to photocopy your newsletter or other internal communications which include
photos, pictures or graphs, bear in mind that the clarity of these illustrations is likely to be
reduced by the photocopying process. In most cases, it is advisable to edit your pictures so

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that they look slightly too light on screen, so that they won't look too dark after they have
been photocopied.

External E-mail

When you are contacting people outside your own company by e-mail, you should bear in
mind that, as discussed above, not everybody will be using the same software. It's better to
send simple e-mail which conveys all the important information than to send visually stylish
e-mail which may be illegible when it arrives at the other end. Sending e-mail which has
been written using html is usually a bad idea. Some e-mail programs automatically use html,
even if it's not apparent when you're writing, but you can turn this function off.

Don't send important information using e-mail attachments. Many people will not open e-
mail attachments in case there might be computer viruses within them. If you need to send
an attachment, make sure you're aware of the recipient's policy on this, if necessary by
querying first. If you don't send attachments, you cannot transmit viruses from your system
to those of people whom you e-mail. If you open attachments which people have sent to
you, you should be sure to have an up-to-date virus checker running on your system at the
time. It's wise to turn off the function in some e-mail programs which opens attachments
automatically.

Formal business e-mail messages should be formatted like letters, with appropriate
introductions and indented or spaced paragraphs. They should always contain contact
information for your business, preferably including non-electronic means of contact. They
should include all the information which you are legally required to provide in letters. It's a
good idea to include this information in your business signature so that you don't have to
write it out afresh every time.

Although you cannot add your legal signature to a standard e-mail message, you should
always sign it with your personal name, rather than having it ascribed anonymously to your
company. People responding to such messages should know who they are talking to, and
should be able to ask for you if they contact your company by other means.

Setting the Tone

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Not only is it important to be able to adjust
the style of your writing to different types of
business document, it's important to be able
to adjust your tone for different
circumstances. This includes knowing when to
be formal or informal, when to be conciliatory,
and how to make effective requests and
demands. In this lesson, we look at the ways
in which you can adjust your writing to
maximum effect.

Although most business communications require a degree of formality, it's useful to know
when to be friendly, and how to make your writing reflect a friendly tone. Individual
customers often respond well to writing which they feel is slightly more personal, less distant
and cold. Even if you are writing to a large corporation, it can be worth your while to come
across as a friendly person to the secretary, who will appreciate the difference in a day filled
with less considerate communications. Secretaries and administrators who take a liking to
you are more likely to prioritize your communications and to do favors for you when, for
instance, you need to contact somebody urgently.

Of course, there is a fine line between being friendly and coming across as patronizing. Many
customers do not respond well to the "How are you?" and "Have a nice day." approach,
which they consider to be obsequious and intrusive. This is particularly true of British and
Australian people, in whose countries that approach is not as widely established as it is in
America. If you are an American writing to clients in these countries, try to temper your
language so as not to seem overly familiar. If you are a British business person writing to an
American, try to relax your tone a little so as not to come across as overly formal and stilted.
Americans sometimes interpret traditional British formality as arrogance.

It's wise to tailor the level of formality within your business communications to the individual
client, wherever that is possible. If you are responding directly to a customer's letter, try to
match the level of formality which that customer has used. Exceptions to this will be
discussed in the section on dealing with complaints and with problem clients.

Using more of the common abbreviations in English (words like 'can't' and 'isn't) can make
your writing seem less formal, as can minimizing the use of technical terms and long words.
Informal language uses a smaller vocabulary. Readers shouldn't have to pause to remember
the meaning of a word. When you are communicating with people outside your specific field
of business (such as general service providers and members of the public), it's particularly
important to avoid using words which are only familiar within that field. If you are a doctor,
for instance, you shouldn't expect everyone to know what oncology is; if you are a
restaurateur, you shouldn't expect everyone to be familiar with the nature of a canapé. Such
things can usually be explained using much simpler language.

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In certain cases, business writers want to use more obscure terminology to impress, as when
applying for funding. This can have a positive effect, but shouldn't be used to excess. You
should never come across as if you are trying to impress, or people will suspect a lack of
substance behind your words. In these cases, your use of specific terminology should suffice
only to make it clear that you are well versed within your field.

When writing in a highly formal style, writers sometimes use long words (usually of French or
Latin origin) in order to try and make a good impression. There is nothing strictly wrong with
this, but you should be wary of over-reaching yourself. As an editor, I have encountered
literally hundreds of cases in which people have used long words whose meanings they
didn't fully understand. Often this made them seem slightly ridiculous. In some cases, it led
to them saying the opposite of what they intended to say.

Remember that there is no point in using impressive words if your readers are consequently
unable to understand you. In literary writing, it's reasonable to expect readers to have an
interest in expanding their vocabularies. In business writing, this is not the case. Most people
prefer business documents to be simple and clear. The public are often suspicious of
documents which they feel may be using obscure language to try and conceal unwelcome
information (such as interest payable on credit installments).

When you have finished writing a document, read through it and use a dictionary to look up
any words that you are not entirely certain about. If this seems arduous, bear in mind that
every time you do it you'll learn something, so there'll be less words to look up in the future.
If you want to expand your vocabulary further, the best way to do it is to engage in a great
deal of recreational reading. When you read, you learn about new words without even
noticing it, and you'll be able to write more confidently as a result.

Develop overview of structure and content of documents

Structure is the way that you put information together. It encompasses the parts and pieces
of a base of content and their relationships to each other. The title of a Web site, for
example, relates to each of its pages in the same way that the name of a movie relates to its
scenes. Along with format, structure is one of the basic qualities of content that you must
understand and control in order to manage content.

Structure, however, is much more important than format because format follows from
structure. If you know and control the structure of a body of content, you can create
whatever format suits your needs for a particular presentation. Format varies with the way
that you present a body of content, but its structure remains the same.

In this chapter we will detail the structure of structure. As you'll see, structure is important,
but determining the best structure for your content can be difficult. Your choices can create

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immense consequences downstream that can determine how difficult your system is for
developers, authors, and users to work with.

Structure Is Important

If format is about presentation, structure is about management. Structure is the set of named
relationships within, between, and beyond individual pieces of content. If a content base is
wellstructured, it has the following features, as illustrated in Figure 3-1:

• Its content divides into a set of well-defined categories (which I call content types)
• Within each content type, the content segments into manageable chunks (which I call
content components)
• Each content component chunk divides further into a well-defined set of parts (which
I call elements)
• Each element relates to other elements, from the same or another content
component, by way of outlines, indexes, cross-references, and sequences

Fundamental categories of structure in a content base

For example, suppose an aircraft avionics company produces a number of publications
promoting its products, among them a distinct sort of document--a content type--called a
white paper.

Each individual white paper that the company produces is a component--a complete chunk
of content of the type white paper.

Each white paper has a standard structure, with elements such as title, abstract,
product description, body, and so on.

The result of categorizing in this way is that you can manage white papers more easily,
meaning that you can store them in some sort of electronic repository, and you can find
them easily when you need them. Equally important, you can reuse a single white paper
component in various publications and publication platforms (say, print and Web). In
addition, because you know exactly what is in each white paper, you can pull elements out

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for reuse in other publications--for example, a publication that lists the titles and abstracts of
all the white papers in the repository.

Finally, when all your publications are analysed and modelled in this way, you'll see that
many content types share elements. This helps you in (at least) two ways. First, if you
standardize the naming of your elements, you can effectively and easily search across your
entire content repository. For example, if all components include an element called abstract
and you want to find content related to altimeters, you can simply search all your abstracts
for altimeter and be sure that your search is comprehensive. Second, you can rationalize your
content model, which means that you use a single instance of an element that may happen
to be used in any number components.

In short, a well-structured content base is well-organized. Just as in a well-organized file

cabinet, where every sheet of paper goes into a specific folder, every folder goes in a certain
drawer, and every drawer has a particular location, a well-organized content base is one that
you divide and completely catalogue. If you look closely at the organization of the content,
you can see that it is a set of structures laid in and around the content that you intend to
collect, manage, and deliver.

Content types, components, and elements are a key set of concepts in content management.

Creating an overarching set of structures is the way to understand and control content. If you
have well-defined categories, you can standardize the way that you create and evaluate them
as well as use them. If you divide content into content components, you can track them
individually. If each content component has the same set of named elements, you can count
on a particular piece of information being available where you expect it to be when you need
to lay out a page automatically. Finally, if each content component is stored within the same
structures as all the others, you can create a fast and efficient storage and retrieval system
that can automatically deliver targeted content into a variety of publications.

Traditionally, structure was solely the author's concern. She would compose, arrange,
rearrange, and finally arrive at a structure that made most sense to her. From the beginning
of composition to this day, authors have agonized (alone and with their editors) over the
minute structure of what they were creating. Unfortunately, much of the intimate
understanding an author achieves is lost to later users of her work. With the possible
exception of academic and technical writers, few authors take the time to know how their
work fits into any explicit and formalized wider framework. In academic writing, it is not only
standard, it is mandatory to specifically cite the other works that relate to yours. Even
academic writers, however, create their own worlds of structure, which may or may not relate
well to any other content in the world outside. Although working in isolation enhances
creativity by not imposing any outside restrictions, it makes relating one work to another
extremely hard. And, of course, relating one work to another is what content management is
all about.

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Structure is always key to managing content. But the kind of structure needed depends on
the management needs of a particular user. A content creator, for example, may want to see
how her content relates to the other content that is in the system, so she wants to see her
content chunk in the center of a set of relationships. An administrator wants to see all
content organized by type or by source, so she wants a content outline categorized by
content type and by author. An end user cares most that she can find just the right chunk of
content to answer the question she has in her mind, so she wants to see outlines that divide
the content based on the issues that she wants to resolve. All three of these people want
structure, but each wants a different kind of structure. Thus, the same base of content needs
a variety of structures to serve all constituents.

A good content management system enables you to design and apply a variety of
overlapping structures on the same body of content.

Structure Provides Invaluable Information about Your Content

Structure is an extremely important component of content. In very early documents,

sentences were written without spaces between words and with no periods. After all, when
we speak we don't add spaces between words and often don't add "stops" until we need to
take a breath. But the printed medium was different. Readers of these early materials often
had to read them aloud to understand their meaning. Over time, the use of punctuation
developed to enable readers to understand the content more easily. Similarly, printed-page
structures have changed to include headers, footers, titles, and the like. Web pages, too, have
evolved to provide space around content, clear divisions of content, and other visual
indicators to help us understand and retrieve information.

Visual structure enables content users to quickly identify and retrieve the information. But
the structure of content isn't just about the visual structure; it is also about the meaning of
content. Content contains information with different meanings, such as conceptual,
procedural, introductory, cautionary, explanatory, and so on. Good communicators know this
and have been developing structures or templates and writing style guides for content to
ensure that it is written consistently, clearly, and effectively

Structure Is Like a Map

You can think of structures as maps that you lay over a set of content chunks to organize
them and make them accessible to the people who need them. Just as many different kinds
of geographic maps describe the same territory, many different kinds of structures describe
the same content base.

A map of your neighbourhood, for example, can show the area topographically, colour-
coded by household income, or by the distribution of electrical power. Each of these maps

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shows the same area, but organizes the information for a different purpose. Similarly, you
can map your content base by content type, audience type, or by the date that you create
each chunk of information. Again, each of these structures shows the same content, but each
organizes the content for a different purpose. The content-type view shows authors how
much of their type of contribution is in the system. The audience-type view shows end users
the information that may be of most interest to them. The create-date view shows
administrators how much new content is flowing into the system and how often.5

Structure Can Be Difficult to Create

Structure is the way that the chunks of content (components) fit together into a unified
framework. That sounds great, but it assumes the following:

• That such a unified framework exists

• That you can figure out how to relate your components to your structure
• That you can muster the effort to apply the structures over the base of
content that you must deal with

Consider a typical business intranet. It starts with a group of representatives from the various
parts of the organization in a room. Everyone states what he wants on the intranet. The HR
department wants all employee information to be there. The executives want to see business
news and competitive analysis. Managers want policies and procedures. Each functional
group wants its own set of specific documents and links. It all sounds fine. But as they start
brainstorming, the farther they get, the less they know about what each of these categories
of content actually consists of. Which business news? Exactly what competitive analysis?

Someone says, "Why not just start by putting up what we have now?" They all agree that this
idea could solve the problem, and so they go away to collect key documents. The next day,
they come back together, each with a large stack of papers. With all the stacks lying
menacingly in front of them, they discuss how all this information fits together; but the
enormity of the task starts to become apparent. Hours later, exhausted and disenchanted,
someone sums up the meeting by saying, "I had no idea it was this complex. How do we ever
get anything done around here with this mess of information?" The fact is that an
organization's content is rarely organized. It's a mess of loosely connected point-to-point
communications, each with its own purpose, assumptions, and implicit structure. So it's not
too hard to see what you need to do from the macro level; at the level of the whole intranet,
you can easily see how it all fits together. But at the micro level, the level at which the
content was first created, a given piece of content didn't need to fit with anything else. As
long as the intended audience gets the idea, who cares whether anyone else does? When

5
source: http://206.253.219.101/biblev2/ChS3.asp, prior to 12th March, 2016.

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you are creating the intermediate level, however, where the micro meets the macro and
where structure meets anarchy, the problems occur. This doesn't mean that you can't whip
this rag-tag collection of information into content. It just requires a lot of thought and effort
to do so.

So, the beleaguered group comes back with renewed purpose. "Yes it's hard," says the one.
"But we can do it!" They agree, knowing that the alternative is to return defeated after just
two meetings. One member, who was an editor on her college newspaper, rolls up her
sleeves and leads the others in this new direction. They begin a major synthesis,
painstakingly fitting each type of information into one big outline. They note any gaps in the
material and how they need to classify and modify each kind of document to make them all
fit together. In the end, they have a full-site outline and an idea of what it's going to take to
make all these micro communications fit into the macro scheme that they came up with
during their first hour together. They go home happy.

The final meeting is meant to clean up details and figure out how much budget to ask for to
start the intranet. In the back of everyone's mind (except the Web Guy) is the idea that the
Web Guy receives content from lots of contributors around the organization and just puts it
together into a nice set of pages. So, they ask him how much time he needs to build the site.
The Web Guy's jaw drops. "Me?" he stammers. "You think that I can do all this work alone?
You all took hours just to figure out how one example of each of these documents fits in. I
don't know about HR or product specs. How am I supposed to figure out how all your
material fits together? And how many documents are we talking about? Sorry, but I have my
hands full just keeping the servers running and designing pages for our Internet site." Now
some other jaws drop as others start to realize that he's right. Few others in the organization
besides the people at the meeting could successfully fit documents into the outline they
created. And no way could any of them take on the extra task.

The woman from the organization's consulting group starts to smell a familiar situation -- a
scene that she's seen played out many times. It becomes clear to everyone that the task at
hand far exceeds the available budget or staff. "It's a phased approach," she says calmly. "We
start with just a few of the most important ones of each type. Then, as the concept proves
itself, we can ask for more resources to grow the site." They all agree and leave the last
meeting feeling as if they'd taken a course at the school of hard knocks.

The way the team approached this problem presents a number of problems, but who can
blame the team? They had no idea of the magnitude of the task. Thinking it an easy problem,
they approached it casually, looking for an easy solution. Structuring large quantities of
information is similar to being hired to clean and maintain a large house where 16 children
live. If you're lucky, it's merely a full-time job, because the house is basically organized but
just a little messy. If you clean it every day and put things in their assigned places, you can
maintain general order. You're more likely, however, to walk into a complete disaster on the
first day. Before you even start cleaning, just figuring out the right place for everything will
be a lot of work.

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In summary, challenges you are likely to face when defining and applying structure include:

• Understanding content in its entirety: Creating structure requires an extensive

understanding of the entire base of content. It simply isn't possible to do a quick
overview of a limited sample and arrive at structures that can persevere

• Controlling all content: To bring all content under control, you must subsume the
structures already present in each type of content you receive. You must create a new
structure that can encompass all existing content without changing it so drastically
that it no longer meets the needs of the group that creates it. At the same time, the
standards must make each group's content accessible and usable to other groups
that need the same information for a different end goal
• Overcoming resistance to change: Most groups that produce a lot of content arrive at
some set of structure standards. The harder it is for the group to come to those
standards and the more comprehensive the standards are, the harder that group is
likely to fight to retain its standards (whether they serve the general good of the
organization beyond the original group or not)
• Providing a flexible solution: Structuring is an iterative process. The structure that you
originally define is very likely to change and deepen as you begin to fit the bulk of
your content into it. Likewise, resource or time restrictions may require you to build
your structure around a subset of the body of content you eventually want in your
system, so the structure must evolve as your understanding of your content broadens
and deepens
• Enforcing your standards: Unless you give everyone specific direction, the structure
that one author creates is unlikely to easily mesh with the structure that other authors
create. Additionally, many authors often don't want to bother learning and obeying
rules. Thus, you must make your standards enforceable, but at the same time, easy to
understand and apply
• Understanding the mechanics of structure: Generally, few individuals in the
organization understand the mechanics of structure well enough to analyse and
manage it. I coined a new term, metator, to describe this poorly understood job
function. A metator is an information architect who edits a body of content from the
standpoint of its metadata structures
• Finding the right balance: No single structure can cover all your content for all its
users. You must create an overlapping family of structures that all describe the same
content base in different ways so that authors, administrators, and end consumers
can all find the sorts of structures that they need to complete their respective tasks

A Content Management System provides the structure and process you need to overcome
these structure hurdles. Still, groups venturing into the world of content management should
recognize it for the huge beast that it is, and start by upgrading the content creation skills of

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their staff and, in particular, by getting them to routinely add basic structures to their
documents (for example, styles and metadata). Over time, by adhering to basic content
creation practices, an organization will build a large enough body of well-structured content
so that the task of implementing a Content Management System won't be so daunting.

How to Categorize Structure

If I scared you in the preceding section, that's good. Information is a beast. Taming it
requires determination, strength, and cunning. Your best weapon against this many-headed
monster is to understand how to analyse structure and apply it to information. So in this
section, I look at the structure of structure (the metastructure, if you like). You can categorize
structure based on the purpose for which you're creating it, the type of structure you're
creating, and the scope of the structure you're creating.

Structure by purpose

You can categorize structure based on your purpose for creating that structure:

• Structuring for a single publication: Outside a Content Management System CMS,

most people have a particular publication in mind as they endeavour to create
structure. Whether that publication is as small as a memo or as large as an intranet,

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 the author has a single unified target in mind. She creates the structure that directly
aids the presentation of that publication
• Structuring for a content base: In a Content Management System, your purpose for
creating structure is to make content easier to create, easier to manage, and easier to
automatically build into a variety of publications. Although a simple outline may
suffice for a particular publication (a Web site, say), you need a much more robust
structure to organize the creation and storage of the entire body of information, as
well as its output into more than one publication

Structure by type

If your purpose is to structure a large body of content for a range of contributors

and publications, then you need most, if not all, of the following types of structures:

• Divisional structure slices content up into useful chunks. Implicitly, at the lowest level,
by ending a sentence with a period, you divide groups of words into sentences. At
the highest level, by naming your Web site bologna.com, you separate the content
there from the rest of what's on the Internet (at least you hope so). In a Content
Management System, you focus mostly on the following two types of explicit
divisional structure:

o Named segments (or types) of content, such as product reviews, tech support
articles, and press releases
o Named elements within the segments, such as title, abstract, body paragraph,
emphasized text, footnote, and sidebar

• Access structure presents the divisions that you and your audiences need to
determine where (or if) a particular piece of content exists in your structure. This type
of structure includes the one most people think of first as structure--the outline. It
goes far past the outline, however, to include a range of other navigational structures,
including the following:

o Hierarchies (also known as outlines, taxonomies, and tables of contents), which

show parent-child relationships between different segments of content
o Indexes and concordances, which provide a map between text phrases and the
content segments that relate to them
o Cross-references (also known as links) from one content segment to another,
either within the same work or to other works
o Sequences (also known as browse sequences) that specify which segment of
content comes before or after the current one

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 • Management structure specifies the attributes of a content component that enable
you to track and manage it. Data such as author, creation date, version number, and
review status are all forms of management structure. You can think of this sort of
structure as an auxiliary map over the content, which gives the manager's cut on
what's important
• Inclusional structure specifies which components include others. If you create an
image reference in an HTML page, for example, you're putting a little piece of
Inclusional structure in the HTML that says, "Go find this picture and include it here."
Your structure may know little or nothing about the structure of the included content
itself

Structure by scope

Structure, like format, also has scope, as the following list describes:

• Structure below the radar: You can certainly say that a period is a bit of divisional
structure, but so what? Every content system that you encounter includes a level
below which it is both infeasible and unnecessary to deal with structure. The level of
granularity that you deal with depends on the system. In a public library, for example,
which is a content system, the librarians don't care about the structure of each
individual book. They neither notice nor encode this structure. Rather, they code the
structure among books, put it on little cards (digital cards or paper ones), and make it
available to visitors. On the other hand, if you are managing a database of short
landmark descriptions that are destined to be used in a variety of travel brochures
and sites, you may very well need to know and manage the structure of your content
at the sentence level. In any case, you should understand that there is a level of the
structure below which you need not concern yourself
• Inner structure: The structure that you find represented within a content component
is the inner structure. In my library example, you can say that each book is a
component. The table of contents and index within each book are the inner
structures within these components. Librarians today generally don't care about the
table of contents within the books that they manage. But this doesn't mean that
people never care about internal structure at all. Imagine a day when a librarian
decides to make a master table of contents for the entire library. The book is still the
basic component in the system; now, however, the tables of contents, which are still
inner structures, are of interest. The librarian must now access and combine them.
The key point with inner structure is that it's part of a component, stored within it,
and always travels with it--whether you notice it or not
• Outer structure: This structure is what relates one component to another. In the
library example, the card catalogue is the outer structure that organizes the cards
(and the books they represent) into a useful system. You always care about outer
structure. Interestingly, you may store the outer structure inside or outside the

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 component. In the library, in fact, you store it both within and outside the
component: One paper card with the catalogue number for the book, or its
equivalent, is inside every book, and one record is in the catalogue database. In
electronic systems, you often store outer structure outside the components
themselves. For example, you commonly create a hierarchy that shows how each
component is related to its peers and parents

Structure is the key to managing content. Control the structure and you control the content
and its publication, which, of course, is easier said than done, as the following list attests:

• Structure is often buried in the formatting of source content. Even if the formatting is
consistent, which it often isn't, extracting the structure and making it explicit in a set
of tags or database fields may prove difficult. Although consistent, the structure
based on formatting alone may be ambiguous, incomplete, unintended, or
inaccurate.
Organizations go to war over competing structures. "We should list jobs by
department." "No, we should list them by type." Although a good CMS enables you
to lay multiple simultaneous structures over the same content, reaching an
agreement on exactly how to divide content may prove a more daunting task
• The content architect (or metator) has her hands full dividing undifferentiated
information into chunks and tagging it for access, management, and inclusion. In
addition, she must create hierarchies, indexes, cross-reference structures, and
sequences that tie each chunk into a wider system. Although you can ignore structure
below a certain level, that level may be far lower than you might like it to be for your
current workload

Activity 4

Why is structure more important than format?

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Activity 4

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Activity 4

Letter Writing6

Purpose of a Business Letter

A business letter (or formal letter) is a formal way of communicating between two or more
parties. There are many different uses and business letters. Business letters can be
informational, persuasive, motivational, or promotional. Business letters should be typed and
printed out on standard A4 white paper.

Elements of a Good Letter

6
Source: Letters, as at http://www.letters.net.au/, as on 12th March, 2016; Letter Writting Guide, as at
http://www.letterwritingguide.com/businessletter.htm, as on 12th March, 2016.

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The most important element of writing a good letter is your ability to identify and write to
your audience. If you are addressing your letter to the department of human resources, avoid
using highly technical terms that only engineers would understand, even if your letter is
addressed to an engineering company, chances are that the personnel in human resources
does not have an engineering background.

The next element is that you make sure your present your objective in a clear and concise
manner. Don't be vague about your objective, most people will not have the patience to sit
there and guess at the meaning of your letter or the time to read a long-winded letter, just
get to the point without going into unnecessary details.

Another important element to remember is to remain professional. Even if you are writing a
complaint letter, remain polite and courteous, simply state the problem(s) along with any
other relevant information and be sure to avoid threats and slander.

This is the basic format that is followed to write a letter in Australia. To help you write a
professional letter please search for a topic and choose from the many examples available.

The Address

This is a basic format for an average misc letter. In Australia, to start off a letter, the sender's
name (from) and address are put in the top right and the recipient's name and address are
put slightly below on the left.

The Body Text

The recipient is then addressed with the word 'dear' without an indentation. For instant, 'Dear
Ms Lindsay Lohan' or 'Dear Britney Spears', or 'Dear sir/madam'. The main content of the
letter is then written below with indentations, as in a paragraph form.

The Conclusion

The letter is then concluded with 'Yours sincerely' if the name of the recipient was given at
the top, or 'Yours faithfully' if it was not; something along the lines of 'Best wishes' is
generally the most appropriate for an informal letter. You could also use kind regards or just
regards depending on the type of letter you are writing. The sender then signs the letter
below in the center or left (depending on how the letter is formatted), with their name
printed below that so it is legible.

Block Format: Business Letter

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 Return Address Line 1 1
Return Address Line 2

Date (Month Day, Year) 2

Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr. Full name of recipient. 3 Title/Position of Recipient.

Company Name
Address Line 1
Address Line 2

Dear Ms./Mrs./Mr. Last Name: 4

Subject: Title of Subject 5

Body Paragraph 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
...........................................................................
.................

Body Paragraph 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
...........................................................................
..................

Body Paragraph 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
...........................................................................
..................6

Closing (Sincerely...), 7

Signature 8

Your Name (Printed) 9

Your Title

Enclosures (2) 10
Typist Initials. 11

The block format is the simplest format; all of the writing is flush against the left
margin.

