Effective Writing. Elizabeth Manning Murphy

       12.1 Activities

       12.2 Explanations and suggested solutions

       Part C – Creating effective documents

       13 Principles of effective writing and document design

       13.1 Effective writing

       13.1.1 Topic

       13.1.2 Purpose

       13.1.3 Context

       13.1.4 Audience

       13.1.5 Language

       13.2 Design

       13.2.1 White space

       13.2.2 Typefaces, sizes and styles

       13.2.3 Capitals

       13.2.4 Signposts

       13.2.5 Tables, diagrams, graphics

       13.2.6 Forms

       14 Writing documents

       14.1 Writing correspondence

       14.1.1 Notes and messages

       14.1.2 Writing emails

       14.1.3 Letters

       14.2 Writing for special purposes

       14.2.1 Minutes of a meeting

       14.2.2 Submissions

       14.2.3 Presentations

       14.2.4 Speeches

       14.3 Writing for the public

       14.3.1 Webpages

       14.3.2 Media releases and articles for newspapers

       14.3.3 Public information pamphlets or leaflets

       14.4 Writing job applications

       15 Report writing

       15.1 Short reports

       15.2 Structuring a report

       15.3 Long reports

       15.3.1 Layout of formal reports

       15.3.2 Transmittal document for formal reports

       16 Writing plans

       Tailpiece

       Index

       About the authors

       Publishing information

      1 Introduction

      The purpose of writing is to communicate – at least two people are involved: a writer and a reader. The writer’s aim is to get a message across to a reader with as little effort on the reader’s part as possible. The best way to write effectively is to use correct, plain English. This means having a firm grasp of grammar, spelling and punctuation; and it means using words and structures that you are comfortable with because you use them every day in speech. Writing is an art. Very few people are born writers – we all have to learn how to do it effectively. The good news is that you can learn, and it’s never too late.

      This book is about plain English – it is about writing working documents effectively, whether you are in an office job or working from home, and whether you compose documents on a computer or a smart phone. By ‘working documents’ I mean those documents that have to do a job for you, such as minutes, emails, letters, webpages and reports. It is not about abbreviated messages such as SMS, Tweets and so on which have limited use in business and are not part of a business’s records. Nor is it a cookbook of formulas for writing documents. Rather, it is a guide to putting together sentences and paragraphs so that they will be as plain as possible. You can then apply what you learn to any documents you have to write – pamphlets, forms, speeches and reports, as well as emails, presentations, essays, theses, articles and even stories – and be sure that you are getting your message across.

      1.1 How to use this book

      If you are using this book to teach yourself, you may find you need to consult a full grammar text to follow up some points. Alternatively, you could consult my Working words (available from the Canberra Society of Editors <http://www.editorscanberra.org>), or your own organisation’s style manual for particular style variations. This book is written in Australian English style. There may be a few variations to this style where you live and work, but they should be minor. If you are using the book as a course workbook, your instructor may skip some bits and give extra activities in other places, depending on the level you have reached. But whichever way you are working, there are many activities for you to practise on. You (or your instructor) can pick and choose the activities that will be most helpful to you. For example, if you find you are having difficulty with one point of grammar or style in your writing, you may choose to do all the activities on that point instead of just a few. However, as the book proceeds logically from the smallest units of writing (words) to the largest (whole documents), it is best to work through it in the order in which it is arranged.

      The structure of most of the sections is:

      text + examples → activities + solutions

      Solutions, when applicable, appear immediately after activities. First try