Electronic mail (e-mail) is a predominant means of communicating information in technical environments. It offers many advantages including convenience, accessibility, and ease of global communication. Although e-mail messages are an acceptable form of documentation in many instances, some situations require a more formal form of communication: letters. Letters, which provide a permanent record, are considered an easily recognizable type of correspondence. We'll examine letters, memos, and e-mail messages in this module.
In this module, we will also discuss employment-related documents. For example, when you seek a new position, you must submit a summary of your experience and skills, a résumé. It must convince prospective employers to interview you. In today's rapidly changing work environment, you need to have an up-to-date résumé ready for possible opportunities.
To introduce your résumé to a prospective employer, you need an application letter to highlight your skills and qualifications. Afterwards, you should send a follow-up or thank-you letter, to reinforce your interest. We'll examine both types of documents.
After completing this module, you should be able to:
write letters and memos for a variety of audiences
write effective e-mail messages using appropriate etiquette
identify the standard elements of a letter, some supplemental ones, and some appropriate conventions for writing letters
prepare business correspondence aimed at explaining or resolving an issue or problem
develop an effective résumé tailored to your skills, career goals, and job search
write an application letter summarizing your experience and showing how your qualifications match position requirements
write a follow-up or thank-you letter after an interview
In technical environments, correspondence—letters and memos—are used to communicate information that must be recorded. For this correspondence to be effective, it must communicate the information clearly, specifically, accurately, and completely so all readers understand the topic and can provide the information to others.
For example, suppose Wanda, an analyst, sends an e-mail message to all accounting department supervisors describing a new report that must be developed for the accounting system. In her description, Wanda doesn't mention how often this report will have to be generated. After two of the supervisors read Wanda's message, they reply asking about the frequency of report generation. Wanda must then send out a second message with this missing piece of information. From this example, you can easily see the need for accurate, complete, and specific information in correspondence.
Correspondence also projects an image of you and your organization to your readers. Your goal is to maintain a professional, positive impression with your audience.
When planning your correspondence, analyze your audience and identify your purpose as you do in other types of technical writing. Doing so enables you to approach your correspondence from your reader’s viewpoint and to tailor it accordingly. This approach is also known as the you-attitude or you-perspective. Using active voice and the second person you helps you to focus on your readers.
To illustrate how the concepts of audience and purpose can shape your letter or memo, let's consider one characteristic of correspondence, tone. If you write a letter to a long-time client explaining a special promotion, the tone of your letter would be direct, yet conversational and courteous, because you have an established relationship with this client. On the other hand, if you write a letter explaining a special company promotion to prospective clients, the tone of your letter would be direct and formal because you do not know these clients and are interested in soliciting business from them.
Besides tone, effective correspondence possesses other common characteristics, including clear, precise, simple, direct, and positive language and an accessible presentation. Using such language will help you achieve the appropriate tone. Your presentation should direct readers to the information quickly and easily. Chunking your information and emphasizing important material will enhance your presentation. Chapter 15 of Markel and unit 8 of the course guide describe these common characteristics in greater detail.
Your audience and purpose also influence how you organize your ideas. In some situations, you may arrange your information to state the purpose at the beginning. This method of organization is a direct approach. You may use it for correspondence that conveys a positive message or is directed to a favorable or neutral audience. In other situations, you may arrange your information to build up to the purpose. This method of organization is an indirect approach. You might use it when presenting a negative message or persuading readers. Chapter 15 of Markel and unit 8 of the course guide more fully discuss organizing correspondence.
Sometimes, you may need to decide what type of correspondence to use. The type you select depends on such factors as your audience, situation, and organizational culture. For instance, letters are generally directed to readers outside and memos to readers within an organization. Let's now focus our discussion on some of the different types of correspondence.
Letters are a formal, permanent type of correspondence that are written for a variety of situations, such as inquiries, sales, claims, and adjustments.
Inquiry letters request information about a topic. Your goal is to convince the recipient to supply the requested information.
Sales letters persuade potential customers to read your document to learn more about your products or services.
Claim letters describe an issue or problem with a product or service for which you want some type of adjustment or compensation. Your goal is to describe the issue and request an adjustment objectively, clearly, and honestly. To achieve this goal, maintain a positive tone and use direct, specific phrasing.
Adjustment letters provide a response, an approval or a denial, to a request for an adjustment. Your response should be objective and stated in a positive, courteous tone.
Chapter 15 of Markel and unit 8 of the course guide present more information about the various types of business letters.
Letters should have standard formats and conventions that convey a professional impression, and easy recognition for headers. Two commonly used formats are the modified block and full block. Markel's chapter 15 presents diagrams of the layout and spacing for each format.