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Your Address 1
The return address of the sender so the recipient can easily find out where to send a reply to.
Skip a line between your address and the date. (Not needed if the letter is printed on paper
with the company letterhead already on it.)

Date 2
Put the date on which the letter was written in the format Month Day Year i.e. August 30,
2003.
Skip a line between the date and the inside address (some people skip 3 or 4 lines after the
date).

Inside Address 3
The address of the person you are writing to along with the name of the recipient, their title
and company name, if you are not sure who the letter should be addressed to either leave it
blank, but try to put in a title, i.e. "Director of Human Resources". Skip a line between the
date and the salutation.

Salutation 4
Dear Ms./Mrs./Mr. Last Name:, Dear Director of Department Name: or To Whom It May
Concern: if recipient's name is unknown. Note that there is a colon after the salutation. Skip a
line between the salutation and the subject line or body.

Subject Line (optional) 5

Makes it easier for the recipient to find out what the letter is about. Skip a line between the
subject line and the body.

Body 6
The body is where you write the content of the letter; the paragraphs should be single
spaced with a skipped line between each paragraph. Skip a line between the end of the body
and the closing.

Closing 7
Let's the reader know that you are finished with your letter; usually ends with Sincerely,
Sincerely yours, Thank you, and so on. Note that there is a comma after the end of the
closing and only the first word in the closing is capitalized. Skip 3-4 lines between the closing
and the printed name, so that there is room for the signature.

Signature 8
Your signature will go in this section, usually signed in black or blue ink with a pen.

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Printed Name 9
The printed version of your name, and if desired you can put your title or position on the line
underneath it. Skip a line between the printed name and the enclosure.

Enclosure 10
If letter contains other document other than the letter itself your letter will include the word
"Enclosure." If there is more than one you would type, "Enclosures (#)" with the # being the
number of other documents enclosed, not including the letter itself.

Reference Initials 11
If someone other than yourself typed the letter you will include your initials in capital letters
followed by the typist's initials in lower case in the following format; AG/gs or AG:gs.

Business Letter Samples

Writing an Apology

How to say sorry in a professional manner.

Misprint
Letter #1:
Please note that the limitation of "one per customer" on our bulk oil sale advertisement is a
misprint. We apologize for this error and encourage you to take advantage of this once-a-
year sales event to stock up for the year. We are pleased to offer all premium oils at the
same low price as last year, but remind you that the offer will end on April 25.

Thank you for your patronage. We enjoy being your one-stop store for all your automotive
needs. You have a problem? We have the solution.

Letter #2:
Please note that our spring sale insert delivered with Monday's newspaper contains an
unfortunate misprint. The sale price for the five-piece set of lawn furniture is $500, not $200.
This lovely set is built to last for years and is a bargain at this price. We invite you to take
advantage of all our low sale prices during the month of April. The first ten customers to
purchase this lawn furniture will receive an 10% discount on their total purchase. We hope to
see you early Tuesday morning.

Letter #3:
Our Summer Sale flyer contains an error. On page 28 the photograph illustrating the "Burton
Custom" downhill skis on sale at $300 actually shows last year's model. The '11 model
Custom has better graphics and a big sidecut for carving effortless turns in all snow

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conditions. It also incorporates a new core technology for better action in the bumps and
lighter weight on the lifts. Don't let this unfortunate misprint keep you from buying these
skis at this rare preseason sale price!

Letter #4:
Please accept our apologies for the misprint in the memo announcing our office Christmas
party. Our party will be held Friday, December 17, not Saturday. We apologize for any
inconvenience this may cause anyone and hope that you will still be able to attend. All of the
other information about time and place is correct. We look forward to seeing you and
sharing the spirit of the holidays together.

Letter #5:
We're sorry we can't rent our New Release videos for 9 cents! We are, however, reducing our
price on all regular videos to 90 cents. At that price, we're now the lowest in town--all week
long. We appreciate your business and hope to see you soon.

Letter #6:
The in-store discount coupon you recently received states that it "may be used on any
merchandise in the store." It should read, "may be used on any nonsale merchandise in the
store." Our sale prices are already so low we don't dare reduce them further!
Your coupon lets you decide what regular merchandise you wish to purchase at sale prices.
Join us next week for the Sale of the Century. Bring your coupon and receive free hot dogs
and drinks for yourself and your immediate family members.

Deny Promotion

Letter #1:
Because you do so much so well, I regret having to report that management has denied my
request to raise your position from a Level 8 to a Level 10. They explained that company
policy does not permit an employee to advance two levels at the same time. They agreed to
consider advancing you to a Level 9 after the first of the year if the department maintains its
present level of production. Rest assured I will do everything I can to get this promotion for
you.

Letter #2:
Thank you for your patience while the tenure committee considered your possible
promotion to associate professor. We all agree that you have made significant
contributions to the SEO Department in your teaching, and we congratulate you on being
voted "Marketer of the Year." After reviewing your curriculum vitae, however, we have
decided to withhold the promotion to Executive Marketer until a later date.

While you have several promising research projects in progress, the committee would like to
see more refereed publications before granting Executive Marketer status. We will be happy

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to reconsider your request for advancement next year, if the number and quality of your
publications increase. Again, we salute your contributions to our department and wish you
continued success in your professional endeavors.

Letter #3:
I am very pleased that you joined our staff last year. Your work has been first rate, and you
are a pleasure to work with. Because of that, it is all the more difficult to deny your
promotion. We hired another qualified individual to fill the position you wanted. I am sorry.
Rest assured, though, that your efforts are not going unnoticed. Continue working as hard
and as efficiently as you have and you will achieve your career goals. I do appreciate your
efforts.

Letter #4:
You have been with the company longer than any other staff member, and all of us
genuinely appreciate your exemplary work in the front office. However, you have reached the
highest salary level allowable for secretarial staff.

Ms. Bieber has suggested that I discuss with you the possibility of training you for an
administrative position. I know in the past you have chosen to remain in your present job,
but I am confident that you would also enjoy the challenge of a new position. Whatever you
decide, I look forward to our continued association.

Transaction Error

Letter #1:
We apologize for the duplicate service charge on your revolving credit account. It appears
that we recorded the same stack of orders twice, but have now corrected our records.
We appreciate your calling this error to our attention so that we could correct it quickly for a
few other customers as well. Thank you for your patronage. We look forward to serving you
again.

Letter #2:
Thank you for your telephone call on August 28, alerting us to our error. You are perfectly
right, and we apologize for charging you for five shirts instead of the two that you ordered.
We have credited your account with $160, which leaves you with a $30.00 balance. As a
token of our appreciation, we are enclosing a coupon for a 30% discount on your next order.
We look forward to serving you again.

Letter #3:
I apologize for the confusion in your shipment. I have included a shipping label for you to
use in returning the incorrect goods, and this morning I sent out the balance of your
corrected order. You should receive the package this week. Please note also that the newly
calculated balance is $896.78 more than the incorrect invoice stated. Feel free to pay this on

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your next monthly billing cycle. I assure you we work hard to keep mistakes to a minimum. I
hope our response was satisfactory, as we wish to continue working with you.

Letter #4:
We regret the error we made on our last order sent July 18. We want 200 blue and 200 black
pens, not 300 blue pens. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause your department
and appreciate your prompt attention to this correction. We have always enjoyed the
excellent service we receive from Staples Office Supply and appreciate the opportunity to do
business with you.

Letter #5:
Please disregard the bill you received last week. We are embarrassed to find that our
computer sent out two copies of the bill to every customer! Our software engineer has now
developed a program that will check for such an error before sending out any bills. We are
grateful to all of you who called this error to our attention, and we assure you that it will not
happen again.

Letter #6:
As you suggested, we applied your payment to an account number that was very similar to
yours. Our computer scanner was down the day your payment was received, and this error
occurred in entering the account numbers. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused
and are changing our policy so that we double-check all entries made by hand.
We have corrected the balance due on your account as you will see on the enclosed bill and
trust that this will resolve your concerns. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Postpone Appointment

Letter #1:
I wish to advise you that I will not be attending the August convention in San Jose, and will
consequently be unable to participate as a member of the panel on insurance for businesses.
I have been ill and will require daily treatments for the next two months.

I regret my inability to assist you, but do look forward to working with you on other projects.
In the meantime, Brad Johnson or Jane Tran of Tran Corporation should be able to assist you
in your planning. I am sure they can also offer suggestions for someone to take my place on
the panel.

I look forward to future collaboration and will be in touch with you as soon as I am up to
speed again.

Letter #2:
This will confirm my telephone call advising your secretary that unexpected work
responsibilities necessitate my traveling abroad for three weeks. I must therefore ask you to

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postpone my tax audit that was scheduled for July 21. I will contact your office when I return
and will then reschedule our appointment.

My bookkeeper has reviewed all my documentation to be sure it is complete, and I anticipate

no further delays. If you need to get in touch with me, please leave a message on my home
answering machine and I will return your call as soon as possible.

Letter #3:
I am sorry that I must cancel my appointment to see the Governor at noon on December 21.
My mother has been hospitalized for heart surgery and it is important that I be with her at
this time. I anticipate that I will be in Boston for the next three months.

Before I return home, I will contact your office to reschedule my appointment. Please send
the information I requested to my home address. My mail will be forwarded to me in Boston.

Letter #4:
I regret that I will be unable to keep our 11:45 a.m. appointment next Friday, March 15. Our
front office has just announced a new policy canceling all employee travel for the next five
months. Until this restriction is lifted, I will have to conduct all our business by telephone, fax,
or e-mail. While I will miss our personal work sessions, please be assured that I will continue
to service your account as effectively as I have in the past.

Decline Appointment
Letter #1:
It has come to my attention that your company representatives have an appointment to
meet with our engineers on Saturday, August 1. There must have been a misunderstanding
as we have already contracted with another company to take care of safety issues. Our
current contract runs for two more years, after which time we will be pleased to reopen
discussions with your firm. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Letter #2:
I need to cancel the appointment I made to see you on January 22, at 10:00 a.m. When I
made the appointment, I thought I would have all of the necessary information collected so
we could discuss a change of zoning in my residential neighborhood, but gathering the
information has been more difficult than I had anticipated. It will probably take three more
months before I am ready to discuss this proposition. I am working with a group of
concerned neighbors, and as soon as we are ready, one of us will call to set up a new
appointment.

Letter #3:
I regret that I must cancel our appointment to discuss your athletic clothing line. I have just
signed an exclusive distributorship agreement with another company. This contract lasts one

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season, so if you wish to meet with me before next season, please call next March to set up
another appointment. I wish you the best of luck in this season.

Letter #4:
I am sorry that I will be unable to schedule a time to meet with you next Thursday to discuss
your career plans. As you know, this month is the busiest time of year for us, and I will be
away on a buying trip. Please contact my secretary to schedule another appointment. I
should be back in town on May 10. I will be pleased to meet with you after things slow down
a bit.

Apology Employee

Letter #1:
I apologize for the delay in sending last month's paychecks. I realize that you, too, need to
meet your monthly obligations in a timely manner, and such delays do not help.
To avoid such frustrations in the future, we are changing to a computer system that will
prepare checks a week in advance for distribution on payday. This unfortunate event should
never be repeated. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Letter #2:
I understand that some of you have taken offense at my comments in Tuesday's meeting. I
apologise to anyone I may have hurt. Sometimes we tend to be a little harder on those who
we care about the most.
We share common goals of creating and selling the best products in the market, and I want
us all to succeed. To lead you in that effort, we need to tap your ideas and hear your
concerns. Please be prepared to meet with me in your groups. I will also be available for
individual appointments. Call Jane to schedule times. Together we can achieve our goals and
have fun in the process.

Letter #3:
I apologize for my failure to coordinate our efforts on the Maidstone job. I know many of you
lost valuable time waiting on some other phase of the job. This is unacceptable and will not
happen again. I have instructed John Tran in payroll to pay everyone who lost time on the
Maidstone job for a full day's work. It is very important to me that we continue working
together to provide the best remodeling in the business.

Letter #4:
Please accept my sincere apology for forgetting to schedule the time off that you had
requested. It slipped my mind when I was making up the calendar, and then I went out of
town and didn't have a chance to correct my mistake. To help make up for it, I have
scheduled you for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off this week. I hope my error didn't cause
you too much of a problem. I appreciate your professional attitude and the good job you do.
I will make every effort to see that this Transn't happen again.

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Letter #5:
I apologise for failing to mention that you had prepared the graphs for this morning's
presentation. It must have been frustrating for you to not have your hard work
acknowledged. As soon as I realized what I had done, I e-mailed all the board members,
thanking them for attending and informing them that you were responsible for the excellent
graphs. I hope this will help to make up for my oversight.

Mistaken Letter

Letter #1:
Thank you for your phone call regarding your account. We sincerely apologise for our error
in the letter we sent you. We do have a record of your August 1 payment, which cleared your
account. We value you as a customer and appreciate your courtesy in this matter.

Letter #2:
We appreciate your calling our attention to our billing mistake and apologize for the
inconvenience we no doubt caused you. You have been most patient in accommodating us.
Your account balance is currently $58.50 and your next payment is due in July.

Letter #3:
Thank you for bringing the error on your account to our attention. We have corrected the
error and apologize for any problem we may have caused. Enclosed is a new account
statement reflecting the correct balance.

Letter #4:
Please accept our sincere apologies for the collection letter that we mailed to you by mistake.
It must have come as quite a surprise, since your payments have always been on time. Your
new statement should reflect your most recent payment and will show that the late charges
have been removed from your account. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have
caused you and appreciate your continued business as one of our valued customers.

Letter #5:
Thank you for calling our attention to our billing error. It is never pleasant to receive a
request for money you have already paid, and we do apologize for the inconvenience this
caused you. You are perfectly correct; your account has been paid in full and our records
now reflect this. You are a valued customer and we look forward to serving you again.

Incomplete Information

Letter #1:
Please accept our apologies for the mistake that appeared in our Sunday advertisement. We

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didn't realize what happened until we received a flood of telephone calls ordering the stereo
set for $99.00 instead of $399.00. A correction will appear in the next announcement.
I know this is a disappointment for those who had their hopes raised, but you can
understand that it is impossible for us to sell the set at that price. We will, however, give
another 10% discount to all those who still want their orders filled at the correct price. Thank
you for your understanding.

Letter #2:
During our recent discussion I said that the prices for Metricon building lots begin at
$60,000. That information was correct for phase one lots only, which are now sold out. Phase
two lots begin at $69,000. Our new price sheets and advertisements reflect this change. The
demand for Metricon building lots has been very strong and the market seems to change
every week.

I am sorry to convey this frustrating news. The good news is that there are still three excellent
view lots available and I would like to show them to you. I will call when I return from
Sunshine to schedule an appointment.

Letter #3:
Last week when I calculated how much your monthly house payment would be, I forgot to
include the cost of insuring your home. I apologize for this oversight. I have enclosed
quotations from several insurance companies to give you an idea of what the additional
amount would be.

I realise that my inaccurate estimate is a disappointment, but as you can see, the price of
insurance is relatively low, and this omission should not prevent you from qualifying for a
loan. I would be happy to talk to you about this further if needed. Please, if you have
questions, call me at 9628-0000.

Poor Service
Letter #1:
We hope you will accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience your party experienced
when you held an anniversary celebration in our ballroom. I know it was important for you to
begin at 7:00 p.m., and the failure of our other guests to leave the room on time was a
frustration to us all. Thank you for your patience while we enlisted the help of several
additional persons to help with your setup.

To avoid such problems in the future, we are allowing more time between scheduled events,
and are imposing a surcharge on any group that Mileys not leave the ballroom by the
scheduled time.

We have enjoyed working with your social committee, and we look forward to serving you
more efficiently in the future. Again, our sincere apologies.

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Letter #2:
Your comments regarding the service you received at our store are very important to us. We
want customers to enjoy shopping at Miley's, so your report of a disturbing experience with
one of our sales persons is a serious concern for us. First, let us express our deepest
apologies. You deserve only the best service, especially when you visit Miley's. Second, we
are questioning our staff and will take appropriate action. Finally, the next time you visit our
store, please ask for me. I will personally give you a special discount on your purchase and
provide you with the service you should expect at Miley's. Thank you for reporting this
incident.

Letter #3:
Please accept my apology for the manner in which we handled your complaint this morning.
Our salesperson has worked here only two weeks and was unaware of our policy on returned
goods. We know the incident must have been very unpleasant for you. The salesperson in
question will receive special training during the next two weeks so he will be better prepared
to serve all our customers. We look forward to serving you in the coming months.

Letter #4:
I am sorry that you received inferior service when you brought an important out-of-town
client to dine at our restaurant last Saturday evening. I know how frustrating it is to have
plans for an elegant evening unexpectedly go awry.

I appreciate your making me aware of the situation. To solve the problem, I am placing a few
of our best servers on call during peak evening hours. Please accept the $50.00 gift
certificate I have enclosed as a token of my appreciation for your patronage and a gesture of
my desire to make amends.

Offensive Behaviour

Letter #1:
I owe an apology to all my co-workers and their families for my attempt at being funny at the
company picnic last Friday. I realise now that my costume was offensive to you and your
families. I am very sorry.

I know you look forward to the annual picnic as a time for wholesome family activities, and
my insensitive garb was not appropriate. I can't undo what I have done, but you have my
pledge to help keep the quality of all our activities on a high plane from now on.

Letter #2:
I apologise for walking out in the middle of your presentation. I know it was disruptive, and I
may have hurt your feelings.

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I suddenly was not feeling well and thought it best to leave. I certainly am interested in your
work and hope to get a printed copy of your presentation.

Letter #3:
I am sorry I took such an offensive tone of voice in speaking with you before your friends. It
was not my intention to humiliate you. My own annoyance at another matter clouded my
judgment.
Please forgive me. I hope this unfortunate misstep will not jeopardize our friendship. You are
one of the best friends I have.

Letter #4:
I want you to know how truly sorry I am for the joke I told at dinner last night. It was in very
poor taste, and I am sorry that it offended you. Looking back on it, I am glad that you let me
know how you felt. Please accept my sincere apology for my insensitivity and be assured that
I will no longer tell jokes of that type.

Decline Appointment

Letter #1:
It has come to my attention that your company representatives have an appointment to
meet with our builder on Saturday, November 1. There must have been a misunderstanding
as we have already contracted with another company to take care of safety issues. Our
current contract runs for three more years, after which time we will be pleased to reopen
discussions with your firm. I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Letter #2:
I need to cancel the appointment I made to see you on March 22, at 9:00 a.m. When I made
the appointment, I thought I would have all of the necessary information collected so we
could discuss a change of zoning in my residential neighborhood, but gathering the
information has been more difficult than I had anticipated. It will probably take three more
months before I am ready to discuss this proposition. I am working with a group of
concerned neighbors, and as soon as we are ready, one of us will call to set up a new
appointment.

Letter #3:
I regret that I must cancel our appointment to discuss your maternity clothing line. I have just
signed an exclusive distributorship agreement with another company. This contract lasts one

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season, so if you wish to meet with me before next season, please call next February to set
up another appointment. I wish you the best of luck in this season.

Letter #4:
I am sorry that I will be unable to schedule a time to meet with you next Thursday to discuss
your career plans. As you know, this month is the busiest time of year for us, and I will be
away on a buying trip. Please contact my secretary to schedule another appointment. I
should be back in town on May 25. I will be pleased to meet with you after things slow down
a bit.

Sorry On Behalf

Letter #1:
On behalf of Blackburn Associates I extend my sincere apologies for the behavior of our field
representative at the recent trade show. We expect all our employees to refrain from
drinking alcoholic beverages not only during their working hours but for several hours
before reporting to work. Thank you for informing us of this inexcusable incident. We are
embarrassed that someone from our firm would have caused such a scene.

The representative involved is being disciplined and is being required to receive special help
for substance abuse. Any future infraction will result in immediate termination of his
employment.

Letter #2:
On behalf of Intel Corporation, I would like to express my deepest apologies for the rude
treatment you received from one of our support operators. Our customer support service is
designed to alleviate customer frustration, not add to it. When a problem of this nature
occurs, we want to know about it. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. The operator in
question has been put on probation and has been sent to a special class on customer
relations. Intel
Corporation wants to deliver preferential treatment to all its customers. Please accept the
enclosed discount coupons as a token of our sincere apologies.

Letter #3:
I want to apologize for the rude behavior of one of our employees yesterday. It was
inexcusable for her to speak to you in an impatient way as you were making your purchase. I
know it is upsetting when someone who should be serving you is disrespectful.

Our employee has been disciplined and will lose her job if this behavior ever happens again.
We value you as one of our best customers and hope you will accept our sincere apology.

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Incomplete Information

Letter #1:
Please accept our apologies for the mistake that appeared in our Sunday advertisement. We
didn't realize what happened until we received a flood of telephone calls ordering the Ipad
set for $498.00 instead of $988.00. A correction will appear in the next announcement.

I know this is a disappointment for those who had their hopes raised, but you can
understand that it is impossible for us to sell the set at that price. We will, however, give
another 5% discount to all those who still want their orders filled at the correct price. Thank
you for your understanding.

Letter #2:
During our recent discussion I said that the prices for Metricon building lots begin at
$65,000. That information was correct for stage one lots only, which are now sold out. Stage
two lots begin at $72,000. Our new price sheets and advertisements reflect this change. The
demand for Metricon building lots has been very strong and the market seems to change
every week.

I am sorry to convey this frustrating news. The good news is that there are still three excellent
view lots available and I would like to show them to you. I will call when I return from Tarneit
to schedule an appointment.

Letter #3:
Last week when I calculated how much your monthly house payment would be, I forgot to
include the cost of insuring your home. I apologise for this oversight. I have enclosed
quotations from several insurance companies to give you an idea of what the additional
amount would be.

I realize that my inaccurate estimate is a disappointment, but as you can see, the price of
insurance is relatively low, and this omission should not prevent you from qualifying for a
loan. I would be happy to talk to you about this further if needed. Please, if you have
questions, call me at 9854-8888.

Damaged Property

Letter #1:
I am very sorry and embarrassed that I knocked down your fence post as I was backing out
of your driveway last night. I know you had worked hard to get that fence built, only to have
someone like me damage it. I offer no excuse. I simply wasn't paying attention.

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Of course I will pay for the repair as soon as possible. Debbie said that your home owner's
insurance policy may cover the damage, so she told me to wait until she had called the
company.
I'll be glad to follow through on the repairs. It's the least I can do. Thanks for putting up with
me. I'll be in touch.

Letter #2:
I am terribly sorry that I damaged the ipod you lent me. I know you take pride in your ipod
collection, so having this happen is undoubtedly disturbing. I will try to replace it if it is still in
print. Otherwise, I will compensate you for it. Our friendship is too important to not make
this right.

Letter #3:
I am sorry for the damage we did to your lemon tree. My children were playing in the tree
when the limb broke. I realize you must be very disturbed at the loss of the lemons and the
damage to the tree, because you take such good care of your trees and garden. Of course
my children are banned from your garden, and our family has agreed to work together to
compensate you for your loss. Please let me know what a fair sum would be to pay for the
tree surgeon and to cover the cost of the lost fruit. We want to be good neighbors and good
friends.

Letter #4:
Please accept my sincere apology for the damage I did to your car yesterday. Of course my
insurance will completely cover the cost of repairs, but I know this will still cause you great
inconvenience. I deeply regret my carelessness and the trouble this has caused you. You can
be sure that I will be more careful in the future.

Letter #5:
You were so gracious last night when I spilled coffee on your pants, but it really was my own
fault and I'm sorry for my carelessness. I can imagine how frustrating it must have been for
you to have such a beautiful outfit ruined. Please, will you allow me to pay for having it
cleaned?

If the fabric is damaged to the point where professional cleaning won't help, I will be only
too pleased to replace the pants. Just have the bills sent to me or send me the receipts. It
really is the least I can do.

Shipping Delay

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Letter #1:
Our sincere apologies for the mixup on your fruit tree order. It was clear that you ordered
green lasers, and we mistakenly sent you red lasers. We are sending you a laser replacement
devices immediately. You need not return the lasers you have received. Thank you for your
understanding. We appreciate serving your astronomy needs.

Letter #2:
We are sorry you did not receive your package as promptly as you expected. We experienced
an unusually large number of orders, which disrupted our normal delivery schedule. To serve
you better and faster, we are busy expanding our staff. Again, we apologize for any
inconvenience we might have caused and look forward to filling your future orders in timely
manner.

Letter #3:
Thank you for your phone call informing us that you had not received your shipment of
glasses. I apologize for the delay. Because of the strike, we were unable to get the necessary
shipping cartons from our supplier. We did ship the glasses by express mail on Saturday, so
you should receive them soon after this letter. We regret the inconvenience this may have
caused. In the future we will keep an extra supply of shipping materials on hand. We look
forward to doing business with you for years to come.

Letter #4:
Please accept our sincere apology for the error we made in your last order. We are sending
you the correct size dress, along with a coupon for $5 off your next order from our catalog.
We hope this has not caused you too much inconvenience. We appreciate your business and
will make every effort in the future to send you the correct merchandise.

Letter #5:
I am sorry the blazer we sent you was the wrong size. Such errors are rare, but unfortunately
do occur from time to time. We have shipped you another blazer, which you should receive
in a day or two. Please use the packing materials and the enclosed prepaid shipping label to
send the original blazer back to us.

I hope you will also use the attached coupon, which will give you a 20% discount on your
next purchase from our catalog.

Sales Letters

Sample sales letter offering software

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With the appreciation of your friendship our Group would like to represent a new special
offer created for all the customers who prefer to use our services. Needless to say that we're
trying to help you with your choices, because we offer a quality software at lowest prices on
the web. Make your choice, don't miss a chance. We're always at your service. The following
special offer will operate within next 7 days only. Every effort has been made to ensure the
accuracy of all information contained herein. DS Team makes no warranty expressed or
implied with respect to accuracy of the information, including price, product editorials or
product specifications. Product and manufacturer names are used only for the purpose of
identification. We appreciate your cooperation with us and we'll be glad to see you as our
clients in the future.

