Transcript Overview of Chapters 10 and 11

PROFESSIONAL WRITING
NOTES TO ANDERSON, CHAPTERS 10 & 11
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
1. Give your readers a reason to pay attention
2. State your main point
3. Tell your readers what to expect
4. Encourage openness to your message
5. Provide necessary background information
6. Include a summary unless your communication is very short
7. Adjust the length of your beginning to your readers’ needs
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
1. Give your readers a reason to pay attention
•
Use your intro to persuade the reader to keep reading
•
Make sure your intro provides an answer to the reader’s
question “Why should I read this?”
•
Be sure to
•
•
Announce your topic
Tell your readers how they will benefit from the information you are
providing
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
1. Give your readers a reason to pay attention
•
Two ways to highlight reader benefits
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Refer to your reader’s request or needs (if appropriate)
Offer to help your readers solve a problem
Establish a problem-solving relationship
Tell your readers the problem you will help them solve
Tell your readers what you have done toward solving the
problem
Tell your readers how your communication will help them as
they perform their part of your joint problem-solving effort
(Carefully not to overdo this part—you don’t want the intro to
become too long)
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
2. State your main point
Why?
•
You help your readers find what they most want or need.
•
You increase the likelihood that your readers will actually read
your main point instead of putting your communication aside
before they get to it.
•
You provide your readers with a context for viewing the details
that follow.
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
3. Tell your readers what to expect
•
•
Provide a preview of the organization:
•
“Our study has identified two potential problems . . .”
•
“After a brief description of the problem, we compare two
possible strategies that might reduce the risks . . .”
Indicate the scope of your discussion:
•
“This report focuses specifically on the economic risks and does
not attempt to address legal or regulatory risks.”
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
4. Encourage openness to your message
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Remember that readers respond moment-by-moment so you
want to encourage openness to your message
Why might readers resist your message?
It contains bad news for them
It contains ideas or recommendations that will be unwelcome
to them
They distrust, resent or compete with you, your department, or
organization
They might be skeptical of your knowledge and/or expertise
They might be suspicious of your motives
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
4. Encourage openness to your message
•
Strategies for encouraging openness
•
Present yourself as a partner, not as a critic or competitor
•
Delay the presentation of your main point
•
Work early on to establish your credibility
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
5. Provide necessary background information
•
•
•
Readers might need to understand your method of analysis or
other assumptions
Readers might need to understand specialized terminology
Readers might need background information on the topic itself—
how did we get here?
Be careful, though. The only background information that
belongs in the introduction is whatever is absolutely
necessary to understand the focus of the text and your
main point
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
6. Include a summary unless your communication is very short
•
•
In certain kinds of documents, you might want to include an
“executive summary” with your text
Such summaries are common in business and technical writing
and not so common in other types of writing
INTRODUCTIONS
• Anderson highlights seven points about
introductions
7. Adjust the length of your beginning to your readers’ needs
There is no rule that tells how long the beginning should be. A good,
reader-centered beginning may require only a phrase or may take
several pages. You need to give your readers only the information they
don’t already know. Just be sure they know the following:
• The reason they should read the communication (guideline 1)
• The main point of the communication (guideline 2)
• The organization and scope of the communication (guideline 3)
• The background information they need in order to understand and
use the communication (guideline 5)
If you have given your readers all this information—and have
encouraged them to receive your message openly (guideline 4)—then
you have written a good beginning, regardless of how long or short it is.
CONCLUSIONS
• Think of the conclusion
• Not just as an ending
• But as a transition—it leads readers out of your
communication and back into the larger stream of their
activities
• As providing you with the opportunity to help readers by
answering the question, “What should I do now?”
CONCLUSIONS
• To decide what you want your conclusion to do,
ask yourself
• What do I want my readers to think, feel, and do as they
finish this communication?
• What kind of ending might my readers be expecting? How
important is it that I satisfy those expectations?
CONCLUSIONS
• And then decide on the appropriate strategy
1. After you’ve made your last point, stop
2. Repeat your main point
3. Summarize your key points
4. Refer to a goal stated earlier in your communication
5. Focus on a key feeling
6. Tell your readers how to get assistance or more information
7. Tell your readers what to do next
8. Identify any further study that is needed
9. Follow applicable social conventions
CONCLUSIONS
• Some appropriate strategies
1. After you’ve made your last point, stop
Some communications don’t require conclusions. Some common ones
are
• Proposals
• Formal reports (which might end with recommendations for
example)
• Instructions
If your communication does not require a conclusion, then you don’t
need to write one
CONCLUSIONS
• Some appropriate strategies
2. Repeat your main point
• Endings are points of emphasis
• Repeat your main point if you are concerned readers might have
forgotten it
• Also repeat it if it helps the reader know what to do next
CONCLUSIONS
• Some appropriate strategies
3. Summarize your key points
• Summarize your key points if you are concerned that your reader has
forgotten them (i.e. long communications)
• Summarize your key points if the argument is long and complex
• Summarize your key points if it helps the reader know what to do next
CONCLUSIONS
• Some appropriate strategies
4. Refer to a goal stated earlier in your communication
• This strategy is similar to restating your main idea and to summarizing
your key points
• The key to all three of these strategies is the “rounding-back” of the
conclusion—the return to words, ideas stated at the beginning as a
way of signaling to the reader a return and the possibility of closure
• Literary critics often refer to this quality as giving the reader “a sense
of ending”
CONCLUSIONS
• And then decide on the appropriate strategy
5. Focus on a key feeling
• Keep in mind that pathos might be key to your persuasion
• You might want to leave readers with a feeling and not just with
facts
• Minimally, all communications attempt to communicate some
“feeling” to readers, even if it is only the feeling of comfort in the
authority of the writer (a feeling that is very close to what we have
been calling “ethos”)
CONCLUSIONS
• Some appropriate strategies
6. Tell your readers how to get assistance or more information
Some communications end with an offer of help
• If you have any questions about this matter, email me at
[email protected]
7. Tell your readers what to do next
Some communications end by telling readers exactly what to do next
• After you have administered the survey in both classes, please
return to me the completed responses (along with any blanks).
8. Identify any further study that is needed
Some communications end by identifying the next question needing
study
• While the data suggests a strong correlation between feeder
institution and performance on the WPE, a wider study is needed.
CONCLUSIONS
• Some appropriate strategies
9. Follow applicable social conventions
Remember that every communication is governed by
•
Purpose
•
Audience
•
Conventions (or Genre)
Writers need to pay attention to local conventions or risk alienating
readers. Minimally, these conventions might be social (certain kinds of
gestures that are expected (expressions of thanks, offers of help, and
so on).