Letters contain several standard elements: the heading, inside address, salutation, body, complimentary closing, and signature. Other elements sometimes used in letters are the attention line, subject line, enclosure line, and copy line. Markel's chapter 15 and unit 8 of the course guide discuss these elements in more detail. Pay particular attention to the punctuation used in a letter, specifically the colon in the salutation and the comma in the complimentary closing. We care about punctuation because when it's incorrect, it distracts some readers, may inhibit their ability to process the real message, and may suggest your inattention to detail.
Memos are the most common form of written communication in organizations. They're distributed either in hard copy or electronically by e-mail. Like letters, memos have a recognizable format and conventions. They possess the same characteristics as letters and use similar organizational strategies. As with letters, your audience and purpose influence how you present and arrange your information in a memo.
The standard format of a memo contains the headings To, From, Subject, and Date. Hard-copy memos are often typed on preprinted forms. These headings are usually included as part of e-mail screens.
Unit 8 of the course guide provides more information about memos.
E-mail is one of the predominant means of communicating within business and industry today. It offers several advantages, including convenience, accessibility, unobtrusiveness, ease of storage and retrieval, distribution lists, and attachment capabilities. Its disadvantages are that some people do not read their messages regularly, some cannot read attachments because of software incompatibility, and sometimes computer systems handling e-mail fail.
E-mail messages, like letters, communicate information about situations for which a permanent record is needed. They also project an image of yourself and your organization to readers. To maintain a professional, businesslike image, use a courteous tone with an appropriate degree of formality. Don't use the excuse that e-mail is electronic as a reason for discarding writing conventions.
Writing effective e-mail messages is similar to writing other forms of correspondence. Use clear, precise, direct language and present your information so it's easy to navigate. Apply the same methods of arranging information used for organizing letters and memos. Take time to review your message for content, organization, style, and mechanics before sending it. Make sure it's complete, accurate, clear, and positive.
Unit 8 of the course guide presents information about electronic mail, as does Markel's chapter 15.
Throughout your career, you'll periodically review where you are professionally and explore new opportunities to grow and develop your talents and skills. Well-written résumés, application letters, and interview follow-up letters will open up those opportunities for you. Chapter 16 of Markel and unit 13 of the course guide describe some ways of learning about job openings and suggest some resources for gathering more information about organizations.
After identifying some potential job opportunities, you need to develop some documents that inform prospective employers about you and persuade them to talk with you further. A résumé summarizes your experience and skills with a goal of convincing readers to interview you. To apply for different types of jobs, including various types of technical writing positions, it's often a good idea to create not only a generic résumé, but several versions of it tailored for specific positions.
As with other technical writing, preparing a résumé involves the following steps:
analyzing your audience
identifying your purpose
planning the content
organizing the content
developing an effective design
revising, tailoring, and producing your résumé
Identify the audience for your résumé and determine its needs before planning and organizing the résumé itself. Your audience may include human resources staff, technical recruiters, managers and their colleagues in the hiring department, and other employees or clients you may work with. Each group is interested in a different facet of your experience, talents, and characteristics. Unit 13 of the course guide offers more details on how to analyze your audience and its information needs.
The primary purpose of a résumé is to persuade prospective employers to offer you a job interview, not a job. Good résumés increase the possibility of an interview. They inform readers quickly and easily about yourself. In addition, they can help you monitor your career growth and development. For more information about identifying your purpose, see the "Identifying the Purpose" section of the course guide.
After initially creating your résumé, review and update it periodically to ensure that it contains current information. Add new information, such as recent accomplishments, training, and professional activities. Remove outdated or no longer relevant items. An updated résumé is valuable when unexpected opportunities arise or someone requests one. If you already have a résumé, when did you last update it? Many people wait until a crisis before such updating, but crises are not the optimal times to do so.
Once you've defined your audience's needs and your purpose, you can plan the content and organization of your résumé. To help you determine the information to include, perform a self-assessment to gather information about your goals, accomplishments, interests, education, skills, and experience. The "Planning the Job Search" section of Markel's chapter 16 provides questions to help you with this assessment. The "Planning the Content" section in unit 13 of the course guide identifies areas for you to consider. Examine the results of your self-assessment to determine your strengths and weaknesses. Use this information to plan and develop a résumé that projects a positive, accurate view of yourself to your readers.
What information should you include in a résumé? Your name, address, telephone number, education, and work experience are essential items. Place your name, address, and telephone number at the top of the résumé where readers can quickly find them. Then determine the order in which you will present your education and work experience.
What will you present first? The order depends on what you want to highlight and what will impress your readers more. Present the more important information first to grab your readers' attention immediately. Remember, your résumé is your marketing piece, not merely a summary of your experience.