Selling Real Estate

Letter #1

Dear (Name),

Stress is trying to sell your present home while buying another one. Ray White Real Estate
can help.

We have served (city) for more than 15 years. Our success rate is one of the highest of any
local company. We sell fast and for more. And we also guarantee that if we can't sell your
home within six months, we'll buy it from you. What have you got to lose?

Check out our enclosed brochure. Ray White Real Estate is the market leader for a good
reason. Call 4478-4700. Hand us the stress of selling. We can handle it.

Sincerely,

Letter #2
Dear (name),

How would you like to be assured that you could sell your home for top dollar?

The team of Lawson Brothers Realty includes two of (state) sales leaders. We consistently sell
our clients' homes for at least 95% of the listing price. We combine our years of experience
and a proven marketing program to make up the most aggressive home selling system in
the area.

We don't have to tell you that the agent Lawsons make a difference. We will design a specific
marketing plan to sell your property quickly for the highest possible value.

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Our emphasis is on selling your home, not just listing it.

Sincerely,

P.S. How soon could you move?

Letter #3

Dear (name):

I noticed your "For Sale By Owner" and applaud your efforts. You are obviously an
independent person who likes to be in control. I would like to ask you, however, to consider
a team approach to selling your home.

When I work with homeowners, it is a partnership between the seller and me. My
commitment is to provide you with a well-researched market analysis and develop an
extensive marketing plan.

May I please request only 15 minutes of your time to interview for the job of selling your
home? I will show you how our working together can be much more effective in promoting
the sale of your home. I look forward to following up with you this week by phone.

Sincerely,

Email Marketing Example

Email #1

Members, are you tired of your investments bringing you only a few percent return each
year? Sick of those bloated blue chips? This week we are bringing you a company which is
just the thing for an investor looking for big returns!

All it takes is one smashing piece of news, one institutional investor taking notice and a small
stock like this will skyrocket!
Here's your chance:

Company: X-tra Petroleum (XTPT)

Current Price: $0.006

Expected price: $0.017 (280% gain)

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In the oil business big news brings big moves, and we are expecting an explosive
announcement! If you are looking for the kind of gains that count then we advise you to get
in early. Here's your chance!

Job Related Letter Samples

Absentee Record

Letter #1

Dear [[Recipient]]:

Your work has been excellent, but your absentee record is about to overshadow your work
record. I don't doubt that your health has been poor, but one requirement of a job is regular
attendance. We have difficulty scheduling our operations when we cannot depend on your
attendance.

This subject has been discussed several times before, and now your attendance must meet
our requirements or termination will result.

Tardiness

Letter #1

Dear [[Recipient]]:

Promptness is important to the management and the customers at Bendigo Savings and
Loan Association. Therefore, while we make allowances for occasional lateness, consistent
lateness cannot be tolerated and offenders must be dismissed.

You have reported late to work for 17 out of the last 18 days. Unless this situation is
remedied immediately, you will be asked to leave our organization.

Should there be extenuating circumstances, please come in and speak with me. If there is a
problem, perhaps we can work it out together. Bendigo S & L never likes losing a good
employee. I'm sure that the problem can be eliminated.
Poor Performance

Letter #1

Dear [[Recipient]]:

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We pride ourselves on being a "family store" and regret whenever we have to let an
individual go because of poor performance or other difficulties.

Unfortunately, unless several flaws in your performance are eliminated immediately, we will
have to terminate your employment with us. Customers have registered dissatisfaction with
your rudeness, careless appearance, and reluctance to assist them in obtaining merchandise.

I'm sure that all of this can be worked out without any further complaints occurring, and with
no further reminder required.

Letter #2

Dear [[Recipient]]:

It is with reluctance I inform you that, unless conditions improve measurably, Ford will have
to terminate your association with the company.

Personnel performance and productivity rates have shown steady declines in the past
twelvemonth period. Frankly, unless improvement is observed, the department will have to
be revamped and several other employees released in order to make up our losses.

To be realistic, we estimate that such improvement will take a minimum of six months to
become visible. Given your excellent performance record in the past, there is no reason to
assume anything but success.

Letter #3

Dear [[Recipient]]:

This is a written record of our discussion following the accounting audit by the Sakata
Company on May 22, 2006. You have a copy of the 52 errors in accounting procedures and
policies noted by the Sano Company auditors.

We discussed with you our concern and disappointment with these errors as well as your
performance as an office supervisor. Company management will share this concern,
especially because your position as assistant office manager places you in line for promotion
to office manager. Your limited experience has been considered, but of more importance is
your evident weakness in accounting skills and your lack of ability to organize procedures. In
addition, while discussing procedures with members of your staff, we found morale to be
unduly low.

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At present, you may consider yourself on probation. Your performance will be carefully
monitored, and if, in our opinion, a definite improvement is not forthcoming, there is a
possibility that steps will be taken to replace you. You have begun to correct some of the
problems, but a review of your progress will be made in four months. We expect to
determine your permanent status at that time.

Letter #4

Dear [[Recipient]]:

Although with regret, I feel it is necessary to inform you that the following items concerning
your supervision of the Scotch House of our youth agency need your immediate attention:

1. The amount of gasoline consumed from Friday to Friday should not exceed $25.
Special field trips are excluded. No trips are to be made in the agency vehicle that are not
agency related.

2. Mileage forms should be turned in at the end of every month completely filled in.
Trust receipts and allowance receipts must be turned in weekly.

3. The phone bill is not to exceed $70 for agency calls. This is separate from your
personal calls, for which you pay. This means that all calls need to be monitored before the
number is dialed and a record should be kept for each boy stating whether or not his one
long-distance, five minute call was made for that month. A log should be maintained or all
calls.

4. The grocery list is to be filled in according to needs listed on the menu form ONLY.
The grocery list should indicate the quantity needed. Food is ordered Friday through
Thursday.

Improvement must be shown in these areas by March 9 or employment will be jeopardized.

By this date, there should be enough improvement made that these issues will no longer be
a problem.

I have read this and understand its contents.

_____________
Beyonce Knowles
Date: ________

Promotion

Letter #1

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Dear [[Recipient]]:

Congratulations on your promotion to Manager of the Converting operations. I know you

worked hard for that promotion and no one is more deserving of the position you have
attained. We are all proud of you.

Letter #2

Dear [[Recipient]]:

The good news of your appointment as president of Starbucks Company came to me today
from our friend Hristo Stoichkov. Hearty congratulations, and may I wish you every success. I
agree that you are the best one to keep the company on its profitable course. The work, I'm
sure, will be hard enough to be interesting and let's hope light enough not to be a burden.

Rejecting Applicants
[Because this is a "bad news" letter, couch the decision in the middle. Courtesy and goodwill
suggest that this is a letter that should be written, even if it seems to be an annoying
obligation.]

Job Applicant Rejection

Letter #1

Dear [[Recipient]]:

I thank you for recommending that Ms. Rachel Hunter see me about our computer opening.
Your interest in our company is appreciated.

At the present time, in spite of her excellent academic training, we require someone with
more on-the-job experience.

Thanks again for your interest in our operation.

Letter #2

Dear [[Recipient]]:

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We appreciate your sending Mr. Diego Maradona to see me about employment here. I can
understand why you recommended him. He would be a great addition to our team, but
right now we just don't have a place for him.

But I thank you for considering our company as a place to work for someone you obviously
regard highly.

Writing Policies and Procedures7

All organisations have policies and procedures that guide how decisions are made and how
the work is done in that organisation. Well written policies and procedures increase
organisational accountability and transparency and are fundamental to quality assurance and
quality improvement programs.

Even where policies and procedures are not written down they exist, guiding the decisions
and determining how people who interact with the organisation are treated. The problem
with unwritten policies and procedures is that they are not subject to the usual
organisational reviews and accountability processes. In the absence of written policies and
procedures, unacceptably different approaches which make the organisation inconsistent
and inefficient can develop.

Policy Defined

A policy is a written description of an organisation's stance on particular subjects and its

response to specific situations.

Policies guide managerial decision making when these situations are encountered and
should help the company achieve its objectives. Policies help bridge the gap between
principles, and practical gains. Procedural guides are a much more detailed version of Policy.

Policies are a guide only. They leave discretionary power to the manager who interprets the
Policy. How the manager ensures that objectives are met, is up to them; policy suggests, but
does not assert.

7
Sources: Victoria University, asa at
http://toolbox.tafe.vu.edu.au/tourism/reslib/05/05_writing_policies_and_procedures.html, as on 12 th March,
2016; Job Staff Recruitment, as at http://www.jobsstaffrecruitment.com.au/writing-policies-and-procedures,
as on 12th March, 2016; Paul Bullen Management Alternatives, as at http://www.mapl.com.au/policy/tp1.htm,
as on 12th March, 2016; South Australian Government, as at
http://www.safework.sa.gov.au/contentPages/docs/labrWritingPolicy.pdf, as on 12 th March, 2016.

131 | P a g e
Having a written Policy helps promote consistency in responses by providing a common
reference point. This prevents disputes which might otherwise arise because of inconsistent
treatment, or because of different opinions of how the organisation should respond to a
situation.

Policies should always be kept brief and general, so that their readers are encouraged to
remain creative and inventive. To require everyone to responds to particular circumstances in
identical ways would mean that nothing would ever be learnt and an organisation would
never get better at doing what it does. In this sense, Policy is constantly written and rewritten
as new and unforeseeable circumstances arise. Another contributor to policy is when
different approaches are experimented with, and these approaches eventually become
widely adopted.

So, some of the reasons we have policy are:

• So people working in an organisation can have a framework for action that

helps them get on with the job they need to do.
• So people in the organisation don't have to keep on discussing and re-
discussing the same issues every time the arise - one thought out decision
can be applied to many similar cases - efficiency.
• So legal and other requirements can be met.
• A tool in quality improvement
• To comply with accreditation standards

Procedure Defined

Procedural guides are a much more detailed version of Policy. They describe, step by step,
how Policies should be implemented. There are two types of Procedures:

• Guides - suggested approach

• Rules - compulsory approach.

Generally, Policy is for managers, while Procedure is for employees.

Written Policies and Procedures are usually proportional in size and depth to the
organisation that they are written for. Very small organisations, for instance, may not even
have Procedures or Policies.

You may be required to write Policies and Procedures in the following situations:

• You are in a newly formed company.

• A situation that has not been encountered, is anticipated or experienced.

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 • Old Policy proves to be obsolete, and new policies or Procedures must be
written.

Writing Policies and Procedures

There are three simple rules that should be followed when writing Policies and Procedures.

These are to:

1. Leave nothing unsaid

Things that you will need to mention are:

• What is the Policy about, and/or what are the actions required to implement
the Procedure
• Why is the Policy being introduced
• Who are the people involved
• How should the Procedure be carried out
• When should the Procedure be carried out
• Where should the Procedure be carried out

2. Abide by a standard format

Standard formats make reading and writing policies and procedures easier for other staff. An
example of a standard format is:
• Policy
• Procedure o Step 1 o Step 2 o Step n ...

3. Consider the reader

Things you will need to keep in mind when writing for your audience are to:
• Analyse who will be reading the Policy or Procedure
• Describe each step in fewer than three sentences, and fewer than twenty-five
words
• Have no more than ten words per sentence
• Write for the lowest common denominator. That is, write for the least
experienced or least educated member of your audience.

Communicating policies to staff is an important step not to be overlooked. Policies should be

made available in at least two of the following locations:
• Noticeboards
• Company intranet
• Staff handbook

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 • Collective agreement with a union

Policies and procedures should also be:

• emailed to staff
• sent as a letter to staff so they have a written copy they can always refer to. •
communicated in work presentations

Sometimes it is necessary to introduce a new policy or alter an existing one. When writing
policies and procedures or making a change to an existing work place policy make sure it
does not go against any part of an existing policy that is contractual. If it does you will need
your employees to agree to the proposed changes, unless their contracts allow you to make
such variations without their agreement, typically terms in relation to working hours, place of
work and duties etc. If you fail to get employees agreement, you can get yourself in trouble
and be sued for breach of contract or they might resign and claim damages.

If you are planning to introduce a new policy or change an existing one, you need to do the
following:

1. Work out the purpose of the policy.

2. Consult with managers, workers and their representatives.
3. Assign someone who is given overall responsibility for the implementation of the
policy.
4. Effectively communicate the policy to all workers.
5. Give workers enough notice about the new policy.
6. Work out the potential cost of the policy.
7. Work out if the policy changes anyone's employment contract.
8. Monitor, maintain, implement and review the policy.

Remember to start writing policies and procedures as soon as possible. This way your
employees understand what is expected of them and it allows them to get on with working
for your company.

Writing a policy

Use the standard format as defined by the organisation.

Remember, policies are your public commitment to quality and provide a broad guide to
actions and decision making while allowing discretion.

Like procedures, policies should be written to a standard format to comply with community
standards and meet various accreditation requirements. To ensure consistency, currency,

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inclusion of all relevant pages, authorisations and appropriate timing of reviews, it is
important that a standard header and footer1 be used for all policies, procedures and work
instructions.

The header must give:

• The name of the organisation;
• The name of the unit or service stream if the document is specific to one
area;
• The title of the policy ( or procedure or work instruction);
• Issue date and issue number; and,
• Page number expressed as a part of that particular document (or procedure
or work instruction).

The footer must:

• Give the name and title of the authorising officer; and
• Be signed and dated by the authorising officer.

Writing a procedure
A procedure states what it is that will be done to implement the policy. It is like a
recipe.

Procedures are built on policies. A procedure states what it is that will be done to implement
the policy. Unlike a policy, which allows the individual some discretion, procedures specify
what it is that will be done, by whom and how. Therefore, a procedure may be likened to a
recipe. A procedure:
• Identifies all the people who are to act;
• Describes the precise actions required;
• States when the actions are to occur;
• Reflects the sequence of events;
• Is written in plain English, using short familiar words; and
• May be written or pictorial (for example, flow charts, photographs).

To write a procedure:
• Ask yourself why you are writing the procedure, check that it is fundamental
to your quality of service and builds on an existing policy;
• Consider the format of the text that will best convey the procedure - written,
diagram, photograph, flow chart;
• Use the standard procedure format;
• Identify any gaps in the procedure by trialing the procedure with a user who
was not involved in its development;
• Redraft the procedure on the basis of the trial; and,

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 • Refine and forward it to the relevant person for authorisation and
distribution.

The procedure is structured to provide details of:

Purpose and scope: specifying purpose of procedure, the area covered, exclusions;
• Responsibility for implementing procedure: specifying who will implement
the procedure;
• Procedure: listing (or depicting) sequentially exactly what must be done and
noting exceptions;
• Documentation: listing documents to be used with the procedure and
attaching examples of completed documentation, if appropriate;
• Records: listing any records created as a result of using the procedure, where
they are stored and for how long; and,
• Authorisation and date: signed and dated by the person authorising the
procedure.

To write work instructions, use the same structures and processes that were used to write
procedures. Work instructions should not be kept in the procedure manual; it would simply
become too large and unwieldy. Work or task instructions should be kept in a manual
relevant to the job where the instructions are applied.

Sample Policy and Procedure Statements8

NO BULLYING POLICY

This is a bullying and violence-free workplace. Bullying is unreasonable behaviour that is

repeated over time, directed towards a worker, or group of workers, that creates a risk to
health and safety. It includes behaviour such as screaming at someone, initiation practices,
interfering with repair-work processes and putting down someone’s opinions.

Bullying is not an acceptable part of this company’s work culture. Single incidents of
unreasonable behaviour can also create a risk to health and is also not acceptable as part of
this company’s work culture.

If you are being bullied, or see others being bullied at work, you must report it as soon as
possible. Report to your supervisor, or if this is not possible, to <contact person’s name>, the
contact person for this policy.

No one who reports bullying will be victimised and reports will be investigated quickly and
fairly. Violence between workers is not tolerated under any circumstances. Supervisors are

8
Sources:
http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/formspublications/publications/Documents/no_bullying_policy_2239.pdf

136 | P a g e
responsible for ensuring that no person in their work group is bullied, threatened or
physically hurt by other workers.

Signed: _________________________________________ Date: _______________________

NO BULLYING POLICY
XYZ & Associates believes all its workers should be able to work in an environment
free from bullying.

Bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker, or group

of workers, that creates a risk to health and safety. Single incidents of unreasonable
behaviour can also create a risk to health and safety. Managers and supervisors
must ensure workers are not bullied.

Bullying in the workplace may cause the loss of trained and talented workers,
reduce productivity and morale, and create legal risks.

XYZ & Associates has procedures to deal with bullying in the workplace. All reports
will be treated seriously and investigated promptly, confidentially and impartially.

XYZ & Associates encourages all its workers to report bullying in the workplace.

Managers and supervisors must ensure that workers who make reports, and anyone
else who may be involved, are not victimised. Disciplinary action may be taken
against anyone who bullies a co-worker. Discipline may involve a warning, transfer,
counselling, demotion or dismissal, depending on the circumstances.

The contact person for bullying at this workplace is <contact person’s name>.

Signed: _________________________________________ Date: _______________________

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Workplace bullying policy & procedures
General
Victoria Legal Aid (VLA) is committed to providing a positive working environment free from
intimidation, ridicule and harassment. Every manager, supervisor and employee has a
responsibility to maintain a working environment free from negative and bullying behaviour.

VLA will investigate all complaints of bullying and will take remedial action where necessary.

What is workplace bullying?

Workplace bullying is the repeated less favourable treatment of a person by another or
others in the workplace. Bullying is persistent unwelcome behaviour, mostly using
unwarranted or invalid criticism, fault finding, exclusion or isolation.

Instances of workplace bullying have the deliberate intent of causing physical and
psychological distress to others and can include behaviour that intimidates, offends,
degrades or humiliates a worker, possibly in front of co-workers, clients or customers.

Bullying in the workplace can take place between:

• a worker and a manager (or supervisor),
• co-workers, including trainees,
• a worker and another person in the workplace, eg a client or a student.

It might include one of or a number of the following behaviours:

• manipulation,
• intimidation,
• belittling remarks,
• unreasonable persistent criticism which is not part of a managing performance
process,
• loud and aggressive attacks or more subtle intimidation such as constant criticism of
a trivial nature,
• verbal and physical abuse, for example, shouting and throwing objects,
• isolation from colleagues,
• refusing to delegate or the withholding of information employees need to perform
their
job,
• removing responsibility and/or imposing menial tasks.

Bullying does not include:

• occasional differences of opinion, and non-aggressive conflicts and problems in
working

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139 | P a g e
 relations,
• workplace counselling, managing under performance and other action in accordance
with VLA policy and procedures.

Behaviour will only be defined as bullying if a “reasonable person” observing the situation
would consider it to be bullying. The reasonable person is defined as an objective third party.

Types of bullying
Unwitting bullying (also including reactive or isolated instances of bullying) This type of
bullying is where stressful circumstances, stemming either from the workplace or from
personal issues results in a deterioration of office behaviour. In reaction, an employee may
become short-tempered and irritable. When an employee under pressure reacts adversely,
he or she will often recognise the inappropriateness of the behaviour. The employee should
apologise and learn from the experience so that any adverse behaviour is avoided in the
future. In some cases, the irritable employee may need to be counselled to understand that
their behaviour is not acceptable.

If an employee continues to exhibit inappropriate behaviour over a period of time in

response to stress, this type of behaviour may fall under the general bullying category. Serial
bullying is the most serious type of workplace bullying. Serial bullying behaviour is identified
when an individual targets a number of employees in succession.

Relevant legislation
VLA has a legal obligation to ensure that workplaces are free of any harassing, discriminatory
or bullying behaviour. VLA’s legal obligation extends to providing a workplace that promotes
the health and well being of all employees.

The policy complies with and is supported by the following legislation:

• Victorian Equal Opportunity Act 1995
• Sex Discrimination Act 1975
• Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985

Effect of bullying on an individual

The effects on the person experiencing bullying can include:
• severe psychological distress, sleep disturbances and general feelings of anxiety,
• physical symptoms such as stomach-aches, headaches and general ill-health,
• incapacity to work, reduced output and performance,
• loss of self confidence, self esteem and sometimes even suicidal behaviour.

Effects of bullying on the organisation

The effects of bullying on the organisation can include:
• lower workplace productivity and efficiency,

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• high staff turnover with resultant increase in recruitment and induction costs, as well
as down time as replacement workers are trained in their new jobs,
• increased absenteeism and sick leave,
• the direct cost of dealing with complaints of bullying such as the cost of counselling

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142 | P a g e
 effected workers, costs associated with legal action etc,
• stress related costs via the workers compensation system with resultant increases in
insurance premiums and/or rehabilitation costs, poor morale.

Responsibilities of managers and supervisors

Managers are responsible for ensuring that all employees understand that bullying is not
tolerated in the workplace and for taking early corrective action to deal with behaviour which
may be offensive or intimidating.

If a manager or supervisor feels that a reported incident might constitute bullying and the
manager/supervisor feels that the nature of the complaint is outside their expertise, he or she
will refer the matter to the Manager, Human Resources.

The prevention of all inappropriate behaviours including bullying require managers and
supervisors to:
• be aware of, identify and prevent bullying in the workplace,
• eliminate inappropriate behaviour regardless of whether a complaint is received
about that behaviour,
• encourage all staff to behave in accordance with the principles of equal opportunity
and anti discrimination,
• provide leadership and role modelling in relation to appropriate and professional
behaviour in the workplace,
• respond promptly, sensitively and confidentially to all situations where inappropriate
behaviour is exhibited or alleged to have occurred.

Employee and co-worker responsibilities

The prevention of bullying requires employees to be responsible for the following actions:
• be aware of and identify bullying behaviour and where appropriate utilise VLA’s
and/or external mechanisms to stop any further instances of bullying behaviour,
• behave in accordance with the principles of equal opportunity and anti discrimination,
• if bullying behaviour is witnessed or experienced and the employee feels able, speak
with the alleged bully to object to the bullying behaviour,
• offer to act as a witness if the person being bullied decides to report the incident,
• keep a record or diary of incidents noting what happened, when and the names of
witnesses,

What can you do if you are being bullied?

An employee who experiences bullying can seek advice and assistance from any of the
following contacts:
• senior management,
• immediate supervisor, manager or team leader,
• Human Resources,

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• contact officers, • union representative.

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145 | P a g e
Bullying can result in trauma and stress for the person who is a target of inappropriate
behaviour.
When an incident has a major impact on an employee’s emotional well being, the Employee
Assistance Program (EAP) may be able to assist. The telephone number to contact the EAP is
(03) 9600 4949.

Employees who experience bullying can seek to resolve the situation informally or formally.

Informal complaints procedure

• Employees should contact their supervisor, Human Resources or a contact officer to
discuss an informal complaint procedure.
• Informal mechanisms may include a local management strategy to raise awareness or
education session in relation to appropriate behaviour in the workplace.
• Informal resolution may also include local mediation between parties at the
workplace where appropriate. Mediation is usually only appropriate for cases of
unwitting bullying, and is not appropriate for serial bullying.
• Alternatively, an employee may ask their supervisor to speak to the alleged bully on
their behalf. The supervisor will privately convey the employee’s concerns and
reiterate VLA’s workplace bullying policy without assessing the merits of the case.
• A supervisor or manager who observes unacceptable conduct occurring may take
independent action even though no complaint has been made.

Contact officers
The Role of the Contact Officers involves:
• assisting to clarify whether the behaviour could be described as bullying,
• discussing methods for the problem to be resolved either informally or through VLA’s
formal complaints procedure,
• remaining neutral as the focus is on reconciliation of a dispute and not siding with
one party against the other.

Formal complaints
This procedure assumes that informal resolution of the bullying complaint has been
unsuccessful or is inappropriate.
• A formal complaint of bullying will need to be in writing and should be made to the
Manager, Human Resources.
• The Manager, Human Resources will determine the kind of investigation to take place
and will then submit a confidential written report to the Managing Director of VLA.
• The Managing Director will then take appropriate remedial and/ or disciplinary
action.
• All parties to the complaint will be advised of the outcome.
• All parties will be given a right of appeal.

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Options for remedies
The Managing Director shall determine appropriate action as a result of investigation. If
someone has a complaint made against them and is found to have bullied the complainer,
disciplinary action will follow.
The disciplinary action will depend on the circumstances of the case, but can range from

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counselling the offender to termination of the offender’s employment.

Confidentiality
An accusation of bullying can be potentially defamatory, especially if confidentiality is not
observed and a person’s reputation is unfairly damaged. Discussions, information and
records related to complaints will remain factual and confidential.

All documentation and details of bullying enquiries and grievances will be kept securely by
the Manager, Human Resources.

Victimisation
Victimisation as a result of reporting workplace bullying is regarding as a serious breach of
conduct and will automatically result in a formal investigation, which if proven, may result in
disciplinary action being taken against the perpetrator, which may include dismissal.

Principles
The principles which apply to the workplace bullying complaints procedure are:
• Everyone has a right to be treated with respect,
• Everyone has a right to “due process” i.e. the person against whom the allegation is
made has the right to know what is alleged against them, the right to put their case
in reply, the right for any decision to be made by an impartial decision maker, and
the right to an appeal against a decision,
• Complaints will be treated in confidence and where confidentiality cannot be
guaranteed this will be clearly indicated,
• Access to counselling for effected workers,
• All incidences of bullying will be dealt with promptly, thoroughly, fairly and
confidentially,
• VLA is under a legal obligation of a duty of care to provide a safe workplace. Any
incidences of workplace bullying that are reported must be investigated, sometimes
informally in the first instance, and formally if required in order to comply with this
duty of care. VLA accepts and acts on its duty of care,
• Making false or malicious complaints of bullying will also be regarded as a serious
disciplinary offence, which if proven, may result in disciplinary action being taken.

