Unit -3 : Written Communication

Meaning of Written Communication:

A ‘Written Communication’ means the sending of messages, orders or instructions in writing through letters, circulars, manuals, reports, telegrams, office memos, bulletins, etc.

It is a formal method of communication and is less flexible. A written document preserved properly becomes a permanent record for future reference.

It can also be used as legal evidence. It is time-consuming, costly and unsuitable for confidential and emergent communication.

Purpose of writting

1. It is suitable for long distance communication and repetitive standing orders.

2. It creates permanent record of evidence. It can be used for future reference.

3. It gives the receiver sufficient time to think, act and react.

4. It can be used as legal document.

5. It can be sent to many persons at a time.

6. It is suitable for sending statistical data, chart, diagram, pictures, etc.

7. Order, allocation of work, job distribution, etc. in written form reduce ambiguity and help in fixation of responsibility.

8. Uniformity in work procedure can be maintained through written communication.

9. It is easy to send unpleasant or bad news through written communication.

10. A good written communication can create goodwill and promote business.

Clarity in writting

Know what you want to say.

Clarity goes beyond a few writing tweaks. 

It’s a whole new way of thinking. And it forces you to think about what you’re writing before you start spilling words onto the page.

Before you write a word, you should know the following:

  • Your subject. For example, this blog post is about clear writing.
  • Your point. My point in this article is to explain how to write with clarity.
  • Your outline. An outline is the basic structure of an article.

Know who you’re talking to.

Knowing your audience is an important feature of good writing. The better you know your audience, the more clearly you can communicate to them.

Let me improve on this idea. Think of your audience as a five-year-old child. 

To communicate with them effectively, write the way you would talk to a five-year-old. It won’t offend them or insult their intelligence. Instead, it will allow them to process your message easily.

Obviously, when explaining advanced topics, you will need to use bigger words and advanced concepts. For this reason, you should know what topics and concepts your audience is familiar with, and discuss such topics. 

) Define unfamiliar words.

One simple technique to make your writing clear is to explain your terms.

At the beginning of this article, I defined clarity. If I had just assumed you knew the definition, the article could have been confusing. Instead, I explained it.

If you’re going to write an article that focuses on a particular subject or concept, then be sure to explain that subject or concept. That way, readers know exactly what you’re talking about.

4) Create a sentence outline.

What is a sentence outline? 

A sentence outline is an outline of your article using complete sentences. When your outline consists of phrases or single words, it’s not clear or helpful.

Writing full sentences forces you to think through what you’re saying. Plus, full sentences help the user understand what each point is about.

5) Write one-sentence paragraphs.

One thing that I’ve tried in my writing, especially on my own blog, is creating one-sentence paragraphs

Make your sentences short.

Short sentences are easier to understand. If you try to pack a lot of words into a sentence, you lose clarity.

Don’t use long words.

Long words impact clarity. 

To impress people? To flaunt your knowledge? To most ordinary people, these words mean nothing.

Drop big words from your writing, and your clarity skyrockets.

8) Leverage writing tools.

Over the years I’ve come across a couple tools that make it easier for me to write clearly: Hemingway Editor and Grammarly. 

The hemingway app is designed to make your writing clear. 

Here are the benefits:

  • The Hemingway Editor cuts the dead weight from your writing by highlighting wordy sentences in yellow and more egregious ones in red.
  • Hemingway helps you write with power and clarity by highlighting adverbs, passive voice, and dull, complicated words.

10 Principles Of Effective Writing

1. Brevity

It is bad manners to waste [the reader’s] time. Therefore brevity first, then, clarety

2. Clarity

It is bad manners to give [readers] needless trouble. Therefore clarity… . And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them.

3. Communication

The social purpose of language is communication—to inform, misinform, or otherwise influence our fellows… . Communication [is] more difficult than we may think. We are all serving life sentences of solitary confinement within our bodies; like prisoners, we have, as it were, to tap in awkward code to our fellow men in their neighbouring cells… .