When describing your education, focus on the information that projects your educational qualifications most effectively. At a minimum, include your degree, institution, location, and date of graduation or anticipated graduation. There may, however, be times when you wouldn't want to include your date of graduation if you felt it might be detrimental. An example might be if this date indicates that you are an older worker and fear discrimination on that basis. In addition to formal education, you can list other education and training such as military training, technical training, professional development training, and additional relevant course work beyond your degree or outside your major.
When describing your work experience, you generally include the following information: position title, organization and location, dates of employment, and summary of duties and responsibilities, focusing on how they benefited the organization. Finally, you would describe your special projects and achievements. As you write your position descriptions, use simple, direct phrasing and active, precise, dynamic verbs that project an image of performing your duties and getting involved in activities. In addition, emphasize the results, benefits, and achievements of your activities.
Optional elements in a résumé include your e-mail address, the foreign languages you speak, your military status, your security clearances, and your professional affiliations, honors and awards, and volunteer activities.
Markel's chapter 16 and unit 13 of the course guide present more information about what to include in résumés, résumé style, and examples of education and work experience.
After developing your content, you must determine how to organize it. The following are some of the ways to arrange the information in résumés:
chronological–information arranged by date, usually beginning with recent items and continuing in reverse chronological order
functional–information presented by job titles, job skills, or qualifications to focus on the type of work you've performed
organizational–emphasis is on organizations or types of businesses you've worked for rather than your work history or skills
analytical–information arranged chronologically but includes a skills section to highlight your specific job skills and experience
combination–information arranged by using features from some as all these formats
Chapter 16 of Markel discusses the chronological and analytical résumé formats in greater detail. Unit 13 of the course guide describes chronological, functional, organizational, and combination résumés more fully.
The design of your résumé must get your readers' attention quickly and make a strong positive impression. Those who review résumés spend about 10 seconds deciding which ones go forward! You can apply many of the design concepts discussed in module 3 to the design of your résumé. Some suggestions for effective design include using
plenty of white space
a readable type font
typography attributes such as bolding and underlining to highlight information
methods such as lists, headings, and small chunks of information to improve readability
Once you complete a draft of your résumé, revise, edit, and proofread it to ensure that it's clear, concise, and error free. Ask someone else to review it also. Produce your résumé on a computer with a high-quality laser printer.
Then consider how to produce and distribute it. Résumés can be distributed as hard copies or in electronic format. You can create electronic résumés in several formats, including ASCII, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Portable Document Format (PDF), or multimedia. When using an HTML format, it's a good idea to insert keywords in strategic places to ensure that search engines will catalog your résumé correctly. Many people are taking advantage of the Web to present their résumés and project samples at their personal Web sites.
The "Writing Electronic Résumés" section in Markel's chapter 16 and "Preparing Résumés" section of unit 13 of the course guide provide more information about electronic résumés.
The application letter is another tool to persuade prospective employers to select you for a job interview. It introduces your résumé and specifies how your skills and experience match the position requirements. This letter emphasizes your experience and skills that relate to the requirements.
The application letter is generally one page long, consisting of opening and closing paragraphs with one or two paragraphs describing your qualifications. In the opening, indicate the position you're applying for, how you learned about it, why you are the person for the job, and what is discussed in the rest of the letter. You really want to capture your readers' interest here. The body expands on your experience, skills, education, and so on and relates them to the job requirements. In the closing, you must urge your readers to action: to offer an interview. Request an interview positively, yet formally.
The application letter has the same style, conventions, and format as described for business letters. Address the letter to a specific person in the organization. If you don't know the name and title of the appropriate person, contact the organization to find out. Because your résumé is included, make sure the enclosure notation appears at the end of the letter.
Markel's chapter 16 and unit 13 of the course guide describe the content and organization of the application letter in greater detail and present several effective examples.
Follow-up, or thank-you, letters are written after interviews to thank people for meeting with you and to reiterate your interest and qualifications for the position. In these letters, you should also mention a unique item or topic you discussed in the interview. Write a separate thank-you letter to each person you interviewed with, tailoring each one to that person. This letter is brief, usually two or three paragraphs. The "Writing Follow-Up Letters" section in Markel's chapter 16 and the "Preparing Thank-You Letters" section in unit 13 of the course guide describe this type of letter more fully.
Other types of follow-up letters are the acceptance letter for a job offer, the rejection letter for a job offer, and the acknowledgment letter for a job rejection. The "Writing Follow-Up Letters" section of Markel's chapter 16 provides more information about these types of letters.
In the last three modules, we've looked at various types of technical communication: documentation—proposals, progress reports, minutes, and analytical reports—related to a project; instructions; technical descriptions; business correspondence; and employment-related correspondence.
In module 5, the last module in the course, we'll focus on two topics that help you to put the finishing touches on your technical communication pieces: revising and editing documents and preparing technical presentations. Revising and editing help you produce a high-quality final document. Technical presentations enable you to orally present information that is written in a document.