Writing Instructions
One of the most common and one of the most important uses of technical writing is
instructions-those step-by-step explanations of how to do things: assemble something,
operate something, repair something, or do routine maintenance on something. But for
something seemingly so easy and intuitive, instructions are some of the worst-written
documents you can find. Like me, you've probably had many infuriating experiences with
badly written instructions. What follows in this chapter may not be a fool-proof, goof-proof
guide to writing instructions, but it will show you what professionals consider the best
techniques.
Ultimately, however, good instruction writing not only requires these techniques but also:

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 • Clear, simple writing
• A thorough understanding the procedure in all its technical detail
• Your ability to put yourself in the place of the reader, the person trying to use your
instructions
• Your ability to visualize the procedure in great detail and to capture that awareness
on paper
• Finally, your willingness to go that extra distance and test your instructions on the
kind of person you wrote them for.

By now, you've probably studied headings, lists, and special notices--writing a set of
instructions with these tools probably seems obvious. Just break the discussion out into
numbered vertical lists and throw in some special notices at the obvious points and you're
done! Well, not quite, but that's a great start. This unit explores some of the features of
instructions that can make them more complex. You can in turn use these considerations to
plan your own instructions.

Some preliminaries
At the beginning of a project to write instructions, it's important to determine the structure
or characteristics of the particular procedure you are going to write about.

Audience and situation. Early in the process, define the audience and situation of your
instructions. Remember that defining an audience means defining its level of familiarity with
the topic as well as other such details.

Most importantly, you'll need to describe your audience on a separate sheet of paper and
hand that in with your instructions. This will enable your instructor to assess your instructions
in terms of their rightness for the intended audience. And remember too that in this
technical-writing course it is preferable to write for nonspecialist audiences--this is much
more of a challenge to you as a writer.

Number of tasks. An important consideration is how many tasks there are in the procedure
you are writing instructions for. Let's use the term procedure to refer to the whole set of
activities your instructions are intended to discuss. A task is a semi-independent group of
actions within the procedure: for example, setting the clock on a microwave oven is one task
in the big overall procedure of operating a microwave oven.

A simple procedure like changing the oil in a car contains only one task; there are no
semiindependent groupings of activities. A more complex procedure like using a microwave
oven contains plenty of such semi-independent tasks: setting the clock; setting the power
level; using the timer; cleaning and maintaining the microwave, among others.

Some instructions have only a single task, but have many steps within that single task. For
example, imagine a set of instructions for assembling a kids' swing set. In my own
experience, there were more than a 130 steps! That can be a bit daunting. A good approach
is to group similar and related steps into phases, and start renumbering the steps at each
new phase. A phase then is a group of similar steps within a single-task procedure. In the
swing-set example, setting up the frame would be a phase; anchoring the thing in the

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ground would be another; assembling the box swing would be still another. (The instructions
on installing a wall cabinet, starting on page , are organized by phases.)

Best approach to the step-by-step discussion. Another consideration, which maybe you can't
determine early on, is how to focus your instructions. For most instructions, you can focus on
tasks, or you can focus on tools (or features of tools).

In a task approach to instructions on using a phone-answering machine, you'd have sections

on recording your greeting, playing back your messages, saving your messages, forwarding
your messages, deleting your messages. These are tasks--the typical things we'd want to do
with the machine.

On the other hand, in a tools approach to instructions on using a photocopier, there would
be sections on the copy button, the cancel button, the enlarge/reduce button, the
collate/staple button, the paper tray, the copy-size button, and so on. If you designed a set
of instructions on this plan, you'd write steps for using each button or feature of the
photocopier. Instructions using this tools approach are hard to make work. Sometimes, the
name of the button doesn't quite match the task it is associated with; sometimes you have to
use more than just the one button to accomplish the task. Still, there can be times when the
tools/feature approach may be preferable.

Groupings of tasks. Listing tasks may not be all that you need to do. There may be so many
tasks that you must group them so that readers can find individual ones more easily. For
example, the following are common task groupings in instructions: unpacking and setup
tasks; installing and customizing tasks; basic operating tasks; routine maintenance tasks;
troubleshooting tasks; and so on. (For the purposes of this technical writing course, you
won't need to cover all of these possibilities--but in a real-world set of instructions, you
would.)

Common sections in instructions

The following is a review of the sections you'll commonly find in instructions. Don't assume
that each one of them must be in the actual instructions you write, nor that they have to be
in the order presented here, nor that these are the only sections possible in a set of
instructions.

As you read the following on common sections in instructions, check out the example
instructions starting on page . Not all of the following sections typically found in instructions
will show up in the examples, but most will.

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Figure 8-1. Schematic view of instructions. Remember that this is a typical or common model
for the contents and organization--many others are possible.

Introduction.Plan the introduction to your instructions carefully. Make sure it does any of the
following things (but not necessarily in this order) that apply to your particular instructions:

• Indicate the specific tasks or procedure to be explained as well as the scope of

coverage (what won't be covered).
• Indicate what the audience needs in terms of knowledge and background to
understand the instructions.
• Give a general idea of the procedure and what it accomplishes.
• Indicate the conditions when these instructions should (or should not) be used.
• Give an overview of the contents of the instructions.

Now remember: you may not need all of these elements, and some of them can combine
neatly into single sentences. The introduction ought to be brisk and to the point and not feel
as though it is trudging laboriously through each of these elements.

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General warning, caution, danger notices. Instructions often must alert readers to the
possibility of ruining their equipment, screwing up the procedure, and hurting themselves.
Also, instructions must often emphasize key points or exceptions. For these situations, you
use special notices-note, warning, caution, and danger notices. Notice how these special
notices are used in the example instructions at the end of this chapter.

Technical background or theory. At the beginning of certain kinds of instructions (after the
introduction, of course), you may need a discussion of background related to the procedure.
For certain instructions, this background is critical--otherwise, the steps in the procedure
make no sense. For example, you may have had some experience with those software
applets in which you define your own colors by nudging red, green, and blue slider bars
around. To really understand what you're doing, you need to have some background on
color. Similarly, you can imagine that, for certain instructions using cameras, some theory
might be needed as well.

Equipment and supplies. Notice that most instructions include a list of the things you need
to gather before you start the procedure. This includes equipment, the tools you use in the
procedure (such as mixing bowls, spoons, bread pans, hammers, drills, and saws) and
supplies, the things that are consumed in the procedure (such as wood, paint, oil, flour, and
nails). In instructions, these typically are listed either in a simple vertical list or in a two-
column list. Use the two-column list if you need to add some specifications to some or all of
the items--for example, brand names, sizes, amounts, types, model numbers, and so on.

Discussion of the steps. When you get to the actual writing of the steps, there are several
things to keep in mind: (1) the structure and format of those steps, (2) supplementary
information that might be needed, and (3) the point of view and general writing style.

Structure and format. Normally, we imagine a set of instructions as being formatted as

vertical numbered lists. And most are in fact. Normally, you format your actual step-by-step
instructions this way. There are some variations, however, as well as some other
considerations:

• Fixed-order steps are steps that must be performed in the order presented. For
example, if you are changing the oil in a car, draining the oil is a step that must come
before putting the new oil. These are numbered lists (usually, vertical numbered lists).
• Variable-order steps are steps that can be performed in practically any order. Good
examples are those troubleshooting guides that tell you to check this, check that
where you are trying to fix something. You can do these kinds of steps in practically
any order. With this type, the bulleted list is the appropriate format.
• Alternate steps are those in which two or more ways to accomplish the same thing are
presented. Alternate steps are also used when various conditions might exist. Use
bulleted lists with this type, with OR inserted between the alternatives, or the lead-in
indicating that alternatives are about to be presented.

• Nested steps. In some cases, individual steps within a procedure can be rather
complex in their own right and need to be broken down into substeps. In this case,
you indent further and sequence the substeps as a, b, c, and so on.

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 • "Stepless" instructions. And finally there exist instructions that really cannot use
numbered vertical list and that do little if any straightforward instructional-style
directing of the reader. Some situations must be so generalized or so variable that
steps cannot be stated.
(Let's ignore this possibility for this assignment, however.)

Supplementary discussion. Often, it is not enough simply to tell readers to do this or to do

that. They need additional explanatory information such as how the thing should look before
and after the step; why they should care about doing this step; what mechanical principle is
behind what they are doing; even more micro-level explanation of the step--discussion of
the specific actions that make up the step.

The problem with supplementary discussion, however, is that it can hide the actual step. You
want the actual step--the specific actions the reader is to take--to stand out. You don't want
it all buried in a heap of words. There are at least techniques to avoid this problem: you can
split the instruction from the supplement into separate paragraphs; or you can bold the
instruction.

Writing style. The way you actually write instructions, sentence by sentence, may seem
contradictory to what previous writing classes have taught you. However, notice how "real-
world" instructions are written--they use a lot of imperative (command, or direct-address)
kinds of writing; they use a lot of "you." That's entirely appropriate. You want to get in your
reader's face, get her or his full attention. For that reason, instruction-style sentences sound
like these: "Now, press the Pause button on the front panel to stop the display temporarily"
and "You should be careful not to ..."

A particular problem involves use of the passive voice in instructions. For some weird reason,
some instructions sound like this: "The Pause button should be depressed in order to stop
the display temporarily." Not only are we worried about the Pause button's mental health,
but we wonder who's supposed to depress the thing (are you talkin' to me?). Or consider this
example: "The Timer button is then set to 3:00." Again, as the person following these
instructions, you might miss this; you might think it is simply a reference to some existing
state, or you might wonder, "Are they talking to me?" Almost as bad is using the third
person: "The user should then press the
Pause button." Again, it's the old double-take: you look around the room and wonder, "Who
me?"

Another of the typical problems with writing style in instructions is that people seem to want
to leave out articles: "Press Pause button on front panel to stop display of information
temporarily" or "Earthperson, please provide address of nearest pizza restaurant." Why do we
do this? Do we all secretly want to be robots? Anyway, be sure to include all articles (a, an,
the) and other such words that we'd normally use in instructions.

Graphics in instructions
Probably more so than in any other form of writing (except maybe for comic books), graphics
are crucial to instructions. Sometimes, words simply cannot explain the step. Illustrations are
often critical to readers' ability to visualize what they are supposed to do.

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This writing assignment asks you to include illustrations or other kinds of graphics--whatever
would normally be used in the instructions. The problem of course may be that you don't
have access to graphics that would be suitable for your particular instructions, and that you
don't feel wildly confident in your artistic abilities. There are ways to overcome these
problems!

Format in instructions
Headings. In your instructions, make good use of headings. Normally, you'd want headings
for any background section you might have, the equipment and supplies section, a general
heading for the actual instructions section, and subheadings for the individual tasks or
phases within that section. Take a look at the examples at the end of this chapter.

Lists. Similarly, instructions typically make heavy use of lists, particularly numbered vertical
lists for the actual step-by-step explanations. Simple vertical lists or two-column lists are
usually good for the equipment and supplies section. In-sentence lists are good whenever
you give an overview of things to come.

Special notices. In instructions, you must alert readers to possibilities in which they may
damage their equipment, waste supplies, cause the entire procedure to fail, injure
themselves or others-even seriously or fatally. Companies have been sued for lack of these
special notices, for poorly written special notices, or for special notices that were out of
place.

Number, abbreviations, and symbols. Instructions also use plenty of numbers, abbreviations,
and symbols.

Revision Checklist for Instructions

As you reread and revise your instructions, watch out for problems such as the following:

• Make sure you provide real instructions--explanations of how to build, operate, or

repair something.
• Write a good introduction--in it, indicate the exact procedure to be explained and
provide an overview of contents.
• Make sure that you use the various types of lists wherever appropriate. In particular,
use numbered vertical lists for sequential steps.
• Use headings to mark off all the main sections and subheadings for subsections.
(Remember that no heading "Introduction" is needed between the title and the first
paragraph. Remember not to use first-level headings in this assignment; start with
the second level.)
• Use special notices as appropriate.

• Make sure you use the class style and format for all headings, lists, special notices,
and graphics. If that's a problem, get in touch with your instructor.
• Use graphics to illustrate any key actions or objects.
• Provide additional supplementary explanation of the steps as necessary.
• Remember to create a section listing equipment and supplies, if necessary.

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 • Include strong sections of definition, description, or both, as necessary, using the
guidelines on content, organization, and format in the chapters on definition and
description.

Review and organise available data, information and knowledge

according to proposed structure and content
Review and organise the information you have gathered. This is the time to sort through all
the material you have collected which may contain similar or repetitive data. Some of the
information you have assembled may not be relevant now.
Compare similar information and choose the source which is the most effective for your
purpose. Using your data, information and your own knowledge of the subject, you can
decide on a format and commence the first draft of your document. As you outline your
draft you may realise you need to include graphics and tables and leave a space to include
these.

Graphs/tables/images can be important in helping your audience understand your text. They
help summarise and condense information; they should clarify what you are saying and
highlight the data you are presenting. Sometimes what can be seen can be more easily
understood that what you are saying – the two together should reach everyone in your
audience.

Putting a paragraph of essential but technical data into a graph or chart is an effective way of
keeping your audience informed and those who really need all the technical details can read
your paper later.

Why it is important that text is drafted correctly?

Once you understand the assignment, your next task is to find data relevant to meeting it.
The word "data" makes some humanists flinch a bit, but we need a word that distinguishes
all the facts, quotations, references, numbers, events that might be relevant to your
assignment from those fact, quotations, references, etc. that might support your specific
claim or point. All the information related to your assignment is data; data becomes evidence
when you use it to convince readers to agree with your point.

We do not have the space here to discuss the process of reading critically and selecting data,
thinking about what you have gathered, analysing it, and discovering the point or claim that
you want to make and support. Every assignment will ask you to look at your readings in a
different way, and every text you read will raise its own problems of interpretation and
analysis. In fact, that is what most of your classes are about: selecting and analysing data, and
arriving at a plausible conclusion about them.

The best generic advice we can give is this:

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 • Go through your readings once and mark with a highlighter everything you think
plausibly relevant to answering the assignment
• So that you can get a sense of it all, go through a second time, skimming what you
have highlighted
• Go through a third time, marking passages that seem most central to your
assignment. Try to assign to each passage a key word that will help you sort them
later
• Now try to categorize those passages according to how they might support different
points. Which ones support one point, which ones support another point? (Spend the
time it takes to find data that might support different, even opposing, points. You
need such data so that you can critically balance one point against another)
• On a piece of paper, jot down what you think are the central concepts that emerge
from this analysis
• To these central concepts attach subsidiary concepts. Use some sort of symbol to
represent the kinds of relationships that the subsidiary concepts have to the central
concepts and to one another: cause and effect, similarity, contrast, more important-
less important, earlier-later in time, and so on. Spend time playing with these
relationships. Make lists of the central concepts, order and re-order them, find
categories and subcategories
• Then create a working outline around topics suggested by your categories of
evidence

At this point, you may have a fairly clear idea about the point you want to make; more often,
you won't. Either way, if you have even a dim idea about the shape of your general point,
prepare to start your first draft.

Planning your first draft: styles of outlining

You may have been told in high school that you needed a detailed outline before you began
to draft a paper. For some writers, that's good advice; for others it is not. Some writers can't
begin writing until they have a detailed outline consisting of their main point and every sub
point, in the order in which they intend to make them. Other writers need an outline of some
kind, but usually only of topics so that we know what the parts of our paper are and the
order in which we want them to appear. You will know which is right for you only after you
write a few papers.

But almost everyone profits from at least a scratch outline that focuses your attention on
particular aspects of your paper and in a particular order:

• Harlem Renaissance-art using experience to develop urban identity

• African-American art muffled in rural south
• Migration north: transforming effect of urban life
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 • Armstrong transforms mainstream song using folk and African elements
• Significance of opposition to jazz
• Motley transforms painting with bold colour, form and subject (stereotypes?) •
Clash of dignified vs. primitive

If you can formulate a complete sentence that captures the central idea in each section, so
much the better. But it is likely that you will discover those sentences in the act of drafting, as
well.

Beginning your first draft: the draft introduction

Every writer, beginner or experienced, feels at least some small twinge of anxiety when it
comes time to write the first sentence of a paper. That's why some writing teachers tell you
to write your introduction last. What they mean, of course, is that after you finish a draft, you
need to go back and re-write your introduction. Once you know what you've said in the
draft, you can write a much better introduction to it. So in that sense, you will have written
the real introduction only after you've written the draft: you'll have written the introduction
last. But even first drafts need introductions of some kind, so no one escapes that moment of
uncertainty.

It is useful to spend more than a moment or two thinking about even this first draft
introduction because it has a way of so entrenching itself in your paper that you will have a
hard time getting rid of it when you get to your last draft. You may be resolved to get rid of
your first draft introduction later, but such a resolution can fade as your deadline
approaches--especially if sunrise is approaching at the same time. It is not a bad idea even
from the beginning to take some steps to avoid last minute trouble.

First, here are some introductory strategies to avoid even in first drafts. If they survive into
your last draft, you can be sure that your instructor will judge them amateurish.

• Don't simply echo the language of the assignment. If the assignment says "Discuss
the logical structure of the Declaration of Independence, particularly those
assumptions on which Jefferson based his argument," do not start with something
like, "In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson based his argument on
assumptions that are part of its logical structure." You're very likely to need some of
the language from the assignment, but you should leave room, even in your first
draft, for language of your own, so your readers will understand your unique
approach to the question
• Avoid offering a history of your thinking about the assignment. Don't begin, "In
analysing the logical structure of the Declaration of Independence, it is first necessary
to define the assumptions that Jefferson worked with. In my analysis, I found that
Jefferson began with one assumption, which was that . . . ." Such a discussion of your
own thought processes forces readers to wait a bit too long to find out what the
paper will actually be about

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 • Avoid beginning with "Webster defines 'xxx' as..." If a concept is so important to
your paper that you feel compelled to specify its meaning, its dictionary definition
will be too generic for your purposes. A somewhat better strategy here is to cite a
definition by a specialist in a particular field or by an otherwise admirable individual.
If you wish to explore "generosity," for example, you are unlikely to find a good
starting point for your paper in a dictionary's definition, but you are more likely to
find one in philosopher's definition, or a psychologist's, or an economist's, or a
political theorist's, or a sociobiologist's, or Mother Theresa's. The reason for this is
that dictionaries and thinkers are doing quite different things when they define:
dictionaries are merely establishing a baseline of situations to which a word may be
applied, while thinkers are participating in an ongoing intellectual conversation about
a concept. And it is this conversation that your paper seeks to join, by citing such a
definition and then contesting it, or elaborating on it, or finding exceptions to it, or
adding to it. What if you're not sure who "counts" as a participant in this
conversation? In that case, you have two choices: you may ask someone, such as your
professor or Writing Intern or a Writing Tutor, or you may choose to avoid this
opening strategy altogether until you are more familiar with the field
• Avoid beginning with a grandly banal statement: "The Declaration of Independence is
the greatest and most logical document in American history. . . ." The danger here is
twofold. Readers may find the statement too obvious to be worth reading, or (and
this is more likely in an academic setting) they may think that it oversimplifies a
complex matter, so much so that it cannot function as the beginning of an
intellectually respectable argument

How should a draft introduction begin? One way to focus your own thinking is to begin with
a kind of sentence that you must change in the final draft:

I am addressing the issue of [-------fill in your topic here] in order to

show why/how/what/who/whether [fill this in with subject and verb]
For example:

I am addressing the issue of the relationship between Jefferson's assumptions and evidence in
order to show how he depended on assumptions that he could not prove but needed in order to
use the evidence he had.

That kind of sentence focuses your attention not on what you are writing about, but on what
you are trying to do. The indirect question such as, ". . . show how . . .” or " . . . explain why . . .
“helps you identify something that you do not know but are trying to find out.

If you have even a tentative answer to your question, state it at the end of your introduction.
That will launch you into the body of your paper with some sense of direction. If you do not
have a tentative answer, make up some sentence that uses most of the key terms you came
up with when you were assembling, organizing, and analysing your data. (Not sure how to fit
those key words into a sentence? Feel free to use question marks, ellipses or just blank space
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to reflect your uncertainty: "The evidence that Jefferson most relies on are specific acts of
tyranny (injustice?), which caused him to rely on unproven assumptions . . . fundamental
purpose of government." You can come back to this sentence after you've written the draft
to fill in the missing pieces.)

If you can get some key terms into your draft introduction, you will help yourself focus on
developing those concepts.

Remember, after you've completed your paper draft, you'll need to revise this first try at an
introduction. We offer some suggestions in a later section on revising introductions, but
you'll be better able to follow them after you've drafted the whole paper.

After your draft introduction: a common danger

After you finish the draft introduction, your biggest risk is that instead of laying down the
foundation of your argument, you might lapse into a long narrative summary of what you
have read. The act of producing such a summary can actually be a valuable part of your
writing process, but only if you have started your paper at least two or three days before it is
due and if you will substantially revise what you have written. In these circumstances, your
summary is a useful way to allow you (but not your readers) to gain control over your subject
matter.

But perhaps the most common problem that first year students have with their papers is that
they take this summary of their subject; tack on a half-page conclusion and then turn the
essay in. They may spend an hour or two tinkering with spelling and punctuation, but
essentially, once they've written a summary of what they've read, and then added a short
conclusion, they're done. It is a pattern of behaviour that many students fall into without
even noticing. Remember: if you feel you have to summarize, start drafting at least three or

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four days before the paper is due. Give yourself time not only to write the summary, but to
transform it into an argument.

Two styles of drafting: fast vs. slow

There are two extremes in drafting styles. Some writers draft as fast as they can make pen or
keys move. Not worrying about style or correctness, or even clarity (least of all spelling and
punctuation), they try to keep the ideas flowing. If they bog down, they note why they got
stuck, refer to their outline for their next move, and push on. If they are on a roll, they do not
type out quotes or footnotes: they insert just enough to know what to do later. Then if they
do freeze up, they have things to do: fiddle with wording, add quotes, play with the
introduction, review what they’ve drafted, add in a sentence or two and/or summarize the
ground they have covered. As a last resort, they correct spelling, punctuation -- anything that
diverts their minds from what is blocking them, but keeps them on task, giving their
subconscious a chance to work on the problem. Or they go for a walk.

There are others, though, who cannot work with such "sloppy" methods, but only "word-
byperfect-word," "sentence-by-polished-sentence." They cannot start a new sentence, until
the one they are working on is dead right. If this sounds like you, if you cannot imagine a
quicker but rougher style of drafting, do not fight it. But remember: the more you nail down
each small piece, the fewer alternatives you have thereafter. For this reason, if you are a
"sentence-by-sentence" drafter, you must have a detailed outline that tells you where you
are going and how you will get there.

Neither of these styles is "the" correct one; both can lead to excellent papers. Both also have
builtin pitfalls of which you must be aware. The faster style can lead to careless errors in the
final draft if you fail to proofread rigorously, and it may also degenerate into a history of
your thought process rather than a carefully structured argument if you fail to revise it with
readers' needs in mind. The slower style can become overly focused on sentence-level
correctness and neglect the paper's overall structure; you must therefore use outlines and
frequent rereading’s to remind yourself of the role each part should play in the whole.

Whichever style is yours, establish a ritual for writing and follow it. Ritualistically straighten
up your desk, sit down, sharpen your pencils or boot up your computer, get the light just
right, knowing that you will sit there for an absolute minimum time. If you sit staring, not an
idea in your head, write a summary: So far, I have these points . . . . Or look at the last few
paragraphs you wrote, and treat some important bit of evidence as a claim in a subordinate
argument.

The crucial part of writing: revision

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When you have finished your first draft, you should have enough time left for a few hours of
revision. Ideally, you should leave enough time to put the draft aside so that you can forget
at least some of what you were thinking when you drafted. The very worst time to revise a
draft is right after you have finished it. At that moment you are the worst possible editor. You
know too much about what you have written and are thereby constitutionally incapacitated
from reading your essay as your readers will.

Some research at Carnegie-Mellon University suggests why. A group of researchers created a

passage on a technical subject and inserted into it problems of organization, sentence
structure, clarity, etc. They asked two groups of readers to read the passage and indicate
where they had trouble understanding. One group, however, was given background reading
in the subject of the passage before they read it. Which group was better able to identify
those deliberately inserted problems? The readers without the background reading, of
course: when the ones with the better knowledge hit a passage with errors, they were able to
bring up from memory what they already knew.

They didn't spot the errors in the writing because they were not relying on the writing to
understand the ideas - they already understood. The ones without previous knowledge were
much more effective at spotting flaws because they were much more attentive to the text.
They had to be--without the background reading, the only way they could understand the
material was to concentrate on the text.

At the moment you finish writing something, who knows more about it than you do? When
you re-read your own writing, you aren't really reading it; you're only reminding yourself of
what you wanted to mean when you wrote it. That means two things:

1. The longer you can set aside something you have written before you revise it,
the more you will have forgotten what you were thinking when you wrote it.
This amnesia is a blessing: it will enable you to read what you have written
more quickly.
2. Even then, you will still know too much. In the next section, we offer some
ways to analyse, diagnose, and revise your own writing in a way that sidesteps
your toogood memory of it.

Ensure data, information and knowledge is aggregated, interpreted and

summarised to prepare text that satisfies document purposes and
objectives
The Advantages of Using Graphics
When someone tells you during a project meeting or presentation that he is a "visual
learner," he is not simply giving you an excuse as to why he didn't understand your company
memo. He is indicating a powerful need for visual elements in any presentation, talk or
paper. Graphics are an effective way to convey points, generate audience interest and
enhance the understanding of non-graphical elements in your presentations and talks.

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Using Graphs and Illustrations
Visuals will help your reader understand the ideas more easily. Use tables, graphs, charts,
diagrams and photographs to illustrate and support your ideas wherever possible.

Visuals make the report more interesting and accessible. Use captions to identify the visual
and place the relevant text as close to (or surrounding) the text as possible. Avoid having the
visual on one page and the relevant text on another.

Keep An Audience Interested

Prudent use of graphics in a presentation, meeting or in a newsletter presented to an
audience can keep people interested in what you write or what you say. During public
discussions and presentations, a graphic can draw the eye and supplement the topic about
which you are talking. In a publication, smart graphics that are relevant to a story can keep a
reader's eyes moving down the page.