In some modern literature there has appeared a tendency to replace communication by a private maundering to oneself which shall inspire one’s audience to maunder privately to themselves—rather as if the author handed round a box of drugged cigarettes.

4. Emphasis

Just as the art of war largely consists of deploying the strongest forces at the most important points, so the art of writing depends a good deal on putting the strongest words in the most important places… .

One of the most important things, to my mind, in English style is word-order. For us, the most emphatic place in a clause or sentence is the end. This is the climex and, during the momentary pause that follows, that last word continues, as it were, to reverberate in the reader’s mind. It has, in fact, the last word.

5. Honesty

As the police put it, anything you say may be used as evidence against you. If handwriting reveals character, writing reveals it still more. You cannot fool all your judges all the time… .

Most style is not honest enough. Easy to say, but hard to practice. A writer may take to long words, as young men to beards—to impress. But long words, like long beards, are often the badge of charlatans. Or a writer may cultivate the obscure, to seem profound. But even carefully muddied puddles are soon fathomed. Or he may cultivate eccentricity, to seem original.

But really original people do not have to think about being original—they can no more help it than they can help breathing. They do not need to dye their hair green.

6. Passion and Control

This, indeed, is one of the eternal paradoxes of both life and literature—that without passion little gets done; yet, without control of that passion, its effects are largely ill or null.

7. Reading

One learns to write by reading good books, as one learns to talk by hearing good talkers.

8. Revision

Every author’s fairy godmother should provide him not only with a pen but also with a blue pencil.

9. Sophistication and Simplicity

My point is merely that the sophisticated (ready though they may be to suppose so) do not necessarily express themselves better than the simple—in fact, may often have much to learn from them.

10. Sound and Rhythm

Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.

Writing Techniques

  • Persuasion: The technique of persuasion is employed in writing to do and alter the reader’s purpose of read on a specific subject or topic. During this writing technique the author presents during a compelling format facts and opinions so as to persuade the reader. Persuasive writing is most typically found in editorials, newspapers, magazines and political publications.
  • Description: an outline may be a easy nonetheless important writing technique. You’ll most often realize descriptions in magazines, books, newspapers and lots of alternative kinds of writing. The aim of a description is to assist the read use the senses of seeing, hearing, felling and smelling to expertise what the author experiences. Descriptions facilitate the reader to grasp things concerning that the author is writing.                                                      Image Source: wikimedia.org
  • Comparison and Contrast: the aim of the writing technique is to indicate the reader the similarities and variations a few one thing. Comparison is employed to indicate or justify however what’s alike or common. Contract is employed to indicate what’s completely different. Once asked to check and distinction the warfare with warfare II, the author would show the similarities and variations between these 2 wars.
  • Exposition: the aim of exposition is to tell, explain, explain, expound or clarify the writer’s concepts and thoughts. Whereas like descriptive writing, exposition provides the reader larger detail and depth of understanding concerning the writer’s thoughts and ideas. Expositions are most ordinarily found in newspapers, magazines and books.
  • Narration: The narration technique for writing is employed once telling a story. The weather of a story embraces the setting, time, downside and backbone to the matter, a main character and sometimes supporting characters. a unique is an example of an extended story and a children’s book would be an example of story. Moving-picture show and play scripts we have a tendency to conjointly samples of narrations.

Employing the right wringing technique that helps you accomplish your purpose can modify you to speak more practical and become a decent author. So, you ought to learn the higher than mentioned techniques of writing.

Electronic writing process

Electronic communication (or e-communication) puts new demands on language that prompts fascinating varieties in composed language utilize.

The language of email, chats, Web-based discourses and SMS messages is set apart by highlights of both casual speech and formal written work, a large group of content based symbols and acronyms for overseeing social cooperation, and changes in spelling norms.

What’s more, the electronic medium (e-medium) gives another set to the composition procedure. These wonders have incited research about on whether students’ successive engagement with electronic composition (e-composing) has suggestions for composing and writing a guideline.