Writing is an essential job skill, and it is a part of every job. As you advance in your career, youll do more and more writing. Writing well will enhance your success. Indeed, promotions are often based on an employees ability to write. This chapter provides an overview of occupational writing, to get you thinking about the important role writing will play in your career. It covers the keys to effective writing, characteristics common to most job-related writing, and the importance of writing ethically.

Four Keys to Effective Writing

There are four keys to effective writing: identifying your audience, establishing your purpose, formulating your message, and selecting your style and tone. To accomplish these tasks effectively, ask yourself these questions: Who will read what I write? Why should they read what I write? What do I have to say to them? How can I best communicate?

Identifying your audience

The first step in occupational writing is to ask yourself who your audience is. How big is your audience? How well do they understand English? Do they already know anything about your topic? What is their attitude toward you and your work? It is important to identify your audience before you begin writing, since you will need to tailor your message to your audience. If you are not able to identify your audience, assume a general audience and keep your writing as simple and straightforward as possible.

Establishing your purpose

Identifying why you are writing will help you communicate your message better and make it easier for you to write. An important rule in occupational writing is to get to the point right away. Dont feel that you have to entertain or impress your readers.

Formulating your message

Your message includes the scope and details of your communication. The details are the key points you want your readers to absorb. The scope refers to the amount of information you provide about those details. You must adapt your message to fit your audience. For example, it would not be productive to include detailed technical information in a memo for busy executives; instead, for this audience you would provide a summary of the managerial significance of these details.

Selecting your style and tone

Style is how something is written. It includes such considerations as paragraph construction, sentence length and patterns, and word choice. In occupational writing, you will select a style appropriate for your message, your purpose, and your audience. Your tone expresses your attitude toward your topic and your audience. It can be formal and impersonal or informal and personal. The trend in business writing today is toward less formality; however, this does not mean you can be breezy or chummy in your writing. A business letter or report needs to be both personal and professional.

Characteristics of Job-Related Writing

Job-related writing serves six basic functions: to provide practical information, to give facts (not impressions), to clarify and condense information using visuals, to give accurate measurements, to state responsibilities precisely, and to persuade and offer recommendations.

Practical information may be provided using either an action-oriented or a knowledge-oriented approach. Visuals such as flowcharts, tables, diagrams, and drawings clarify and condense information and make detailed relationships clear to readers. Likewise, graphic devices such as headings and subheadings, bulleted lists, icons, and hypertext can make your work easier to read and help your organize your ideas, preview and summarize ideas, and group related points.

The ability to write persuasively is critical to success in the business world. Much occupational writing aims to persuade people to buy a particular product or service or to adopt a particular plan of action.  Effective persuasive writing requires a wide range of skills, ranging from audience analysis and research to effective organization and tone.

Ethical Writing

Ethical writing is clear, accurate, fair, and honest. Ethical writing is a reflection of ethical practice. To help yourself always to make ethical decisions, follow these guidelines: follow your conscience; be suspicious of convenient (and false) appeals that go against your beliefs; maintain good faith in meeting your obligations; take responsibility for your actions; weigh all sides before committing to a conclusion; and anticipate the consequences of your decisions.

Unethical writing is usually guilty of one or all of the following faults (the three Ms of unethical writing"): misquotation, misrepresentation, and manipulation. Examples of unethical writing practices include plagiarizing, selectively misquoting other sources, arbitrarily embellishing numbers, manipulating data or context, using fictitious benefits to promote a product or service, unfairly characterizing hiring or firing conditions, and misrepresenting through distorting or slanted visuals.