Business Writing For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 2

Planning Your Message Every Time

IN THIS CHAPTER

Strategizing for success before you write

Understanding your goal and audience

Making people care about your message

Writing with the correct tone and degree of formality

Using writing opportunities to build relationships

Think for a minute about how you approached a recent writing task. If it was an email message, how much time did you spend considering what to write? A few minutes? Seconds? Or did you just hit the keyboard?

Now bring a more complex document to mind: a challenging letter, proposal, report, marketing piece, blog post or anything else. Did you put some time into thinking about and shaping your message before you began writing, or did you just plunge in?

This chapter demonstrates the power of taking time before you write to consider whom you’re writing to, what you truly hope to achieve and how you can generate the right content.

Adopting the Plan-Draft-Edit Principle

Here is the most important piece of advice ...