Enhance Your Points

Graphics can also be a great way to convey information in less space than text. The old
adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true for many. Graphics, such as graphs
and charts, can give audiences a visual representation of data. Instead of rattling off a long
list of numbers, visual representation of those numbers can actually help audiences learn
better and retain more of the information you present to them.

Credibility
Graphics that represent a product or service can enhance a company or businessman's
credibility beyond a text description of what a product or service does. Using a graphic to
actually show an audience what you are offering can generate interest and convince an
audience that your product is what you say it is. Graphics can also enhance credibility in
online transactions; many advertisements that succeed on online auction or sales sites are
the ones that provide clear pictures of a product to prove it is in the condition stated in the
advertisement.

Other Advantages
While graphics can enhance audience comprehension, generate interest and create
credibility, they can also be absolutely necessary to convey certain points. Blueprints and
technical diagrams cannot exist without graphics. User manuals rely on graphics to show a
consumer exactly how to work product features. Graphics can also be essential to identifying
medical conditions or types of problems in products from online resources. Being shown a
picture of a medical condition or a specific defect in a product is necessary to diagnose those
problems correctly.

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Include graphics as appropriate9
A graphics program supplies shapes and lines that can be manipulated (skewed, enlarged)
and offers options for sophisticated use of color and shading. With a drawing program you
can create diagrams, charts, and illustrations that can be saved as electronic files and
imported into word processing or desktop publishing documents. You can move and place
graphics anywhere in a document. Graphic design programs provide customized graphs,
charts, tables, and expanded font (design) sizes and shapes.

Here are some types of graphics available to you.

1. Drawing tools. Desktop publishing programs contain tools that allow you to create a
variety of shapes, rules, borders, and arrows. Having drawn a box, circle, triangle, or
whatever, you can use other tools to fill in or alter the appearance of the shape or to
add words to it; then you can rearrange all the elements into a graphic that
communicates quickly and effectively.

2. Icons. Icons are symbols or visual representations of concepts or actions. The skull
and crossbones on a container of poison is an icon that warns of danger. Many
highway signs are icons that tell us quickly what to expect ahead: an S-curve,
merging traffic, a railroad crossing. Graphic icons are simply pictures that
communicate directly. No matter what language we speak—and even if we cannot
read—icons tell us at a glance which restroom to use or how to fasten the seat belt in
an airplane. (See the discussion of icons for non-native speakers of English in Terri
Smith Ruckel’s long report in Chapter 16 in your textbook.) A nation’s flag is an icon,
and so are many religious symbols and most company logos.

Computer software often relies on icons to help us perform common actions without
having to remember keyboard commands. Arrows in the scroll bars move us easily
around a window; a file folder helps us group related documents; and a trash can
holds files to be deleted later. Icons in the menu bar make it easy to print a file, open
an address book, search for specific text, cut copy, or dial the phone. Examples of
public service information icons are shown below:

9
Source: Cengage, as at
http://college.cengage.com/english/kolin/successful_writing_concise/1e/students/graphics/index.html, as on
12th March, 2016; How to Geek, as at http://www.howtogeek.com/school/microsoft-word-
documentformatting-essentials/lesson4/all/, as on 12th March, 2016; Online Technical Writting, as at
https://www.tuchemnitz.de/phil/english/sections/linguist/independent/kursmaterialien/TechComm/acchtml/ac
ctoc.html, as on 12th March, 2016.
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 3. Clip art. Clip art is a library of simple drawings, often classified by themes, that can be
imported (copied) from floppy disk, CD, or the Internet to your document. Some clip
art software packages offer as many as 500,000 images, arranged into such diverse
categories as animals, holidays, famous people, food, and various technologies. Clip
art is widely used to make business documents attractive and appealing. If the
graphic is symbolic or represents something unique about the business, it can also be
the basis for a company logo. Review pages 512–514 in your textbook.

4. Stock photos/stock art. Assembled photos and art on CD or the Internet can be
imported, sometimes with a permissions fee, sometimes free with the purchase of the
CD.

A lot of professional, technical writing contains graphics — drawings, diagrams, photographs,

illustrations of all sorts, tables, pie charts, bar charts, line graphs, flow charts, and so on. Once
you get the hang of putting graphics like these into your writing, you should consider
yourself obligated to use graphics whenever the situation naturally would call for them.

Unlike what you might fear, producing graphics is not such a terrible task — in fact, it can be
fun. You don't have to be a professional graphics artist or technical draftsperson to produce
graphics for your technical writing. There are ways to produce professional-looking graphics
with tape, scissors, white-out, and a decent photocopying machine.

Graphics — an overview
Before getting into details on creating, formatting, and incorporating graphics, consider the
types and their functions. You can use graphics to represent the following elements in your
technical writing:

• Objects — If you're describing a fuel-injection system, you'll probably need a drawing

or diagram of the thing. If you are explaining how to graft a fruit tree, you'll need
some illustrations of how that task is done. Photographs, drawings, diagrams, and
schematics are the types of graphics that show objects.
• Numbers — If you're discussing the rising cost of housing in Austin, you could use a
table with the columns being for five-year periods since 1970; the rows could be for
different types of housing. You could show the same data in the form of bar charts,
pie charts, or line graphs. Tables, bar charts, pie charts, and line graphs are some of
the principal ways to show numerical data.
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 • Concepts — If you want to show how your company is organized, the relationships of
the different departments and officials, you could set up an organization chart-boxes
and circles connected with lines that show how everything is hierarchically arranged
and related. This would be an example of a graphic for a concept: this type depicts
nonphysical, conceptual things and their relationships.
• Words — And finally graphics are used to depict words. You've probably noticed how
textbooks put key definitions in a box, maybe with different color. The same can be
done with key points or extended examples. Not the sexiest form of graphics, but it
still qualifies, and it's good to keep in mind as a useful technique in certain situations.

Drawings, diagrams, photos

To depict objects, place, people and relationships between them, you can use photos,
drawings, diagrams, and schematics.

Uses of illustrations and photos. In the realm of illustrations and photographs, the types run
from minimal detail to maximal. A simple line drawing of how to graft a fruit tree reduces the
detail to simple lines representing the hands, the tools, the graft stock, and graft. Diagrams
are a more abstract, schematic view of things, for example, a wiring diagram of a clock radio;
it hardly resembles the actual physical thing at all. And of course photographs provide the
most detail of all. These graphics, supplying gradations of detail as they do, have their
varying uses. Here are some examples:

• In instructions, simple drawings (often called line drawings because they use just
lines, without other detail such as shading) are the most common. They simplify the
situation and the objects so that the reader can focus on the key details.

• In descriptions, you would want to use drawings, but in this case drawings with more
detail, such as shading and depth perspectives.
• In feasibility, recommendation, and evaluation reports, photographs are often used.
For example, if you are recommending a photocopier, you might want to include
photos of the leading contenders.

Formatting requirements. When you use an illustration in a report, there are several
requirements to keep in mind (most of these are shown in Figure 7-1):

• Labels — Just about any illustration should contain labels — words and phrases —
with pointers to the parts of the things being depicted.
• Keys — If the illustration has certain shadings, colors, line styles, or other such details
that have a special meaning in the illustration, these should be indicated in a key —
an area in an unused corner of the illustration that deciphers their meaning.
• Titles — Except in special cases, illustrations should have titles, and these titles should
be numbered (Figure 1, Figure 2, and so on). The exceptions are these: if you have
lots of illustrations (for example, in certain instructions, there are illustrations
practically after every paragraph) and if there is no benefit from the titles; if you only
have one or two illustrations and they are not cross-referenced; if you do not cross-
reference your illustrations. In some of these cases, you might want to keep the title
but discard the word "Figure" and the number following it.

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 • Cross-references — Almost all illustrations should be referred to from the relevant
point in the discussion. And, do more than just tossing in a "(See Figure 2.)"; discuss
the illustration a bit — focus readers' attention on the key details of the illustration.
• Location within the report — Ideally, you place illustrations just after the point where
they are needed. However, sometimes because of the pagination (the way the text
falls on the pages) and the size of the illustrations, this close placement is not
possible. No problem — just put the illustration at the top of the next page; that is
what the figure-numbering system is for.
• Size of illustrations — Again, ideally, you want illustrations to be between one-half to
onequarter of the vertical size of the page. You want them to fit on the page with
other text. In fact, that's what you really want — to interperse text and graphics in a
report. What you do not want is to append the illustration to the back of the report!
When you have a large illustration, use a photocopier to reduce it.
• Placement within margins — Make sure that your illustrations fit neatly and
comfortably within standard margins. You don't want the illustration spilling over into
the right or left margins. You want to allow the equivalent of at least 2 blank lines
above and below the illustration.
• Level of technical detail — And, rather obviously, you want illustrations to be at the
right technical level for your readers. No chip circuitry diagrams for computer
beginners!

Producing illustrations. Now for the question we're all waiting to ask — how to create
graphics? There are several options: photocopying, scanning, clip art, and hand-drawing.
(And now most mainstream word-processing applications enable you to generate various
kinds of graphs and charts, not to mention graphics and business software.) In all of these
production methods, don't forget that you must indicate the source of the borrowed
graphic.

• Photocopying is the easiest solution to creating graphics — and it's legal (if you do it
right)! Find the illustrations that you want, make good high-quality photocopies of
them, trim off the figure titles and other unnecessary or inappropriate textual
material (leave the labels and keys), and then leave space in your own document so
that the trimmed photocopy will fit with at least 2 blank lines above and below it.
Remember to reduce or enlarge the copy so that it fits nicely on the page. Also
remember that ideal graphics are one-half to one-quarter the size of the page.
Intersperse graphics with text! When you make the final copy of your document, tape
in the copied graphics, photocopy the entire document, and hand in the photocopy
(not the original).
• Scanning is a neat way to pull graphics into your document files. You don't have to
tape them to a copy then photocopy the document — they are there, fully
integrated.
However, there are some pretty cheap scanners that produce blurry, low-quality
images. They're adequate for our technical writing course, but not for serious
professional work.
• Lots of clip art is becoming available with software programs and on the Internet. For
fairly common objects such as computers, telephones, and such, you can insert these
into your document and add labels to them.

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 • Hand-drawing may not be as out of the question as you might think. Take a blank
sheet of paper and start sketching lightly with a soft-leaded pencil. Keep working
until you have the drawing the way you like. Then use a black marker to ink in the
lines that you want, and erase the stray pencil markings. Now, treat this drawing the
way you would any photocopied image. Cut it out, tape it in your document,
photocopy it as well as all other pages, then hand in the photocopy.

Figure 7-1. Elements of a pictorial graphic. Notice that you can use a simpler means of
indicating the source by using the same format as in regular number-system citations.

Photographs
At least as the way things stand right now in the 1990s, getting photographs into reports is a
problem. They don't photocopy well (although they do better now than just a few years ago).
They don't attach to report pages very well either. High-quality scanning equipment may be
the better alternative in this area, although a scanned image costs $5 to $10 right now at
local copy shops equipped to offer this service. If you need to use photographs in your
technical reports for a technical writing course, consult with your instructor. After all, these
are writing courses, not graphic arts courses — taped-in or photocopied photographs may
be okay in this setting.

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Tables
Tables, of course, are those rows and columns of numbers and words, mostly numbers. They
permit rapid access to and relatively easy comparison of information. If the data is arranged
chronologically (for example, sales figures over a ten-year period), the table can show trends
— patterns of rising or falling activity. Of course, tables are not necessarily the most vivid or
dramatic means of showing such trends or relationships between data — that's why we have
charts and graphs (discussed in the next section).

Uses for tables. The biggest use of tables is for numerical data. Imagine that you are
comparing different models of laser printers in terms of physical characteristics such as
height, depth, length, weight, and so on — perfect for a table.

However, don't get locked into the notion that tables are strictly for numerical data.
Whenever you have situations where you discuss several things about which you provide the
same categories of detail, you've got a possibility for a table. For example, imagine that you
were comparing several models of a laser printer: you'd be saying the same category of thing
about each printer (its cost, print speed, supply costs, warranty terms, and so on). This is ideal
stuff for a table, and it would be mostly words rather than numbers (and in this case, you'd
probably want to leave the textual discussion where it is and "re-present" the information in
table form.

Table format. In its simplest form, a table is a group of rows and columns of data. At the top
of each column is a column heading, which defines or identifies the contents of that column
(and often it indicates the unit of measurement). On the left edge of the table may be row
headings, which define or identify the contents of that row. Things get tricky when rows or
columns must be grouped or subdivided. In such cases, you have to create row or column
subheadings.

Traditionally, the title of a table is placed on top of the table or is the first row of the table. If
the contents of the table are obvious and there is no need to cross-reference the table from
anywhere else in the report, you can omit the title. To make life simpler, you can consider
tables as figures (the same as illustrations and other graphics), and number them within the
same sequence.

As for specific style and formatting guidelines for tables, keep these in mind (most of these
guidelines are illustrated in Figure 7-3):

• Refer to the table in the text just preceding the table. Explain the general significance
of the data in the table; don't expect readers to figure it out entirely for themselves.
• Don't overwhelm readers with monster 11-column, 30-row tables! Simplify the table
data down to just that amount of data that illustrates your point — without of course
distorting that data.
• Don't put the word or abbreviation for the unit of measurement in every cell of a
column. For example, in a column of measurements all in millimeters, don't put "mm"
after every number. Put the abbreviation in parentheses in the column or row
heading.

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 • Right- or decimal-align numbers in the columns. If the 123 and 4 were in a column,
the 4 would be right below the 3, not the 1.
• Normally, words in columns are left-justified (although you will occasionally see
columns of words all centered).
• Column headings are centered over the columns of numerical data (forming a T-
shape); left-aligned with columns of text. The alignment of column headings to the
actual

columnar data is variable. If you have a column of two- or three-letter words, you'd
probably want to center the column heading over that data, even those it is words
not numbers. (Doing so, avoids an odd-looking L-shaped column.)
• When there is some special point you need to make about one or more of the items
in the table, use a footnote instead of clogging up the table with the information.

Producing tables. Normally, you'll be borrowing information in which a good table occurs. If
it's a simple table without too many rows and columns, retype it yourself into your own
document (but remember to document where you borrowed it from in the figure title).
However, if it is a big table with lots of data, you're justified in photopcopying it and bringing
it into your report that way.

When you manually type tables, consider putting a string of hyphens between the column
headings and the first row of data and another string of hyphens between the last row of
data and any totals the table has.

Most of the advanced word-processing software packages, such as Word and WordPerfect,
now have table-generating tools. You don't have to draw the lines and other formatting
details.

Occasionally, in rough-draft technical reports, information is presented in regular running-

text form that could be better presented in table (or tabular) form. Be sure and look back
over your rough drafts for material that can transformed into tables.

For indicating the source of borrowed information, see Figure 7-1.

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Figure 7-3. Format for tables. Watch for opportunities to convert text to table as in this
example.

Charts and graphs

Charts and graphs are actually just another way of presenting the same data that is
presented in tables — although a more dramatic and interesting one. At the same time,
however, you get less detail or less precision in a chart or diagram than you do in the table.
Imagine the difference between a table of sales figures for a ten-year period and a line graph
for that same data. You get a better sense of the overall trend in the graph but not the
precise dollar amount.

Formatting requirements. When you create charts and diagrams, keep these requirements in
mind (most of these elements are illustrated in Figure 7-4):

• Axis labels — In bar charts and line graphs, don't forget to indicate what the x and y
axes represent. One axis might indicate millions of dollars; the other, five-year
segments from 1960 to the present.
• Keys — Bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts often use special color, shading, or line
style (solid or dashed). Be sure to indicate what these mean; translate them in a key (a
box) in some unused place in the chart or graph.

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Figure 7-4. Examples of graphs and charts. Notice the use of keys, axis labels, figure titles,
and cross-references for both figures in this example.

• Figure titles — For most charts and graphs, you'll want to include a title, in many
cases, a numbered title. Readers need some way of knowing what they are looking at.
And don't forget to cite the source of any information you borrowed in order to
create the graphic.

The standard rule for when to number figures or tables is this: if you cross-reference
the figure or table elsewhere in the text

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 • Cross-references — Whenever you use a chart or graph, don't forget to put a
crossreference to it from the related text. With that cross-reference, provide some
explanation of what is going on in the graphic, how to interpret it, what its basic
trends are, and so on.
• Documentation — When you borrow information to create a graphic, be sure to use
the standard format to indicate the source.. It does not matter whether you
photocopy the graphic and tape it into your report, retype the graphic (for example, a
table), trace or draw the graphic freehand, or take some subset of the data (for
example, using data from a table to create a bar chart) — it is all borrowed
information, which some brave and noble soul worked hard to develop and who
deserves credit for that effort.

Producing charts and graphs. As with illustrations, you have these options for creating charts
and graphs: photocopying from other sources, generating your own with special software,
and manual creating your own. Many of the text-processing software packages have fancy
features for generating charts and graphs — you just crank in your data, specify the format
you want, and let
'er rip.

Documenting graphics — indicating sources

As mentioned earlier, it's perfectly legal to borrow graphics — to trace, photocopy, scan, or
extract subsets of data from them. But you're obligated to cite your sources for graphics just
as you are for the words you borrow. Normally, this is done in the figure title of the graphics.
Check the examples in Figure 7-1 and Figure 7-2.

General guidelines for graphics — a review

The preceding sections repeat a number of common guidelines that need to be stated all in
one place. These are important!

• Use graphics whenever they would normally be necessary — don't wimp out because
it seems like too much trouble! But at the same time, don't get hung up about
creating perfect graphics (photocopies work just fine for our purposes as long as you
cite your source). This course is a writing course, not a graphic-arts course.
• Always discuss graphics in nearby text preceding the graphic. Don't just throw a
graphic out there unexplained. Orient readers to the graphic; explain its basic
meaning.
• If a certain graphic is difficult to produce, discuss the problem with your instructor
(you might be able to leave a blank with a descriptive note in the middle).
• Make sure your graphics are appropriate to your audience, subject matter, and
purpose — don't zap beginners with advanced, highly technical graphics they can't
understand.
• Intersperse graphics and text on the same page. Don't put graphics on pages by
themselves; don't attach them to the end of documents.
• Use figure titles for graphics (only a few exceptions to this rule).
• Indicate the source of any graphic you have borrowed — this includes tables,
illustrations, charts, and graphs. Whenever you borrow a graphic from some other

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 source, document that fact in the figure title. This is illustrated here in this chapter in
Figures 7-1 and 7-2.

• Include identifying detail such as illustration labels, axis labels, keys, and so on. But
don't hand-write them in — use the labels from the original photocopy or type them.
• Make sure graphics fit within normal margins — if they don't, enlarge or reduce the
copies. Leave at least 2 blank lines above and below graphics.
• When you tape graphics in to your report, photocopy your entire report, not just the
pages on which the tape-ins occur. Hand in the entire photocopied document, not
the original and not a mixture of original and photocopied pages.
• Don't manually add colour or other detail on the pages of the final copy that you
intend to submit — in other words, don't draw on the final copy. Any details like
these should be added before photocopying. If you must have colour, use colour
photocopying equipment.
• Place graphics as near to the point in the text where they are relevant as is
reasonable. However, if a graphic does not fit properly on one page, put it at the top
of the next, and continue with regular text on the preceding page. Don't leave half a
page blank just to keep a graphic near the text it is associated with.
• Except for graphics that need no figure title, cross-reference all graphics from the
appropriate text. In the cross-reference, give the figure number (figure title and page
are optional), indicate the subject matter of the graphic, and provide explanatory
information as necessary.

Word allows you to do much more than simply insert or place graphics. For our fourth lesson
in this series, we will focus on the graphic design functions in Word such as pictures,
SmartArt, screenshots, and other items that can be found on the “Insert” tab.

These functions really breathe life into your drab black and white text documents. Luckily,
there’s a whole range of ways you can add images to better illustrate (no pun intended) your
point.

We’ll wrap the lesson by changing gears a bit and discussing how to use more than one
language in Word 2013.

Images and Multimedia

You don’t have to think of Word as simply a word processing program. It has requisite tools
for doing some pretty nifty page layout. While it’s not a feature-complete or robust as a
professional page layout program such as Adobe InDesign. You can still get very professional
looking results if you know what’s in your toolbox and how to use it.

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Pictures and Online Pictures

Both “Pictures” and “Online Pictures” accomplish the same goal. The only difference is that
“Pictures” means you can insert pictures locally, while “Online Pictures” allows you to insert
images from an internet-based source such as clip art from Office.com, Bing, or OneDrive
(formerly SkyDrive).

You can also insert pictures from your Facebook profile or Flickr although you could always
just save the pictures you want to insert to your computer and then insert them from there if
you don’t want to connect Office to these profiles.

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Picture Tools

As always, when you want to edit a picture or any element place in a Word document, you
can click on it and the appropriate tab will appear on the Ribbon.

With pictures, that tab is “Picture Tools.” Here we see you can make all kinds of corrections to
the picture on-the-fly. For example, you can correct brightness and contrast, the color, add a
border.

Where you position and how you wrap text will also play a large role in formatting your
documents.

Here we see those controls. In our documents, we don’t worry so much about word
wrapping or positioning because Word isn’t the final step toward publishing online.
However, if you’re going to produce something WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get),
such as for a PDF or print publication, then these things will definitely matter.

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Also, there are a couple ways you make changes to your pictures inline, such as resizing,
rotating, and moving them. In the following image, you see these controls, many of which
you will likely be familiar with.

When you click on an image in your document, you get a box on each corner, which will let
you resize a picture. At the top, in the middle, is a circular arrow, grab this to freely rotate

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your picture. To move the image, hover the mouse over the image until the pointer is the
four arrows, you can then click and drag the image anywhere you like.

Finally, if you click on the little “Layout Options” button, you can change your text wrapping
without going to the Ribbon.

Clicking on “See more…” at the bottom of the “Layout Options” opens the full-blown
“Layout” dialog.

Note, the size tab both on the Ribbon the “Layout” dialog allows you to specifically resize,
rotate, and scale your pictures, rather than relying wholly on winging it:

We’d like to spend the whole day talking about formatting images in Word, but as you can
see, there’s a ton of options at your disposal. Let’s move on now to other objects you can
insert into your documents, starting with “Shapes.”

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Shapes

Microsoft Word 2013 comes with an array of built-in shapes, which you can use to create
callouts, boxes, stars, and other shapes.

When you choose a shape, you simply draw it on a blank space on the page. It doesn’t
matter if you get it perfect or just the way you want it because you can adjust it to your
heart’s content once it is placed in your document.

Note in the screenshot, the previously mentioned little “handles” you can use to resize and
rotate your shapes.

At the bottom of the “Shapes” menu, there’s an option to create a “new drawing canvas.”
This will open, what is essentially a text box for shapes. With this drawing canvas, you can
create drawings using these shapes allowing you to create things like diagrams and
flowcharts.

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SmartArt and WordArt

SmartArt and WordArt tend to have some overlap, particularly if you create something using
WordArt and then customize any of the text within it. Of course, you can use one or the
other and never the twain shall meet, but we’re going to talk about them in the same section
because one often leads to the other.

Think of SmartArt as premade drawing canvases that you can insert into your document and
then customize as you like. Simply pick an arrangement, such as a list, process, or cycle.

As you can see, we created a graphic based on a “Continuous Block Process.” When we click
on the text boxes, we can edit what is inside. There are also the usual grab handles needed
to resize the image, and the “Layout Options” allowing you to wrap text to your preference.

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If you use SmartArt, note that the Ribbon changes to reflect this. The “SmartArt Tools”
features two tabs: “Design” and “Format.” Let’s cover each one and its features.

The right half of the “Format” tab allows you to pick from a number of “SmartArt Styles” and
you can also “Change Colors.”

If you look at our previous example, you can see we applied an embossed, shiny effect and
changed the colors of our text boxes and arrow.

On the left half of the “Design” tab, you can “Create Graphic” so you can add shapes, bullets,
text, and move things around.

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The “Layouts” section lets you change how your graphic looks on the fly. Simply hover over
any of the built-in options to see how it would look utilizing a different layout. Changes to
the layout are not applied unless you first click on a style.

The right side of the “Format” tab is used for affecting changes to text. These include
“WordArt Styles” and other effects suchs as fill and outline. Beyond that, you can arrange
multiple layers by sending them forward and backward.

The “Layout” dialog pops out if you select the little arrow in the bottom-right corner of the
“size” section or you can choose more options from any of the drop-down menus including
“Position”,
“Align”, and “Rotate.”

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On the left side of the “Format” tab you can select any of your shapes and change them to
another, and also make them larger or smaller.

If you click on “Shape Styles” you will be able to choose from a selection of pre-defined
shapes and colors.

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Shift right just slightly and you will find controls to alter the fill. Choose from various “Theme
Colors” or select your own. You an also use pictures, gradients, and textures for even more fill
options.

If you want to refine the outline around your shape(s), you can choose any color, weight, or
dashes.

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Finally, “Shape Effects” has quite a few options for enhancing your shapes, many of which will
give them a cool 3D effect that you can adjust by clicking 3D Options at the bottom of the of
the menu.

Format Text Effects

Let’s take a closer look at this because it contains a pretty sizable amount of features. We’ll
cover the basics so that you’re more aware of them. The pane titled, “Format Text Effects,”
slides out from the right edge.

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As with any other panes in Word 2013, it can be detached, which you can then stick out of
the way to save screen area, or keep it nearby so it is handy. Regardless, this dialog box will
allow you to quickly work with text, so you don’t have to repeatedly keep going to the
ribbon to change things. Note also that the dialog is split into functions, “Text Fill and
Outline” and “Text Effects.”
“Text Fill and Outline” is simple enough to figure out, and is used to enhance how text
appears.

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Say, for instance, we want to write How-To Geek School and enhance it so that it is size 48
pt., blue with a black 1 pt. outline. We simply select the text we want, increase to the size to
48, then in the “Format Text Effects” dialog, we can change the color (we can also do this in
the “Font” section of the “Home” tab. Then under “Text Outline” we choose “Solid line” and
choose block and 1 pt. for the outline width.

