The composition process varies in the order and the duration of stages.
Three categories in the composition process:
Process
Items
Planning
Define purpose
Analyze audience
Establish main idea
Select channel and medium
Composing
Organize message
Formulate message
Revising
Edit message
Rewrite message
Produce message
Proof message
Because composition is often a team effort, with different people handling different stages, collaborative writing is an important influence on the composition process.
Scheduling also affects the composition process (try allotting half of the time for planning, less than a quarter for composing, and more than a quarter for revising).
DEFINING YOUR PURPOSE
The purpose guides many decisions about a message, including
whether sending the message is worthwhile.
whether the message addresses the audience's needs.
what to include and exclude.
what channel and medium to use.
Common general purposes of business messages: to inform, persuade, or collaborate.
Specific purpose: what the audience should think or do after considering the message.
Multiple purposes are acceptable as long as they are compatible:
Establish clear priorities, with one major purpose.
Subordinate personal goals to business goals.
To test the purpose, ask these questions:
Is the purpose realistic?
Is this the right time?
Is the right person delivering the message?
Is the purpose acceptable to the organization?
ANALYZING YOUR AUDIENCE
Develop your audience's profile so that you can tailor your message to fit your audience:
Choose a channel and medium geared to size and composition of the group.
Slant the message to appeal to the audience's common interests.
Include something for everyone.
Identify key members of the audience and design the message around their needs and interests.
Anticipate the audience's reaction; adjust the style and organization accordingly.
Gear information to the audience's level of understanding.
Consider your relationship with the audience; you'll need to
build credibility with an unfamiliar audience,
compensate for the audience's preconceptions about you, and
adopt a style appropriate to your status.
The audience has three types of needs: informational, motivational, practical.
To tell people what they need to know in terms that are meaningful to them (to satisfy their informational needs):
Find out what the audience wants to know by asking specific questions and determining the audience's priorities.
Anticipate unstated questions; provide something extra.
Provide all the required information: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
Check accuracy by ascertaining that commitments are achievable and by double-checking facts, figures, and assumptions.
Emphasize ideas of greatest interest to the audience.
To make a message as appealing as possible (to satisfy motivational needs):
Appeal to reason.
Appeal to emotions.
To make a message as convenient as possible (to satisfy practical needs):
Be aware that business audiences are pressed for time and face many interruptions.
Be brief.
Make the message easy to follow.
ESTABLISHING THE MAIN IDEA
Main idea: central point that sums up the message; theme; "hook," as in advertising.
Difference between topic and main idea:
Topic is the broad subject of the message.
Main idea makes a statement about the subject and motivates the audience to accept your point of view.
P rewriting techniques for identifying the main idea:
Storyteller's tour: two-minute narrative about the message.
Random list: list of points, analyzed for relationships.
Journalistic approach: who, what, where, when, why, and how.
Question-and-answer chain: answers to all of the audience's possible questions, from general to specific.
The main idea must be geared to constraints on length; it takes time to explain complex ideas, establish credibility, and overcome resistance.
Stick to three or four major points to support the main idea, developed in more or less detail depending on
nature of the subject.
audience's familiarity with the topic.
audience's receptivity.
your credibility.
SELECTING THE APPROPRIATE CHANNEL AND MEDIUM
The choice of channel and medium is affected by the
nature and purpose of the message,
the location of the audience,
the need for speed, and
the formality of the situation.
The channel and the medium affect how the message is formulated and perceived.
Three basic channels: oral, written, and electronic.
Oral communications permits immediate feedback and is therefore good for dealing with questions, making group decisions, presenting controversial information.
Forms of oral communication include unplanned conversations, telephone calls, interviews, small group meetings, seminars, workshops, training programs, formal speeches, and presentations.
Size of audience determines amount of interaction and level of formality.
Written communication gives the writer a chance to plan and control the message and is therefore good when information is complex, documentation is required, audience is large and dispersed, or feedback is required.
The most common forms of written business messages are letters, memos, reports, and proposals:
Memos and letters are relatively brief documents, memos internal and letters external.
Reports and proposals (factual, objective documents for internal or external audiences) are generally longer and more formal than letters and memos.
Electronic communication affords the communicator speed, overcomes time-zone barriers, and reaches a widely dispersed audience personally.
Electronic communication includes voice mail, teleconferencing, videotape, fax, e-mail, and computer conferencing.
