ENC Professional Writing Midterm Reflection

1. ENC PROFESSIONAL
WRITING: MIDTERM
REFLECTION

2. FIVE C’S
Clear- A clear argument, memo, informative letter, or question is the first
and possibly most important step
Concise- The information needs to be as short as possible. A document
can still be clear and many times more clear than a wordy drawn out one.
Complete- With missing information the reader may not know what steps to
take next or even know what you are talking about.
Correct- Must have correct grammar and punctuation. Format is another
aspect of the five C’s that gets left out in inter-office communications
many times.
Courteous- In the business world much of the time courtesy is lost. This can
be due to time a time crunch or not knowing the person you are writing to.

3. GENERAL WRITING
- Avoiding generalizations is something to look out for. The person to
which you are writing may not know what you are talking about, this
includes jargon. Don’t assume the person reading emails or memos is a
doctor even though you are contacting a doctors office.
- Organization is important to develop ideas and explain them effectively
through out the text.
- State a problem or the reason you are writing as soon as possible and
don’t tell the reader something they already know

4. CORRESPONDENCE
- Always state the issue as soon as possible
- Be courteous in who you address
- Leave the jargon out of the correspondence for ease of reader and
other people possible relaying the message.
- Keep the length to a minimum, it needs to be clear but all types of
unneeded information is of no use.

5. CORRESPONDENCE
- Appearance and format are important in making sure the reader knows
it is a professional letter.
- When writing to different countries or areas of a country keep in mind
culture.
- Tone is extremely important in writing to a business partner or colleague.

6. CLARITY AND STYLE
- Abstract words generally promote an idea or properties of something
intangible
- Concrete words are generally people, places, or things. These are better
to use than abstract words to avoid confusion and differences in the
message being conveyed.
- Affectation is using language that is proper or showy and can be hard
work for the reader to understand the message.
- Cliches have been used and worn out and also many times fit into the
affectation category.

7. CONCISE
- Any writing needs to be concise.
- With concise writing you eliminate all of the wordy explanations and
redundance of many simple sentences.
- It is easy to write a concise memo with all of the information needed to
a coworker without having to go into a three page explanation about
the situation.
- With revision you can easily curtail the run on sentences and make
certain sentences roll off the tongue a little bit easier for the reader.

8. WORD CHOICE
- Most words have many meanings, some mean the same thing and are
just synonyms and others have completely different meanings.
- One thing to keep in mind when writing is if a word has a meaning that
can misconstrue the information a different word needs to be used.
- Many times this will change sentence structure due to the words tense.

9. VISUALS
- Graphs
- pie charts
- bar graphs
- line graphs
- flow charts
- tables
- All of these are good to use if there is a visual you want to bring to your
readers attention

10. LAYOUT
- The text needs to be easy to read and not crammed into a small space.
- Things such as background, text color, text size, and pictures can all
impede the ability of the reader.
- Headings, bullet points, numbers, and page breaks are all good to use
to keep the organization in a document.
- The arrangement of the text can be a big help in following the writer.

11. LEARNING
- I have learned the correct way to write a memo. The few times I have
had to write one for work it has been extremely unprofessional, incorrect
format, and far from concise. I learned it through all of the memo type
assignments we have been given over the course of the semester so far.
This will be important in any career that I have at any part in my life.

12. SOURCES
The Business Writer's Companion
Gerald J.Alred - Charles T.Brusaw - Walter E.Oliu - Bedford/St. Martin's - 2005