That looks pretty good, but we really want it to pop, let’s add some more text effects, such as
a shadow, a reflection, and we’ll add a bit of a 3d bezel to round the lettering out.

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The result is a bit more striking and while it’s not likely to make it into any final designs, it
does give you an idea of what you can do with WordArt.

Chart

Who doesn’t like charts? Charts are a great way to visually display data sets and Word 2013
comes jam packed with a large assortment of Charts to choose from, including columns, pie,
bar charts and much, much more. Check out the screenshot for an idea of just how many
options there are:

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When you choose a style, you’ll get a spreadsheet, which will allow you to enter the data
points on your x and y axes. As you enter data, the chart will change.

Manipulating and formatting charts is easy. Whenever you click on a chart in your document,
you’ll get the “Chart Tools,” which, as you might have guessed, is the Ribbon tab devoted
solely to charts.

Using the “Design” tab, if you don’t like the colors or style of your chart, you can instantly
apply changes to it without having to generate a new one.

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If you decide you don’t think the layout works for this particular type of data, change it using
“Quick Layout” or add another element such as another axis, chart title, gridlines, and more.

On the right side of the “Design” tab you will find essential tools for altering your data and
you can also go back and completely change the type of chart you’re using.

So, if you think a pie chart would work better, you can change to that. Note however, some
data points, such as “breakfast,” “lunch,” and “dinner” aren’t represented on this chart.

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The “Chart Tools” also give you a “Format” tab so you can dress things up a bit by adding
shapes and then being able to change the style, fill, and outline.

Turning to the right side of the “Format” tab, you are given options for adding and changing
WordArt, arranging elements, and adjusting the size of your chart (which you can also do
with the grab handles).

It’s easy also to affect changes inline too. When you click on a chart in your document,
formatting controls appear along the upper-right corner. From top-to-bottom, you get
“Layout options” so you can set your text wrapping. You can change chart elements with the
plus (+) symbol, so if you want to change chart titles, add gridlines, and stuff like that.

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The paintbrush icon is for setting a style and color them, and finally, the sieve icon is for
“Chart Filters,” so you can edit data points and names on your chart.

Screenshot

The “Screenshot” feature will allow you to take a screen clip, which is automatically pasted in
you document.

When you use the screenshot function, it will let you choose between any currently open
windows, or you can select “Screen Clipping,” which will minimize Word allowing you to take
a selection or full shot of your desktop. So for example, if you want to simply insert a shot of
your desktop and its icons, you would first need to minimize everything you have open.

There’s a myriad of ways you can take and add screenshots, so we’re not going to dwell on it.
Just note this feature, if you’re unfamiliar with adding screenshots, and you want an easy way
to do it in Word.

Online Video

You can insert “Online Video” such as Bing, YouTube, or video embed code into your
document.

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When you embed a video, it will appear as if it is a regular picture, complete with grab
handles and text wrap controls.

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Further, you can adjust how the emedded video thumbnail appears (as a picture) using the
“Picture Tools” so you can make adjustments to the color, add a border, correct the contrast
and brightness, and more.

So you see, we simply applied a “picture style” and add a purple border. This is only a
fraction of the stuff you can do, so if you to add some really nice looking effects and create a
nice looking document that really pops, you should take your time to familiarize yourself
with everything.

On the other hand, if you don’t like your changes and you want to go back to the default,
simply click “Reset Picture” and it will revert to normal.

Other Text Features

Here are few more text features that you might want to be aware of though you will
probably rarely use them.

Text Box

Text boxes are like their own little islands in Word. What we mean is, when you add a “Text
Box” to your documents, it is immune to changes you make to the rest of the document. It is
like a document within a document.

This is useful if you want to present something “as is” in your work, be able to make
overarching changes to the document’s formatting, but have something you’ve pasted
remain unchanged.

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For the most part, text boxes are something of a bane to an editor’s existence because they
don’t play nice with styles (Lesson 5). You may find them extremely convenient and that’s
perfectly fine, but if you want something that conforms to your document’s style and
formatting, but still place it in a box or have a border around it, then we recommend simply
adding a border, which we covered in Lesson 2 – Shading and Borders.

Drop Cap

Drop caps are simply that one letter at the beginning of a chapter or book that is larger than
the rest:

You can either make your drop cap “Dropped” (the text below it shifts underneath it) or “In
Margin.” Check out the “Drop Cap” options for more power over how your drop caps behave.

Using More than One Language

If you want to produce content in a language other than the one that comes with Word by
default, you will likely need to purchase it. Open the Word “Options” and click on
“Language.”

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Pick the language you want to add from the dropdown list and then click the “Add” button.
When you add a language, you will need to enable it, which means that you will have to turn
it on in the “Control Panel.”

From here, you can write in the language, but Word won’t display in it, in other words, menus
and help systems will still appear in the default language. To get the full multilingual
experience, you may need to purchase a language pack from Microsoft.

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To see what languages are available for purchase, and how much, click on “Not installed” and
you will be whisked to the Microsoft Office website.

Identify gaps in required data and information, and collect additional

material from relevant enterprise personnel
Before you start to write your documents, you need to make sure that you have all the
required information and materials. If you do not have all the information you require, then
you need to collect additional material or information from the relevant enterprise
personnel. In writing your minutes for example, there is a list of attending and absentee
members.

In this case, you would need a list of all the members of the organisational committee to
ensure that no name has been missed off the minutes. It is important that you get the latest
list because new members may have joined or others left. The chairperson of the meeting is
probably the best person to contact to request the latest list of members. It is also necessary
to obtain the positions of the staff attending the meeting, as this information would need to
be entered into the minutes also.

With regard to your research report, it may be necessary to confirm the figures that are
required. You have obtained age and occupation for a specific area. Generally before you
began your report, it would be wise to check with the person requesting the report that
these figures are sufficient for their needs. You may also need to check with them that the
charts that you are proposing to include are what they require. During the creation of the
report, additional changes may be required and its development may be an ongoing process
until complete.

When checking on additional information required, it is important to consult the right

personnel for the information needed. For example, you may have noted that the position
description you referred to in an earlier activity did not state whether the advertised position
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was permanent or casual. In this case, you would need to speak to the personnel department
or the manager of the department advertising the position. It would not be enough to leave
this information out of the advertisement or simply ask a colleague if they knew. You must
always source your information from the correct person.

With regard to your manual, you have made a list of notes and added areas that you believe
would benefit from graphics. At a later stage, you would show this document to a trainer or
supervisor, but at this stage, it would be beneficial to have a colleague who does NOT know
how to create a mail merge document to check through your notes, perform the actions
given and see whether they feel any further explanation is required. It is important to point
out to a tester of a document that you want feedback, and while positive feedback is good,
constructive negative feedback is important as it helps to improve the document.

It is important that when you are writing a document and you are using data or information
that you identify any gaps in any required data and/or information, and that you collect
additional material from relevant enterprise personnel.

Relevant enterprise personnel may include:

• Colleagues/staff in own work section/ team members

• Consultative committees
• Internal providers of specialist expertise
• Managers/leaders/coordinators/supervisors
• Owners
• Staff in relevant work sections

Draft text according to document requirements and genre

Text may be drafted in a document and the document may then go through a number of
revisions before it is finished. Even the simplest of documents generally go through a
process of drafting, checking and finalising. For example, a letter may be written, read
through and then changes made or content confirmed, before it is posted. With a complex
document, it can go through many processes of amendment and correction before it is
finished. It would be read and then corrected by the author as a first step, and this may be
done a number of times.

It may then be sent onto a second level of checking and further changes may be suggested.
Once these changes are completed, it may then be sent to a third or fourth level of checking
depending on the document's complexity and the areas that need to be checked before it is

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complete. With some documents it is not just the way the content is written that is checked
but also the technical accuracy, the layout of the document and the way it is presented.

As mentioned previously, genre is the style of writing used in a document. You are creating a
number of different documents in this unit and each of these documents will be set out in a
way that reflects their own genre. For example, minutes may differ in their formatting but
they are always set out in a particular order with certain headings, such as Apologies, always
being present. In the same way, a software manual has a similar style to other software
manuals with steps and graphics to show how a particular process is carried out.

It is important that you draft text taking into account that larger documents often have a
table of contents at the front of the document and an appendix at the back with
supplementary evidence and perhaps a bibliography if the reader may need to seek further
information. Sometimes the document will also contain footnotes or endnotes.

Footnotes use a numeric reference to the citation in the body of the text with the citation
detail at the bottom of the page.10

Example

Inserting footnotes

How to insert footnotes using Word XP

1. Place cursor where the footnote is to be inserted

2. From the menu bar, select Insert
3. Select reference>footnote and select options
4. The (next) numeric footnote will automatically be inserted and also placed at the
bottom of the page

How to insert footnotes using Word 2000

1. Place cursor where the footnote is to be inserted

2. From the menu bar, select Insert>footnote and select options

10
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 3. The (next) numeric footnote will automatically be inserted and also placed at the
bottom of the page

Endnotes are used when your footnotes are so long or numerous that they take up too much
space on the page, making your report unattractive and difficult to read. Endnotes can also
be used to accommodate tables or any other material that might require special
typography.11

Whichever your Style Guide recommends or whichever choice you make – footnotes on the
applicable page or endnotes to capture all the reference material, be consistent.

Government regulations require that companies working in certain industries control their
documents. These industries include accounting food safety, medical device manufacturing,
manufacture of blood, human cells, and tissue products Healthcare, and Information
technology.

Documents stored in a document management system--documents such as procedures,

work instructions, and policy statements--provide evidence of documents under control.
Failing to comply could cause fines, the loss of business, or damage to a business's
reputation.

When working in an environment that requires document control, the following procedures
are useful to document:

• Reviewing and approving documents prior to release

• Reviews and approvals
• Ensuring changes and revisions are clearly identified
• Ensuring that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at their “points
of use”
• Ensuring that documents remain legible and identifiable
• Ensuring that external documents like customer supplied documents or supplier
manuals are identified and controlled

• Preventing “unintended” use of obsolete documents

• Suggest improvements to existing documents

11
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Rough drafting: an overview
Writing a rough draft, at its simplest, is like copying your notecards onto regular sheets of
paper: more specifically, like taking the information from your notes, phrasing it in complete
sentences, and filling in the gaps with transitions and with your own understanding of the
subject. If you have taken as complete a set of notes as you can, and if you have paraphrased
and summarized most of them, your rough drafting may go rapidly.

Preparations. Here are some rather mechanical matters to keep in mind as you start the
rough draft:

• Use pencils (instead of pens) to make corrections easier.

• Write on only one side of the paper so that you can cut and paste, if necessary.
• Skip every other line in your rough draft to make insertions or revisions easier.
• Insert headings as you write rather than after .
• Write your first draft rapidly; don't worry about getting every word and comma
exactly right this time.
• If you can't get started, find another section of your report to begin with.
• If you get stuck, start on another section and come back later.
• If you don't particularly like how a section is sounding, go ahead and keep writing.
Consider it a rehearsal.
• Use a typewriter, if possible, to get a sense of how your report will look in its finished
form and to make revision easier. Again, don't worry about grammar or typos; type
rapidly.

Sample rough draft with notecards. Here is an excerpt from a report draft with the
corresponding notecards: notice how much discussion the writer has put into the paragraphs
without the aid of notecards:
Outline excerpt

I. Introduction
II. Amount of Oil Drilled
III. The Condeep Drilling Platform
A. The Hull
B. The Deck
IV. The Effects of Spilled Oil on Marine
Organisms
A. Impact on Zooplankton
B. Impact on Fish
C. Impact on Marine Birds
D. Impact on Marine Mammals
V. Procedure in Cleaning up Offshore Spills
A. Preliminary Inspection of . . .
Notecards

III. drillg pltfm: intro

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 movement to drill Outer Contl. Shelf water depths in this
region--2-3,000ft. convention. steel-jacket platform too expensive

8 Earney, pp 124-131

III. drillg pltfm: ballast tanks

water up to 1000ft (twice ht. of Wash. Monument)

submersibles designed for waters up to 600ft or more
massive bouyant base or hull flooded after the unit is
stationed water pumped out & replaced w/ oil as need from
well or satellite wells

9 Earney, pp 124-131

III. drillg pltfm: ballast tanks

usually have base casted in a graving dock & moved into

deep waters where sunk by ballasting while its ht is increased
(1st one built holds 1 mill. bbls) may also use differential
hydrostatic pressure (suction); base forms suction seep when
situated on ocean bottom; water pumped out of pores beneath
the rig to lower hydrost. press. inside. sand and clay seabeds
lend themselves to this technique stream currents can sheer
stress these loose

10 Earney, pp 124-131

III. drillg pltfm: ballast tanks

tanks: shaped like lab. oxy. tanks

vol: 30,000-60,000 bbls (0.9 to 1.8 mill. gals)

10 Earney, pp. 124-131

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 III. drillg pltfm: suppt pilngs

3 of the ball. tanks convert to supp. pilings for platfm deck

typically 300 ft long--whatever length to keep deck 15 ft above ave
water level fully ballasted

pilings connected at top w/ connecting rods, enorm steel girders,

10 ft diam; support rig deck conduits inside supp. plgs--drillg bits,
pipes for o & g flow, drlg fluids

protective sacrific. annode & packg material to

prevent leak in case of damage to plgs.

11 Earney, pp 124-131
Rough draft excerpt

III. THE CONDEEP DRILLING PLATFORM

In recent years there has been a strong movement among the

world's oil producers toward drilling on the Outer Continental
Shelf. Typical water depths in this region are 2000 to 3000 ft.
At these depths, the conventional steel-jacket platform has a
prohibitive cost-to-benefit ratio. A number of new concepts in
drilling and production rigs have been developed in attempts to
reduce the costs of deepwater drilling. The Condeep submersible
rig is one of the most promising of those developed so far.

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 Figure 4. The Condeep Offshore Drilling Platform

The Condeep consists of two major sections, the hull and the
deck.

Hull

The underwater part of the platform is known as the hull. The

hull in turn consists of support pilings and ballast tanks.

Ballast Tanks. The ballast tanks contain most of the bulk

of the hull. These are built at a graving dock. A typical
arrangement consists of 19 tanks built in a giant hexagon. All
but three of the tanks are used as ballast tanks. The remaining
are converted into support pillars for the rig deck.

The ballast tanks serve a dual purpose. Each tank is equipped

with ballasting valves and pumps. The valves may be opened to
admit seawater as ballast for the rig. In the early stages of the
operation of the rig, these seawater-filled tanks serve as
mooring for the platform. When fully ballasted, these tanks rest
on the ocean bottom. These tanks may be pumped free of seawater
and used as storage for oil produced by the rig or its

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 neighboring rigs.

If the platform is intended to operate in areas where the

ocean bottom is exceptionally loose or porous (e.g., composed of
sand or clay), then additional mooring support is usually needed.
This additional mooring is usually added in the form of pumps
attached to the bottom of the ballast tanks. These pumps provide
a differential hydrostatic pressure by evacuating the pores in
the floor under the tanks. This pressure creates a suction that
serves as additional mooring for the rig.

As for the individual tanks themselves, they shaped like

standard laboratory oxygen tanks. They have a round flat bottom,
a cylindrical shaft, and a hemispherical top. Typically, they
have a volume of from 30,00 to 60,000 barrels each (i.e., 900,000
to 1,800,000 gallons each). The bottom and shaft are cast in one
piece, and the dome with its ballasting valves and pumps is added
later.

Support Pilings. Three of the ballasting tanks are converted

into support pilings for the platform deck. These pilings are
located toward the center of the platform. The support pilings
are typically about 300 ft long but may be however long is
necessary to maintain the deck at about 15 ft above the average
water level when the tanks are fully ballasted. The pilings are
rounded like cylinders but are tapered toward the top . . .
Figure 15. Example outline, notecards, and rough draft excerpt
Step
7. If you have developed a good outline and have as complete a set of notecards as you can
get, use
the suggestions above and write a rough draft of your report, or some portion of it.

Use language appropriate to the audience

It is very easy to think that using language appropriate to the audience is self- evident, but in
fact it is very often overlooked when presenting information either through written
documents or verbally. As a simple example, some children's books have language that is
beyond the understanding of the child interested in the story. This is where language needs
to be age appropriate. In other areas, the language needs to be knowledge appropriate.
Medical terms, for example, are appropriate when medical people are conferring with each
other, or when a doctor is teaching a class of medical students. Although, even in this case
the teacher needs to be aware of the expertise of the students so that the information is
appropriate for their knowledge level. This is the same with the use of any kind of technical
terms such as those used by computer engineers, mechanical engineers, scientists and so on.

Problems sometimes arise when there is a big difference between the knowledge levels of an
expert and that of a layperson (someone with no or little knowledge in the area). Then it is
necessary to change the technical terms used so that an ordinary person can understand the
message being presented. This can sometimes be difficult for people who are experts in their
field. They may have become so used to using technical or medical terms that they are at a

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loss for the appropriate words when it comes to translating information to someone who
lacks the understanding that they have.

For example, computer experts may give a presentation to top level managers of an
organisation and leave the managers feeling that they have failed to understand what was
being presented. Alternatively, a doctor may explain an illness to a patient but leave the
patient not really knowing what was said. In such cases, it is likely that the language used
was not appropriate to the audience. It is not necessary to talk down to others but simply
translate technical terms as if they were a foreign language, which in a way they are, they are
foreign to the listener. This also applies where information is being presented in the form of
leaflets or books.

In certain cases, however, it is necessary to assume that the reader has a certain level of
knowledge. In the creation of your manual, for example, it is expected that the people
reading the manual already have some expertise with regard to the use of a computer and
Word documents. This manual uses language intended for, and appropriate to, this type of
audience.

When writing, it is very important to use language that fits your audience and matches
purpose. Inappropriate language uses can damage your credibility, undermine your
argument, or alienate your audience. This handout will cover some of the major issues with
appropriate language use: levels of language formality, deceitful language and Euphemisms,
slang and idiomatic expressions; using group-specific jargon; and biased/stereotypical
language.

The following is a short overview of the different aspects of using appropriate language.
Review the other sections of this handout for a more complete discussion.

1) Levels of Formality: Writing in a style that your audience expects and that fits your
purpose is the key to successful writing
2) In-Group Jargon: Jargon refers to specialized language used by groups of like-
minded individuals. Only use in-group jargon when you are writing for members of
that group. You should never use jargon for a general audience without first
explaining it
3) Slang and idiomatic expressions: Avoid using slang or idiomatic expressions in
general academic writing
1) Deceitful language and Euphemisms: Avoid using euphemisms (words that veil the
truth, such as "collateral damage" for the unintended destruction of civilians and their
property) and other deceitful language
2) Biased language: Avoid using any biased language including language with a racial,
ethnic, group, or gender bias or language that is stereotypical

Levels of Formality
The level of formality you write with should be determined by the expectations of your
audience and your purpose. For example, if you are writing a cover letter for a job
application or a college academic essay, you would write in a formal style. If you are writing a
letter to a friend, writing something personal, or even writing something for a humorous or
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special interest magazine when informal writing is expected, you would use a more informal
style. Formality exists on a scale—in the example below, a letter of application to a known
colleague can result in a semi-formal style.

Here is an example:

• Formal (Written to an unknown audience): I am applying for the receptionist position

advertised in the local paper. I am an excellent candidate for the job because of my
significant secretarial experience, good language skills, and sense of organization
• Semi-formal (Written to a well-known individual): I am applying for the receptionist
position that is currently open in the company. As you are aware, I have worked as a
temporary employee with your company in this position before. As such, I not only
have experience and knowledge of this position, but also already understand the
company's needs and requirements for this job
• Informal (Incorrect): Hi! I read in the paper that ya'll were looking for a receptionist. I
think that I am good for that job because I've done stuff like it in the past, am good
with words, and am incredibly well organized

Group Jargon

The term "jargon" refers to any in-group or specialized language used by small groups of
likeminded individuals. This terminology is usually specialized to the function of the group,
and will be used by and among group members as a sign of belonging, status, and for
keeping out outsiders.

For example, individuals who study linguistics will use words like quantifier, voiceless
labiodental fricative, diglossia, intensifier, minimal pair and metonymy. To non-linguists,
these words have different meanings or no meanings at all.

When making the choice of what vocabulary to use, you should first and foremost consider
the audience that you are addressing:

• If you are writing for a general audience (even a general academic audience) you
should avoid using in-group jargon without explanations. Overloading your audience

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 with words they do not understand will not help you achieve your purpose o For
example, if you are writing a paper explaining concepts in linguistics to an audience
of non-linguists, you might introduce and explain a few important terms. But you
wouldn't use those terms without an explanation or in a way your audience wouldn't
understand
• If, however, you are writing to an in-group audience you will want to use group-
specific jargon. Not using the jargon when it is expected by your audience can signal
to the audience that you are not a member of that group or have not mastered the
group's terminology. This will most likely damage your credibility and interfere with
your purpose in writing o For example, if you are writing a conference paper for a
group of linguists or a term paper for a college-level linguistics course, you should
use in-group jargon to help show that you understand the concepts and can discuss
them in ways other linguists can

Slang and Idiomatic Expressions

You should avoid using slang (words like y'all, yinz, cool) or idiomatic expressions ("pull
someone's leg," "spill the beans," and "something smells fishy") in formal academic writing.
These words make your writing sound informal, and hence, less credible. Furthermore, for
non-native speakers of English, these expressions may prove more difficult to understand
because of their non-literal nature.

Times do exist, however, when the use of slang and idiomatic expressions are appropriate.
Think about who your audience is, what they expect, and how the use of these words may
help or hinder your purpose. If you are writing a very informal or humorous piece, slang or
idiomatic expressions may be appropriate.

Deceitful Language and Euphemisms

You should avoid using any language whose purpose is deceitful. Euphemisms are terms that
attempt to cover up that which is wrong, unethical, taboo, or harsh.

Here are some examples from the military:

• Pacification = The act of forcefully exerting outside government over a previously

autonomous people
• Friendly Fire = Being shot at (unintentionally) by your own allies
• Collateral Damage = Destruction of property and killing of innocent civilians
during war efforts
• Sunshine Units = A term for a power plant that is leaking radiation into the
surrounding areas

Complex or Confusing Language

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Language can also be deceitful if it is overly complex or confusing. Confusing language is
deliberately created complex and is used to downplay the truth or to evade responsibility.
Here is an example:

The acquisition of pollution permits by individuals and corporations that produce toxins has
now been allowed by the recently amended Clean Air Act of 1990. Institution of permits
simplifies and clarifies obligations for business and industry, making environmental
protections more accessible for these constituents. The government and the Environmental
Protection Agency will be greatly assisted in their endeavours by monitoring the release of
all substances and having the substances listed on one individual permit.

Although this paragraph makes it seem like this facet of the Clean Air act is helping the
environment, the EPA, and the federal government, in reality all it is doing is explaining the
new permit system that allows permit holders to release pollutants into the environment.

Group Terminology
Depending on your purpose, however, some terms that may be considered euphemisms may
be appropriate or even sanctioned by groups they affect. For example, it is more correct to
say "persons with disabilities" or "differently-abled persons" than to call someone
"handicapped" "crippled" or even "disabled." In these cases, it is important to use what is
considered correct by the group in question.

Stereotypes and Biased Language

Avoid using language that is stereotypical or biased in any way. Biased language frequently
occurs with gender, but can also offend groups of people based on sexual orientation,
ethnicity, political interest, or race.

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Stereotyped Language
Stereotyped language is any that assumes a stereotype about a group of people. For
example, don't assume a common stereotype about blonde women:

• Incorrect: Although she was blonde, Mary was still intelligent

• Revised: Mary was intelligent

Non-Sexist language
Writing in a non-sexist, non-biased way is both ethically sound and effective. Non-sexist
writing is necessary for most audiences; if you write in a sexist manner and alienate much of
your audience from your discussion, your writing will be much less effective.

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The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) suggests the following guidelines:

Generic Use:

Although MAN in its original sense carried the dual meaning of adult human and adult male,
its meaning has come to be so closely identified with adult male that the generic use of MAN
and other words with masculine markers should be avoided.

• Original: mankind
• Alternatives: humanity, people, human beings
• Original: man’s achievements
• Alternative: human achievements
• Original: man-made
• Alternatives: synthetic, manufactured, machine-made
• Original: the common man
• Alternatives: the average person, ordinary people
• Original: man the stockroom
• Alternative: staff the stockroom
• Original: nine man-hours
• Alternative: nine staff-hours

Occupations
Avoid the use of MAN in occupational terms when persons holding the job could be either
male or female.

• Original: chairman
• Alternatives: coordinator (of a committee or department), moderator (of a
meeting), presiding officer, head, chair
• Original: businessman
• Alternatives: business executive, business person
• Original: fireman
• Alternative: firefighter

• Original: mailman
• Alternative: mail carrier
• Original: steward and stewardess
• Alternative: flight attendant
• Original: policeman and policewoman
• Alternative: police officer
• Original: congressman
• Alternative: congressional representative

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Historically, some jobs have been dominated by one gender or the other. This has led to the
tendency for a person of the opposite gender to be "marked" by adding a reference to
gender.
You should avoid marking the gender in this fashion in your writing.

• Original: male nurse

• Alternative: nurse
• Original: woman doctor
• Alternative: doctor

Appropriate Pronoun Usage

Because English has no generic singular—or common-sex—pronoun, we have used HE, HIS,
and HIM in such expressions as "the student needs HIS pencil." When we constantly
personify "the judge," "the critic," "the executive," "the author," and so forth, as male by
using the pronoun HE, we are subtly conditioning ourselves against the idea of a female
judge, critic, executive, or author. There are several alternative approaches for ending the
exclusion of women that results from the pervasive use of masculine pronouns.

Recast into the plural

• Original: Give each student his paper as soon as he is finished

• Alternative: Give students their papers as soon as they are finished

Reword to eliminate gender problems.

• Original: The average student is worried about his grade

• Alternative: The average student is worried about grades

Replace the masculine pronoun with ONE, YOU, or (sparingly) HE OR SHE, as appropriate.

• Original: If the student was satisfied with his performance on the pre-test, he took
the post-test

• Alternative: A student who was satisfied with her or his performance on the pre-
test took the post-test

Alternate male and female examples and expressions. (Be careful not to confuse the reader.)

• Original: Let each student participate. Has he had a chance to talk? Could he feel
left out?
• Alternative: Let each student participate. Has she had a chance to talk? Could he
feel left out?

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Indefinite Pronouns
Using the masculine pronouns to refer to an indefinite pronoun (everybody, everyone,
anybody, and anyone) also has the effect of excluding women. In all but strictly formal uses,
plural pronouns have become acceptable substitutes for the masculine singular.

• Original: Anyone who wants to go to the game should bring his money tomorrow
• Alternative: Anyone who wants to go to the game should bring their money
tomorrow

An alternative to this is merely changing the sentence. English is very flexible, so there is little
reason to "write yourself into a corner":

• Original: Anyone who wants to go to the game should bring his money
• Alternative: People who want to go to the game should bring their money

In business, you won't always know very much about the person you're addressing.
Often, you won't know what sex that person is. There are businesswomen who will
throw away letters addressed 'Dear Sir' unread, so, if you're uncertain, it's safer to
write 'Dear Sir/Madam'.

Many women are sensitive about the titles by which they are referred to - 'Mrs.',
'Miss' or 'Ms.' In some instances you may know that the addressee is female, but not
know her title. In these cases, 'Ms' is the safer option, since it won't cause offense by
making assumptions about marital status, but it is sometimes perceived as overly
formal or as indicative of a political agenda.

Where an addressee's title is 'Dr.', 'Prof.', 'Rev'' or similar, you can usually expect to be
forgiven for not knowing. In the case of religious and titled individuals whose status
you are aware of, it is more important to use the correct forms of address if you wish
to make a good impression. A monarch should be addressed as 'your Majesty'; his or
her children, and those grandchildren directly in line to the throne, as 'your Highness'.
A bishop should be addressed as 'your Grace'. A judge should be addressed as 'your
honor'.

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Remember that people from non-English speaking countries may use different titles.
In these cases, you should endeavor to find out their preferred titles (or the usual
ones for that country) before addressing them.

When writing to members of the same household, it is inappropriate to assume that

they all have the same surname. These days, many married women choose to keep
their maiden names, and people change their names for a variety of reasons. The
children of remarried parents may keep their original surnames. For this reason, if you
are unable to find out a person's name, it is wise to ask or to try and avoid using it.
Likewise, if you are required to pronounce a name which you're not sure about you
should ask politely whether or not you have got the pronunciation correct. Few
people will take offense at a mistake if you are ready to be corrected. To improve
your chances of getting it right first time, you can try asking for advice from a friend
or colleague with an apparently similar cultural background. If you think you may
forget the name but will need to know it in future, make a private note of the way
you would pronounce it by writing it down the way it sounds to you.

Sex and Personal Pronouns

When you are referring to a hypothetical individual whose sex is not certain, which
personal pronouns should be used to refer to that person? Several options are
available. Traditionally, the neutral personal pronoun in English has been the same as
the masculine one, but many feminists have objected to this, and using it means
risking political disapproval. It can also, on occasion, produce phrases which look a
bit silly. Most modern business people prefer to avoid it.

The most popular neutral way to use third person singular pronouns in formal
modern English is to write them as 'he/she', 'him/her' etc. This method is unlikely to
attract disapproval, but it can look a bit awkward, and it can interrupt the flow of
speech. You might choose to write out in full 'he or she', 'him or her' etc. each time;
this is slightly less popular, as, when it's used a lot, it can make documents quite a bit
longer. It does have the advantage of sounding more like natural speech.

It's probable that you have often heard people use the third person plural pronoun
('them', 'they', 'their') as an alternative to 'he/she'. This is considered by many people
to be slang usage, and some people may be distinctly unimpressed upon
encountering it in your business communications. However, there are business circles
- as, indeed, there are literary circles - where it is quite acceptable. It has a proud
literary heritage, having been prominently advocated by the novelist Jane Austen,
and it has been quite widely used in twentieth century books.

Various other neutral pronouns have been advanced over the years. It is possible to
use 'one' in this instance, but, since it differs from the more common usage of that

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word (see lesson one), this can cause confusion. An experimental new word, 'ne'
(declined as 'ne', 'nim', 'nis') was introduced in the middle of the last century, but
failed to catch on. New neutral pronouns have had more success on the internet,
where many readers are familiar with 'zie'/'zir' and 'xie/xir', as with 'sie'/'hir'/'hirs'. If
you conduct a lot of business via the internet, you may choose to investigate the use
of these forms within your particular market, to see if they might be useful to you
there. However, they are inappropriate in formal English and should not be used in
your general business communications.

Whichever option you use, it is important to be consistent. Certainly, you should try
to avoid changing pronouns within a single document. In some instances, it may be
advisable to select the pronoun option which is most appropriate for a particular set
of readers.

Homonyms, Apostrophes and Grammatical Case

Being aware of which homonyms to look out for is important when proof reading. Many
people aren't actually sure which of these common words are supposed to go where.
Confusion often occurs between 'there', 'their' and 'they're'.

'There' is used to describe a position, eg: "The book is over there."

'Their' means 'belonging to them'. "That is their book."

'They're' is an abbreviation for 'they are'. "They're looking for the book."

Many writers confuse 'to', 'too' and 'two'.

'To' is directional, eg: "I'm going to the post office." Note that it can refer to time as well as
space, eg: "I'm going to be late."

'Too' describes an extreme, eg: "This is too long." or "You are talking too fast."

'Two' is a number.

Some writers confuse 'of' and 'off' (this is the sort of error which can also occur by accident).

'Of' describes the relationship between things, eg: "A box of pencils." or "In the month of
September."

'Off' is the opposite of 'on', eg: "I took my coat off." or "It has fallen off the desk."

Some Americans may find that their pronunciation makes it difficult to distinguish between
'then' and 'than', and that they consequently misuse these words.

'Then' applies to time, eg: "Then I went out." 'Then' can also be used to mean 'in that case',
eg: "If no-one is at the desk then you should ring for attention."
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'Than' is used in making comparisons, eg: "This guide is better than that one."

Americans say "different than"; British speakers say "different from."

Another common point of confusion relates to the difference between 'its' and 'it's'. We'll
talk more about this shortly, when we discuss apostrophes.

'Its' means 'belong to it', eg: "That is its box."

'It's' is an abbreviation for 'it is', eg: "It's heavy." Only use 'it's' when you could write 'it is'
instead.

English is a difficult language to spell correctly because it has such complicated roots.
Originally a
Germanic language, most closely related to Dutch, it was heavily influenced by French after
the Norman conquest of England, and it was also influenced by the high international status
of Latin. In the nineteenth century, scholars decided that English should be made to follow
rules, but often they didn't understand the real reasons why the language worked as it did,
so they made mistakes which continue to confuse people to this day. One of these mistakes
involved apostrophes.

English nouns (words which describe objects, like 'table' or 'letter') are traditionally classified
according to four cases. These cases tell us the function of the word within a sentence. You
don't need a thorough understanding of this to write good English, but it does help to
explain some of the language's peculiarities. English cases work as follows:-

Nominative - the subject of a sentence. In "I throw the ball", 'I' is the subject.

Accusative - the object in a sentence. In "I throw the ball", 'ball' is the object.

Genitive - the possessive case. In "I throw the dog's ball", 'dog' takes the genitive case.

Dative - the indirect object. In "I throw the dog's ball at the tree", 'tree' is the indirect object.

A sentence can contain more than one word in any of these cases, eg: "Jane and I throw the
dog's ball at the tree.", where 'Jane' and 'I' both take the nominative case.

You'll notice that, in the genitive case, 'dog' is followed by an apostrophe and an 's'. This is
simply a marker which tells us that the dog owns something. In early English, no apostrophe
was used, just a simple 's' ending. Victorian scholars, however, didn't understand the case
system. They thought that the 's' must indicate an abbreviation. They conjectured that a
word like 'dog's' was short for 'dog his', as in 'the dog his ball', and they believed this
extended throughout the language, eg: to 'the girl his ball' for 'the girl's ball'. Because of this
mistake, they introduced the apostrophe, which has been a part of English ever since.

When you use an apostrophe 's' ending on a noun, check first to make sure the noun should
be in the genitive case. This applies to all nouns, including personal names and place names.

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Nouns which end in 's' to begin with, eg: 'James', follow a special rule. In these situations, the
apostrophe follows the 's' (eg: 'James' book'). Many writers make the mistake of adding a
second 's' after the apostrophe, but that is incorrect. This rule also applies when a number of
things collectively own another thing, eg: 'the dogs' ball' (where the ball belongs to more
than one dog). Where a plural noun doesn't end in an 's' (eg: 'children'), the old rule is
followed (eg: 'the children's ball.')

It is important to use apostrophes properly even though you may often encounter other
people using them incorrectly, sometimes in prominent places. The popular novel Bridget
Jones' Diary has been widely distributed as Bridget Jones's Diary, for example. Remember that
other people's failings are no excuse for your own.

Apostrophes are also used to indicate abbreviations. They show that some letters have been
left out to make a word shorter. Sometimes this occurs within a single word (eg: 'B'ham' as a
popular abbreviation for 'Birmingham'), but these uses are almost always slang, so you
should avoid them in your formal business communications. More often, an apostrophe
indicates that some letters are missing where two words have been squashed together into
one, eg: 'can't' as an abbreviated form of 'can not', or 'she'll' as an abbreviated form of 'she
will'. Although they are not strictly considered to be formal English, these forms are in
everyday use, and language which avoids them can often feel stilted. You should feel
comfortable about using words of this type in your business documents.

It should be noted that English, Scottish and Australian people often run the word 'have' into
other words using an apostrophe, eg: 'they've' for 'they have'. This is a standard pattern of
speech and writing in their countries and is not an affectation, even though some Americans
may be unfamiliar with it. It occasionally occurs where 'have' is being used to indicate the
past tense (eg: 'would've' for 'would have'), but this is not strictly formal usage.

The word 'whom' should always take either the accusative or the dative case in English
(otherwise it would be 'who'). Some writers use 'whom' a great deal to try and impress. It is
not simply a more sophisticated version of 'who'; it has a proper function, and should not
otherwise be used.

Personal Pronouns

The most active part of the case system remaining in modern English is in the use of personal
pronouns. These are the short words which we use to stand in for the full names of people
and things, eg: 'I', 'him', 'she' and 'it'. Most of us use these words so often that we get them
right without trying, but occasionally people fall into bad habits.

When listing a group of people who are doing something together, it is polite to put yourself
last, eg: "David, Peter and I are going to the meeting." People often choose the wrong
personal pronoun in this situation, eg: "David, Peter and me are going to the meeting."
Because going (to the meeting) is an active behavior, all of the people going are subjects in
the sentence and should therefore take the nominative case. 'Me' is an accusative and dative
form. In the opposite situation, you should not say "David gave these documents to Peter

217 | P a g e
and I." but, rather, "David gave these documents to Peter and me." because, in that case,
'Peter and me' are the (indirect) objects in the sentence.

In these situations, think about whether you are doing something or having something done
to you. It can be less confusing if you imagine what the sentence would be like without the
other person: eg: "David gave these documents to I." sounds obviously wrong.

Besides 'me', 'he', 'she', 'it', 'us' and 'them', there is another personal pronoun in English
which often causes confusion: 'one'. This can be a very useful pronoun, but if you're not sure
how to use it correctly, you can get by without it. As with 'whom', some people use it to try
and impress, but get it wrong, which makes a much worse impression than if they hadn't
tried.

Many people are familiar with 'one' as it is used by the British Royal Family, where it stands in
for
'I'. This is, strictly speaking, correct usage, but it is archaic and does not represent the way
that 'one' is used by most other people. More often 'one' is used to represent an unspecified
person who might be like any other person. Using 'one' can provide an alternative to using
passive voice constructions (which, in business letters, your grammar checker will probably
complain about). An example would be "One can turn off one's grammar checker." Many
people would use the popular alternative "You can turn off your grammar checker."
However, use of 'you' in this context, though it may sound less stilted, has slightly different
connotations. It can be useful to be able to distinguish between a specific 'you' and a more
general 'you' (as representative of anyone).

If you choose to use 'one' in a document, be consistent and keep using it wherever
appropriate. Don't change to 'you' halfway through. Many people produce ugly,
grammatically flawed writing by changing pronouns mid-sentence, but there's really no
reason why you should have to let that happen.

Use of 'he', 'she' and 'they' will be covered later, in the section on gender-neutral language.

Royal watchers may note that the British Queen uses the word 'we' where other people
would use 'I'. This is an obscure reference to the Queen as a representative of her country
(thus it implies the shared will of her subjects). It is traditionally used only by royalty, though
Margaret Thatcher once famously used it in her declaration "We are a grandmother." The
press considered Mrs. Thatcher's usage to be indicative of megalomania. Unless you are
royalty, using 'we' in this way is best avoided.

Why Grammar and Punctuation are Important

Using proper grammar and punctuation helps to make sentences easy to read and reduces
the chances of your writing being misunderstood. Without punctuation, it's often possible to
interpret a piece of written information in more than one way. For example, "Cheryl read the
book", without punctuation, could mean that Cheryl read the book in the past (properly
written as "Cheryl read the book.") or that Cheryl is being instructed to read the book now
("Cheryl, read the book.")

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Clauses and Sub-Clauses

Many people leave the education system without achieving a proper understanding of
punctuation. In this section, we look at punctuation marks and how they function. In order to
do this, we first need to take a look at the way sentences function. Sentences can be divided
into clauses, or units of information, as in the example below:-

"The letter is in the post."

The above sentence has just one clause, as it conveys just one piece of information.

The letter is in the post and should arrive on Thursday."

The above example has two clauses, because it contains two pieces of information which
could be delivered separately (as 'The letter is in the post.' and 'The letter should arrive on
Thursday.') The word 'and' is a conjunction, used to join these clauses together. Other
conjunctions you'll encounter frequently are 'but', 'although', 'with' and 'when'.

"The letter is in the post and should arrive on Thursday, in time for your meeting."

In this example, a further clause has been added to the sentence. It is separated from the rest
of the sentence by a comma. Commas are not needed next to words which act as
conjunctions, though sometimes they may be used there in order to make a sentence easier
to read. When we speak, we tend to pause slightly and catch our breath at the points where
commas would appear in writing.

Commas are also used to separate items in short lists, eg: "You may use blue, black, or red
ink." Many writers use too many commas. In most of your business writing, you will be using
comparatively short sentences; if a sentence contains more than three commas, it would be
wise for you to look at it again to see if all of them are necessary.

A semi-colon stands somewhere in between a comma and a period. It usually appears only in
literary or legalistic writing, where a number of clauses must be presented in one sentence to
demonstrate that they are closely connected. Semi-colons are also used when writing lists.
As we have seen, commas can separate items in short lists, but semi-colons are better suited
for longer lists, especially where other punctuation in used within one or more of the list
items, as in the example below:-

"We have these items in stock: jackets; waistcoats; shirts in white, gray or blue; and socks."

A semi-colon should never be used to introduce a list; this is the job of a colon, as seen in
the example above. A colon may also be used to introduce speech, eg: "My boss has a
favorite saying: 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be'".

Dashes and Parentheses

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Dashes are a popular but somewhat informal way to introduce and conclude asides within
speech, eg: "He says he missed the train - as he usually does - and that's why he was late."
They can be used to replace semi-colons in non-list situations, eg: "They only had blue ones
- I don't know when they'll be getting other colors in." You should avoid using dashes in your
more formal business letters.

Dashes are distinct from hyphens, although they look much the same. Hyphens are used in
some composite words (eg: 'go-between') and between some words which function to
produce a single meaning when they appear as a pair (eg: 'self-interested'). They are also
used to indicate when a long word has been broken up in order to make it fit between two
lines of text. You will not normally need to break words up like this when you are writing
using a word processor, but if you do it's important to remember that you should only ever
split a word between syllables (units of sound which can be pronounced separately).

Parentheses (brackets) provide a useful way to make asides and tangential remarks when you
don't want to use footnotes. Ideally, you should keep information in parentheses brief.
Footnotes are useful for longer asides, but you should bear in mind that people may not
always bother to read them. Information contained within parentheses may feature the full
range of punctuation marks, but it should be self contained. (It's possible to enclose an entire
sentence in parentheses, when it expresses something tangential to the rest of the paragraph
in which it is situated.)

If you end a phrase in parentheses with a period, question mark or exclamation mark, you
don't need to make the next word outside the parentheses the start of a new sentence. Any
punctuation which is part of the phrase within parentheses should also be enclosed by them,
so that, as we have seen above, an entire sentence in parentheses has its period (or other
closing mark) before the final bracket, not after it.

Parentheses can also be used when you want to include information without placing much
emphasis on it, eg: "I may be slightly late for the meeting (I have to collect my sister from the
train station)."

Nested parentheses are sometimes necessary when explaining complicated matters,

especially technical matters, but they should be avoided wherever possible.

Sometimes parentheses can be used to enclose a single letter. This is most often seen when
alternative versions of a word are possible depending on the context in which something is
read, eg: "I look forward to receiving your contribution(s)." This example allows for
circumstances in which there may be one contribution or many.

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Exclamation Marks and Question Marks

Exclamation marks are a tool for adding

emphasis to a sentence or indicating surprise,
as in "Look at our amazing offers!" However,
they have little place in formal writing. Whilst
you may find them useful in advertising, you
should try to avoid using them in your other
business communications. Using excessive
exclamation marks is like laughing at your own
jokes. It demands enthusiasm which the reader
may not share. In no circumstances should you
end a sentence with more than one
exclamation mark.

Late nineteenth and early twentieth century

English literature often makes use of
exclamation
marks and question marks which appear mid-sentence. Whilst you may encounter this in
your personal reading, it is not appropriate for use in modern business communications.

It might seem obvious to state that question marks should be used only when you are asking
a question, but the fact is that many people use them incorrectly. When we speak, we tend
to raise the pitch of our voices slightly at the end of a question. There are certain other
situations in which we also raise our pitch, and people habitually attach question marks to
sentences of this type when they write them down. Examples are:-

"Surely you don't believe him."

"Perhaps you'd like a cup of tea."

"I wonder if they've finished yet."

If you begin a sentence by raising a question, make sure to remember the question mark at
the end, even if other, non-questioning clauses intervene. For example:

"When do you want to meet, if you've got to be in the office all morning and I already have
appointments in the afternoon?"

Quotation Marks

You'll see quite a bit of variety in the use of quotation marks when you're reading. This is
partly because the rules for using quotation marks differ on either side of the Atlantic.

American English uses double quotation marks to indicate speech and single quotation
marks to indicate speech within speech (eg: "He said to me 'You're always late.'") In Britain,
these marks are traditionally used the other way round, though many British writers now

221 | P a g e
conform to the American standard. In most cases, either is appropriate, so long as you are
consistent.

Single quotation marks are always used to single out a particular word - you'll see many
examples of that in these lessons, when a word is being talked about rather than performing
its usual function in a sentence. Single quotation marks are also used around words whose
appropriateness in a particular situation is dubious, eg: "our 'beloved' leader" (as written by
somebody who doesn't think the leader in question is worthy of such a description). This is
slang usage, however, and is not usually appropriate for business writing.

When you are splitting up continued speech, you should use commas to indicate the pause,
eg: "'I don't think,' she said, 'that you should do that.'" However, where possible you should
try to avoid splitting speech in the middle of a clause. Where speech can be split into two
sentences, the prevailing standard is to end the first of those sentences with a comma rather
than a period (eg: "'I don't care,' he said, 'I'll do what I like.'") However, you will encounter
writing which adheres to a different standard and does not do this.

It is unlikely that you will need to make complicated use of quotations in your business
writing. Most businesses use direct quotations only in advertising (eg: "Mrs, Brown from
Surrey said 'What a wonderful diet! I lost twenty five pounds!'") Using a lot of quotations can
make your writing seem less formal. Furthermore, by making reference to other people all
the time it makes you seem less confident and gives the impression that you are taking less
personal responsibility for what you're saying.

Developing good grammar habits takes time and practice. Don't worry if you find it difficult
at first. Many experienced writers don't spot their grammatical errors until the proofreading
stage.

Paragraphs and Use of Space

Proper use of paragraphs enables people to skim through documents quickly to find
information of interest to them. It helps to break up information on a page and improve
overall appearance. It's an important way of organizing information.

There are no strict rules as to when you should finish a paragraph and start a new one. The
easiest way to approach it is this: each paragraph should contain information about a
particular idea. When you introduce a new idea, you can do so in a new paragraph. However,
you shouldn't carry over assumed information between paragraphs. For instance, if you are
talking about Steve in one paragraph you should use his name again the first time you
mention him in a later paragraph, rather than using the personal pronoun 'him' as shorthand.
Each paragraph should make sense if read in isolation.

In most business documents, it's best to keep sentences and paragraphs short. This will
enable you to deliver information clearly and efficiently.

In these lessons, paragraphs are distinguished from one another by the blank lines between
them. You'll often see this method used in modern business documents and in the press. It
makes it easier for you to present text symmetrically on a page, so that the page looks neat.
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If you want to give your documents a more traditional, literary appearance, you may prefer
to distinguish paragraphs by indenting the first line of each. You can do this on a computer
by using the tab key. Some writers like to use blank lines and indenting. Whichever method
you choose, it's important to be consistent.

Using plenty of blank space makes a document easier to read. Many readers find pages full
of dense text intimidating. They're more likely to read something if it's broken down into
manageable sections. Margins should be at least an inch wide. This not only improves the
appearance of the text, it provides somewhere for readers to make notes directly connected
to particular parts of the document. Space at the top and bottom of the document makes
your headers stand out and makes page numbering easier to follow.

Business documents should always be written on one side of paper only, even if they are
handwritten. Each page should be clearly numbered. This avoids confusion if the reader is
looking for a particular piece of information within a document that is several pages long. It
also enables the reader to lay out several pages face up on a desk when cross-referencing.

Other Methods of Writing

Despite the preponderance of computers in the modern workplace, some businesses still
prefer to produce documents using typewriters. This gives the impression of being slightly
old-fashioned and of having traditional values, which can be useful for some politicians,
lawyers, design companies and even publishers. For other businesses, it's important to come
across as modern and up to the minute, in which case using a typewriter is a bad idea.

In general, using a typewriter will reduce the speed at which you can produce documents. It
means that all your proof reading has to be done manually, and it makes error-correction
more difficult. It is still acceptable to use white-out (tippex) to cover mistakes, provided it is
done neatly, but excessive use of white-out (more than twice on a single page) creates a bad
impression. If you make a lot of errors, it's better to re-type the document.

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Use of hand-written documents should be kept to a minimum, as it is not considered to be
very professional in most circumstances. Writing by hand is suitable for memos and for
internal communication with colleagues and staff who clearly do not have difficulty reading
your handwriting. It may also be used to add a personal touch to outgoing material,
especially when gifts or compensatory packages are dispatched.

Although it can be tempting to make documents look more elegant by using an elaborate
handwriting style, this is usually a mistake, as it may make them difficult for people to read. A
simple style, neatly written, usually creates a better impression. Most of you will have learned
appropriate handwriting in school. If you want to make your handwriting look elegant, invest
in a good quality pen. Biros are perfectly adequate for internal memos, but do not convey a
good impression to clients and customers. Using a good quality pen is also advisable when
you are signing typed or printed documents.

Use of pencils should be avoided, because it looks overly casual and leaves your documents
more vulnerable to alteration and forgery. Unless you are a design company producing an
informal, deliberately quirky note, use of metallic pens should also be avoided. In most cases,
it is best to use blue or black ink.

When using words borrowed from French or other languages which use accents, you should
try to include the accent symbol if you can. Such words are sometimes used without accents
in their native languages, but only in highly informal writing. Accents should be ignored in
typewritten documents, if the appropriate special characters are not available - they should
never be drawn in by hand - but most word processors provide accented letter characters in
the 'special character' section within the 'insert' menu.

Foreign words and phrases which are frequently used in English - eg: 'genre', 'fiancée', 'ç'est
la vie', 'objet d'art', 'café', 'et cetera' - may be written using a standard typeface, but words
which are seldom or never used in English should be written in italics.

Access to special characters on your computer is also useful in other contexts. If you expect
to do any significant amount of writing by hand, it may be worth your while to practice
drawing them.

The ampersand ('&') is not used in formal writing, but is used in formal titles - many
businesses include it in their company names. When you have to write these names out
yourself, it's better to use the ampersand than to write out the word 'and' in full. If you must
use an abbreviated form of 'and' in writing, an ampersand is by far preferable to a plus sign
('+').

Percentage signs ('%') are acceptable in formal writing, but only when they follow after
numerals. If you write out numbers in full (eg: 'twenty' as opposed to '20'), you should also
write the word 'percent' rather than using the symbol.

The 'at' symbol ('@') is less common and is not an acceptable short form for use in anything
but the most casual writing. It is, however, appropriate for use in typed e-mail addresses.
Many word processors will automatically highlight e-mail addresses and website URLs by
presenting them in a different color. This can make printed documents look odd. Unless you
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wish such material to be highlighted so that it makes a special impact, be sure to turn this
function off when you are producing documents which are to be printed.

If you wish to note copyright status (your own or somebody else's), you should use the
symbol '©'. If you do not have access to this symbol, writing the word 'copyright' in full is
acceptable. Any such notice should be accompanied by the copyright holder's name
(whether individual or corporate) and by the date from which copyright commenced (usually
the date of first writing, design or publication). It should be noted that, in Britain, copyright
notices do not need to be written out in order for copyright law to apply; but in the USA,
copyright which is not explicitly stated may be lost.

Trade marks should be registered using the letters 't.m.', and registered trade marks using
the symbol '®'. It's important to remember to include these (where applicable) when you are
writing about other companies' products as well as when you are writing about your own.

It's important to use the proper symbols for currencies with which you are working - such as
'£', '$', '?' and ¥. Since the dollar symbol is used for the national currencies of several different
countries, you should remember, where there is any possibility of confusion, to add the
appropriate extra letters before the dollar sign, eg: US$ for US dollars or AU$ for Australian
dollars.

In most modern business communications, footnotes are referenced by number. This is made
easy by the footnote function in most word processing programs. If you wish to put across a
more traditional image, you should use an asterisk or 'star' ('*'). Asterisks should only be used
to reference footnotes which appear on the same page, and not for footnotes which appear
at the end of a multi-page document. A second such footnote may be referenced using the
crossed swords symbol, or, as is becoming more common these days, two asterisks together.

Italicization is used, as described above, to indicate foreign words with which the reader is
likely to be unfamiliar; it is also used to indicate emphasis. A single word can be italicized in
this manner (eg: "You should never do that!"), or a whole passage can be italicized. Putting a
whole passage in italics is rare, and should normally be reserved for important instructions
and abjurations. A single italicized paragraph on a page full of standard paragraphs can
make quite an impact.

Occasionally, italics are used to indicate that a piece of text is a quotation. Titles are often
written in italics rather than appearing in quotation marks or being underlined. Whichever
method you use, try to be consistent.

Another way to emphasize text is to use a bold typeface. Bold paragraphs stand out more
vividly on the page than italics do, and you should bear this in mind when designing a page
which will have a balanced appearance. Some business people like to use a short bold
paragraph to introduce a new idea at the top of a page following it up with standard
paragraphs.

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Activity 5

Why is grammar important in written documents?

Activity 5

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Review draft text to ensure document objectives are achieved and
requirements are met
Once documents have been drafted, they need to be reviewed to ensure that the objectives
and requirements of the document have been achieved. It is possible when creating a
document for a writer to become more interested in a particular area of a document, and in
doing so neglect other areas. This can cause the document to become unbalanced and not
achieve its original objectives. Alternatively, it is possible that a particular objective was
missed or misunderstood at the first reading of the requirement specification.

Once a document has been drafted, it should be read and compared to the original
objectives. In the case of your manual and report, it is important that the right information is
included, and any superfluous information, no matter how interesting it may seem, is
removed from the document. Your advertisement has to present information in a very brief
format and has to be accurate and concise.

The minutes have to convey the information originally intended by the author of the notes.
When expanding notes into full sentences and paragraphs, it is always possible to lose the
original intention of the author. If the original notes had been handwritten, as is often the
case with minutes, there is also the possibility of a particular word or phrase being unclear
and then being misread or misinterpreted.

In the process of reviewing a document, information that is missing may be noticed or there
may be information that requires further clarification. For example, there is a member's name
missing from the committees. You need to check whether this person is a current member of
the committee and if so, whether or not they attended the meeting.

When documents are sent to a reviewer electronically, it is possible to put notes into them
that will not be seen if the document is printed. The reviewer may also put suggested
changes into the document that the author can then accept or reject. All these and other
functions are available in Word through the use of the markup function.

You will now electronically comment on the minutes using Word's markup function. The
minutes would then be electronically sent to the original author's notes via email or a shared
directory. The author could then check that you have interpreted their content correctly.

When using markup, your document can be viewed in a number of different formats:

Original - this is a view of your document prior to the changes being made.

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Original Showing Markup - this view shows your original document with the changes
displayed.

Final - this is a view of your document incorporating all the changes.

Final Showing Markup - this is a final view of your document but with the changes displayed.

When entering your comments you will use the Original Showing Markup format, which will
display your comments. If Track Changes was selected, then any changes in your document
would also be displayed. You will use Track Changes later in this chapter.

The comments that you will put into your document in this next activity are intended for the
author of the draft minutes. When you enter comments or record changes in a document,
the reviewer's name or initials are also recorded. This information comes from the User
specified within Word. The first step when entering electronic comments is to check that the
name and initials are correct so that ongoing reviewers know who has made the comments.
This is particularly important when a number of reviewers make comments in the same
document

Check grammar, spelling and style for accuracy and punctuation

With any business documents that you produce, it is necessary to ensure that the grammar,
spelling and punctuation are accurate. Word can help when checking these issues in your
document, and you will go into this later in this section. However, it is important to manually
read through your documents very carefully and also where possible get someone else to
read through them too. It is very easy to miss simple errors that you yourself have made.

For example, the sentence 'Move to the second green underling' should read 'Move to the
second green underlining'. In this case, the sentence makes approximate sense and so Word
will not pick up the error. You may read such a sentence several times and simply read the
words as you expect them to be, not as they actually are. Missing your own typographical
errors is very common and it often requires someone else to read through your document to
pick up the mistakes.

Language setting
As mentioned earlier, Word can help both with spelling and with grammar and punctuation.
The first thing you must do of course is to make sure the language being used in your
document is correct. Many words are spelled differently in the United States and if your
language is set to English (United States) then some words will be spelled incorrectly for the
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English (Australia) language. As mentioned in Chapter 2, some functions in Word
automatically change the language to English (United States) even though you may have the
default language set as English (Australia). It is important, therefore, to make sure that the
whole of your document is set to English (Australia) before using the spelling and grammar
functions.

Proof reading
Check for accuracy – proofreading can save you and your organisation from embarrassment!
A slip up in an important document can affect your career. The report must be proofread, by
someone else if possible to correct any errors of spelling, grammar, or fact. A report without
errors is a credible report!

Proofing options
You have the facility within Word to set a number of different proofing options for your
document. You will have noticed when keying in text that often Word will automatically
change a word to the correct spelling. This is part of the settings in the AutoCorrect options.

Spelling
As mentioned before, the spell checker uses the dictionary of the language selected in the
document. Any words in your documents that are underlined in red have been marked as
having the incorrect spelling. You have three options when words are marked as being spelt
incorrectly.

The first option is to right-click the word and check the alternative spellings given by Word.
You can then click on one of these to replace your word with the correctly spelt word. The
second is to add the word to the custom dictionary by right-clicking and selecting Add to
dictionary from the shortcut menu. The third is simply to ignore the red underlining. You
may do this if the word is the name of a town or business that is correct, but you do not wish
to add it to your dictionary.

Grammar and punctuation

When Word finds text that it considers to be suspect in respect of grammar or punctuation,
the sentence or word is underlined in green or blue. Grammar and punctuation go together;
this is because it may be that the grammar is correct if the punctuation is fixed.

Sometimes Word may suggest that a whole sentence is changed around so that it reads in a
better way. It is possible, however, that the suggestion given under the Grammar option is
not correct.

For example. The Frankston report one of the statements is: 'The largest age group in Frankston
is the 25-54 age group'. In this case, Word believes that because the wording is 25-54 that

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there are a number of age groups and suggests the word group be changed to groups.
However, there is only one group and so the wording is correct. Microsoft Word also often
indicates when the passive tense of words are used and this will become apparent when you
read your minutes. The passive tense, however, may be the best option in a particular case.
Remember that Word can only suggest changes, and it is up to you to check whether you
should act on any suggestions given or ignore them.

Ensure draft text is approved by relevant enterprise personnel

It is important that the relevant personnel approve the documents you create. Sometimes it
is necessary to get approval while the document is in an early draft form or when only part of
a long document has been completed. Other times the document may be finished before it
is read and approved; for example, a letter that has been written may only require a final
proofing before it is sent out.

You have already put comments in three of your documents ready for them to be sent to the
relevant personnel. Your manual would also need approval from the relevant staff member.
This may be your supervisor or it may be someone in another department such as a training
department. Staff in the training department would be able to point out not only whether
the content is correct, but whether the document is set out in a format that will fit in with the
other documents of this type produced by the organisation.

If your documents are received back with suggested amendments, it may be necessary to
make the amendments and resubmit the document for approval a second time. If the
document is a complex one then this process may be repeated a number of times before the
document is finally approved.

Sometimes it is necessary to check the final document with an alternate staff member. For
example, the minutes you have written would need to be checked and approved by the
person chairing the meeting before they are sent out to other members. Therefore it is a
good idea to ensure your draft text is approved by relevant enterprise personnel.

Relevant enterprise personnel may include:

• Colleagues/staff in own work section/ team members

• Consultative committees
• Internal providers of specialist expertise
• Managers/leaders/coordinators/supervisors
• Owners
• Staff in relevant work sections

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Incorporate revisions in final copy
There are a number of issues to consider regarding comments made on a document. One is
whether the author agrees with the changes suggested and therefore will incorporate them.
A second issue is that if they are agreed, how the amendments are to be incorporated into
the document.

A third consideration is how to show the reviewer what changes have been made to the
document. It should not be necessary for the reviewer either to simply accept that changes
have been done as requested or to have to check the original document with the one
presented as amended.

With the use of Word's option to track changes, it is easy to see that all comments have been
reviewed and how and what changes have been incorporated into the document. You have
already looked at putting comments into your document. Now you will see how you can
track any changes made to your document and then accept or reject those changes. The
changes that are tracked in your document have the user name recorded against them.

Choose basic design elements for documents appropriate to audience

and purpose
Some design elements have already been incorporated into your documents. When initially
designing your documents you referred to their purpose and their intended audience. You
created templates for your documents and decided on fonts and text styles. Now in order to
finish your documents you need to incorporate further formatting, and graphics and charts
where required. The design elements now required in each of your documents are given
under the relevant document headings.

Design elements may include:

• Capitals and underlining

• Fonts
• Headings
• Illustrations, photographs and other illustrative material for design purposes
• Justification and alignment
• Lists and tables
• Logos, branding, organisational identity requirements
• Margins and paragraph indentation
• Page shape

• Page size
• Templates
• Use and amount of colour
• Use and amount of white space

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Use word processing software to apply basic design elements to text
Not long ago, trained specialists were required to perform many of the operations you can
now do with a computer. Secretaries used typewriters to create business correspondence.
Market analysts used calculators to project sales. Graphic artists created designs by hand.
Data processing clerks created electronic files to be stored on large computers.

Now you can do all these tasks—and many others—with a computer and the appropriate
application software.

Think of the computer as an electronic tool. You may not consider yourself very good at
typing, calculating, organizing, presenting, or managing information. A computer, however,
can help you to do all these things—and much more. All it takes is the right kinds of
software.

You are probably most familiar with the software available for sale in retail stores. You
purchase these programs, store them on your hard disk, and run them. An emerging trend,
however, is to use Web-based applications. These are programs you access from the Internet
and run on your computer.

Competent and knowledgeable end users need to understand the capabilities of basic
application software, which includes word processors, spreadsheets, database management
systems, and presentation programs. They need to know how to effectively use application
programs and how to share data between applications.

There are two kinds of software. System software works with end users, application software,
and computer hardware to handle the majority of technical details. Application software can
be described as end user software. It is used by end users to accomplish a variety of different
tasks.

Application software in turn can be divided into two categories. One category, basic
applications, is the focus of this chapter. These programs, also known as general-purpose
applications and productivity applications, are widely used in nearly every discipline and
occupation. They include word processors, spreadsheets, database management systems,
and presentation graphics.

The other category, specialized applications, also known as special purpose applications,
includes thousands of other programs that are more narrowly focused on specific disciplines
and occupations. Some of the best known are graphics programs, audio/video editors,
multimedia creation programs, Web authoring, and virtual reality programs.

COMMON FEATURES
A user interface is the portion of the application that you work with. Most applications use a
graphical user interface (GUI) that displays graphical elements called icons to represent

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familiar objects and a mouse. The mouse controls a pointer on the screen that is used to
select items such as icons. Another feature is the use of windows to display information.

A window is simply a rectangular area that can contain a document, program, or message.
(Do not confuse the term window with the various versions of Microsoft's Windows
operating systems, which are programs.)

More than one window can be opened and displayed on the computer screen at one time.
For example, one window might contain a graphics program, another spreadsheet program,
and yet another word processing program.

Word processors create text-based documents and are one of the most flexible and widely
used software tools. All types of people and organizations use word processors to create
memos, letters, and faxes. Organizations create newsletters, manuals, and brochures to
provide information to their customers.

Students and researchers use word processors to create reports. Word processors can even
be used to create personalized Web pages. The three most widely used word processing
programs are Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, and Lotus Word Pro.

Features
Word processors provide a variety of features to make entering, editing, and formatting
documents easy. One of the most basic features for entering text is word wrap. This feature
automatically moves the insertion point to the next line once the current line is full. As you
type, the words "wrap around" to the next line.

There are numerous features designed to support editing or modifying a document. One of
these is a Thesaurus which provides synonyms, antonyms, and related words for a selected
word or phrase. You can quickly locate and replace selected words using the find and replace
feature. Spelling and grammar checkers look for misspelled words and problems with
capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure. You can use the AutoCorrect feature to
automatically make corrections for you. Using AutoText, previously specified words or
phrases can be directly inserted into a document upon the user's request, or as the user
begins to enter the specified words or phrases, AutoComplete will complete the text and
enter it into the document at the user's request.

There are numerous features designed to improve the format or appearance of a document.
These features include:

• Font: Also known as a typeface, a font is a set of characters with a specific design.
Most word processors offer many different
• Font size: The height of a character is its font size. It is typically measured in points
with each point being approximately 1⁄72 inch
• Character effects: The appearance of characters can be enhanced using such
character effects as bold, italic, shadow, and colours
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 • Alignment Text can be aligned or positioned on a line. There are four basic types of
alignment: left, centre, right, and justified
• Bulleted and numbered lists: Presenting information in bulleted or numbered lists
makes the information easy to read. A sequence or list of topics can be presented as
a bulleted list. A sequence of steps or topics can be organized as a numbered list

Frequently more than one person is involved in creating a document. This is called
collaboration and many word processors include features to support this activity. One
feature is tracking changes in which changes to the original document are identified.

Check documents to ensure all requirements are met

All writing requires revision, and usually multiple revisions. To be thorough, go through three
steps:

Step One

Critically and objectively read the text, placing yourself in the reader’s position. Ask the
following questions:

• What am I trying to say?

• Have I said it?
• Is it clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time?

Step Two

Simplify style and make the text more readable and effective. Ask yourself:

• Could I put it more succinctly?

• Is every word necessary?
• What can be deleted without loss of meaning or emphasis?
• Can I replace jargon with plain words?
• Will readers understand the technical vocabulary used?
• Could I use stronger, action verbs?
• Do the passives clarify my meaning or would an active form be better?
• Can I turn negative structures into positive ones?
• Can I shorten and/or vary sentence length?
• Are the leads sharp enough?
• Are there too many lists breaking up and complicating the text?
• Could a table or graph be useful?
• Can I reduce cross-references?

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Step Three

Do a final reading for spelling and typographical consistency.

NOTE: Microsoft WordTM grammar and spell check function can provide “readability”
information. It tells you the average number of sentences per paragraph, the average
number of words per sentence and the percentage of passive sentences. Although this tool
will not ensure that you write any better than you already do, it can provide interesting
information.

Nothing, however, is a better test than to submit your document for comment to someone
outside your specific field of expertise.

It is very important that before you let your document be published or sent out, that you
check the document to ensure that all the requirements are met including use of knowledge
of enterprise style guide/house style.

Activity 6

Describe the three steps that should be followed when checking documents to ensure all
requirements are met in your own words?

Activity 6

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Activity 6

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ASSESSMENT
BSBWRT401 Write complex documents

Student Name
Student ID
Unit commenced (Date)
Unit Completed (Date)
I hereby certify that I have undertaken these
assessment tasks utilising my own work without
assistance from any other parties. I have not
knowingly plagiarised any work in completing
these assessment activities.

Student Signature

Knowledge Assessment (Written Tasks)

1. State 3 purposes of business documents.

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2. Business letters are always printed on what?

3. Appropriate formats for documents may include what?

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4. What are the basic principles of communication?

5. Describe the process you would use to plan documents.

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6. What steps should you take when drafting text?

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7. Briefly describe the steps you should take when preparing the final text.

8. What three step procedure would you use to produce a document?

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Assessment Outcome
Question Correct ( )
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Assessed by _________________________ Assessor Signature_______________ Date _________

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Skills Assessment (Practical Tasks)

ASSESSOR NOTE
These instructions must be followed when assessing the student in this unit. The checklist
on the following page is to be completed for each student. Please refer to separate
mapping
document for specific details relating to alignment of this task to the unit requirements.

This competency is to be assessed using standard and authorised work practices, safety
requirements and environmental constraints.
Assessment of essential underpinning knowledge will usually be conducted in an off-site
context. Assessment is to comply with relevant regulatory or Australian standards'
requirements.
Resource implications for assessment include:
• an induction procedure and requirement
• realistic tasks or simulated tasks covering the mandatory task requirements
• relevant specifications and work instructions
• tools and equipment appropriate to applying safe work practices
• support materials appropriate to activity
• workplace instructions relating to safe work practices and addressing hazards and
emergencies
• material safety data sheets
• research resources, including industry related systems information.

Reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities must be made to assessment processes
where required. This could include access to modified equipment and other physical
resources, and the provision of appropriate assessment support.

What happens if your result is ‘Not Yet Competent’ for one or more assessment tasks?

The assessment process is designed to answer the question “has the participant satisfactorily
demonstrated competence yet?” If the answer is “Not yet”, then we work with you to see how
we can get there.

In the case that one or more of your assessments has been marked ‘NYC’, your Trainer will
provide you with the necessary feedback and guidance, in order for you to resubmit/redo your
assessment task(s).

What if you disagree on the assessment outcome?

You can appeal against a decision made in regards to an assessment of your competency. An
appeal should only be made if you have been assessed as ‘Not Yet Competent’ against specific

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competency standards and you feel you have sufficient grounds to believe that you are entitled
to be assessed as competent.

You must be able to adequately demonstrate that you have the skills and experience to be
able to meet the requirements of the unit you are appealing against the assessment of.

You can request a form to make an appeal and submit it to your Trainer, the Course
Coordinator, or an Administration Officer. The RTO will examine the appeal and you will be
advised of the outcome within 14 days. Any additional information you wish to provide may
be attached to the form.

What if I believe I am already competent before training?

If you believe you already have the knowledge and skills to be able to demonstrate
competence in this unit, speak with your Trainer, as you may be able to apply for Recognition
of Prior Learning (RPL).

Credit Transfer
Credit transfer is recognition for study you have already completed. To receive Credit Transfer,
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Task 1 – Complex Documents 1

Part A

Recently your organization advertised the following position:

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 Sales Representative - Technical

• Specialist market leader assisting architects, builders, engineers and contractors....

• This company HAS THE REPUTATION for excellence
• Chance to move into expanding niche commercial field

This is an exceptional opportunity to join a fast growing company with absolute focus on
success.

Yes the market is competitive ..... but our client offers an extensive range of air distribution
equipment, perhaps the most extensive offered by any supplier in Australasia, consequently
you will be part of a winning team dedicated to maintaining their excellent reputation.

Having manufacturing facilities located throughout Australia and New Zealand, they have
new and innovative products continuously under development, together with state of the art
facilities of course, not to mention exceptionally well qualified staff, this is an organisation
you will be proud to represent.

The position will be based mainly within Melbourne metro and involve both account
management and new business development (though this is planned and will involve
following up referrals and enquiries).

You must have a mechanical / technical background with sales hvac would be an advantage
even if only minimal or through education. We are really seeking a person seeing this as a
long term career, with lots of energy and a real commitment to assisting in the growth of
new business. Product training provided. Offices located in Bayside Subs.

Package is negotiable. Please send resume in word format quoting r/n 2007941 to:

There were a number of Applicants and the position has now been filled.

(a) Write a letter to advise those who were not invited to an interview that the position
has now been filled and they were not successful in their application.
(b) Write a letter to advise those who were invited to an interview that the position has
now been filled and they were not successful in their application.
(c) Write a letter to the successful applicant advising them that they were successful in
gaining the position.

PART B

You receive a number of complaints as follows below. Write a response to each.

(a) “I was treated rudely by shop staff at The Bride Top Shop, on account of my weight.
When you are a bride, you are already very self-conscious about how you look and it

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 does not help to be judged by shop staff when you are seeking to buy a dress. The
staff wouldn't even let me browse through their stock, practically refusing to serve
me. The woman looked at me and said "there's nothing for you here". Part of the role
of shops is so customers can just see what is out there, and I was virtually thrown out.
It's bad enough that a larger bride is not accommodated by these companies, but
worse still when she is made to feel that she shouldn't even be a bride.”
(b) “Hot Air Airconditioning have yet to install a roof space air pump in an
airconditioning unit installed in December. After a saga to have the installation done
in the first place some two months later I have heard nothing from them. The
operator of the business does not appear to keep his word when he gives an
installation date. On three occassions a representative from the business made an
appointment for installation, only to not honour it. No explanation of apology was
forthcoming. The unit was finally installed (poorly) some two months behind
schedule”.
(c) “I was a loyal customer of Fast Cars R Us for 10 years, kept up with all the servicing,
and never complained about the $1000 service fee of Fast Cars R Us.Until one day my
car wouldnt start, rang the RAA, they could just be the battery, so I sent it in for a
service,stating that "it did not start", I drove away with a set of new bushes and $1200
bill, they said nothing was wrong with my car.The next morning my car wouldnt start
again,rang the RAA, and they said take it back to Fast Cars R Us. I rang them and they
gave me the rude attitude, thinking I had done something wrong, I rang the RAA
again and the towed me to an Auto Electritian, RAA said looks like Fast Cars R Us
Riped you,I agreed. The autoelctn said it was the starter motor, replaced it for me
$250 brand new,it was the cheapest bill I ever paid.Not happy with what happened to
me I wrote to Fast Cars R Us Manager, bearing in mind, all the cab fairs, time of work,
and no car, but still they hadnt fixed it, I was enraged. The Manager of Fast Cars R Us
wrote the most appauling letter to me, again sticking up for poor service and making
excuses for ot fixing my, and sent me $15 for cab fare. No wonder Fast Cars R Us is
going down in business.Also I have just sent my car for service, yes I do it every
6months, to another dealer, and they said I had no oil, and no coolant in my car, and
all the hoses are warped, my car could have blown up. I have been paying Fast Cars R
Us not to do anything, and I got so ripped off, I warn anyone else do not go to Fast
Cars R Us to buy a car of for servicing, youl be throwing your money away”.

Observation Checklist
Observation Criteria S NS
Determined the purposes of documents
Chose appropriate formats for documents
Established means of communication
Determined requirements of documents
Determined categories and logical sequences of data, information
and knowledge to achieve document objectives

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Developed overview of structure and content of documents
Reviewed and organised available data, information and knowledge
according to proposed structure and content
Ensured data, information and knowledge was aggregated,
interpreted and summarised to prepare text that satisfies document
purposes and objectives
Included graphics as appropriate
Identified gaps in required data and information, and collect
additional material from relevant enterprise personnel
Drafted text according to document requirements and genre
Used language appropriate to the audience
Reviewed draft text to ensure document objectives are achieved and
requirements are met
Checked grammar, spelling and style for accuracy and punctuation
Ensured draft text is approved by relevant enterprise personnel
Incorporated revisions in final copy
Chose basic design elements for documents appropriate to audience
and purpose
Used word processing software to apply basic design elements to
text
Checked documents to ensure all requirements are met

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Outcome
 Satisfactory  Unsatisfactory

Comments:

Date ______________________

Signed _____________________________ (Assessor)

Signed ______________________________(Student)

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Task 2 – Complex Documents 2
Part A

(a) Develop a Drugs and Alcohol Workplace Policy for a Victorian business operating a
Motor Vehicle Repair centre, Fast Cars R Us.
(b) Develop a method of communicating the new policy to all staff employed at Fast
Cars R Us.

Part B

Write a workplace procedure for safe manual handling.

The following references may be useful in this activity:

• http://www.safework.sa.gov.au/uploaded_files/mh_booklet.pdf
• http://www.smartmove.nsw.gov.au/default.aspx?id=17
• http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Workplace_safety_ma
nual _handling_injuries

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Observation Checklist
Observation Criteria S NS
Determined the purposes of documents
Chose appropriate formats for documents
Established means of communication
Determined requirements of documents
Determined categories and logical sequences of data, information
and knowledge to achieve document objectives
Developed overview of structure and content of documents
Reviewed and organised available data, information and knowledge
according to proposed structure and content
Ensured data, information and knowledge was aggregated,
interpreted and summarised to prepare text that satisfies document
purposes and objectives
Included graphics as appropriate
Identified gaps in required data and information, and collect
additional material from relevant enterprise personnel
Drafted text according to document requirements and genre
Used language appropriate to the audience
Reviewed draft text to ensure document objectives are achieved and
requirements are met
Checked grammar, spelling and style for accuracy and punctuation
Ensured draft text is approved by relevant enterprise personnel
Incorporated revisions in final copy
Chose basic design elements for documents appropriate to audience
and purpose
Used word processing software to apply basic design elements to
text
Checked documents to ensure all requirements are met

Outcome
 Satisfactory  Unsatisfactory

Comments:

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Date ______________________

Signed _____________________________ (Assessor)

Signed ______________________________(Student)

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BSBWRT401 Write complex documents

Assessment Outcome Record

In order to be deemed competent in this unit, the candidate must answer all written
questions correctly and satisfactorily complete all practical tasks. In order to complete all
practical tasks, all Observation Criteria need to be satisfied, i.e. demonstrated and marked as
an 'S'. The task summary outcome must be noted as satisfactory to note the demonstration
of a satisfactory outcome for each practical task requirement.

Student Name

 Not Yet  Competent

Competent

Comments

Assessor (Name)

Assessor Signature

Date

Student Feedback Form

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Unit BSBWRT401 Write complex documents
Student Name: Date
Assessor Name:
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I received information about the assessment

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requirements prior to undertaking the tasks

The assessment instructions were clear and easy to

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understand

I understood the purpose of the assessment 1 2 3 4 5

The assessment meet your expectation 1 2 3 4 5

My Assessor was organised and well prepared 1 2 3 4 5

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The assessment was an accurate reflection of the

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unit requirements
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assessment

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Please return this completed form to Reception once you have completed this unit of
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