Blog Post 88-98
It is important to keep in mind how
to properly construct any type of message in business. The presence of any errors, offending
comments, or typos can ruin the intent and reputation of any company. The best way that I learned to approach any
kind of writing is called process writing.
It consists of four stages, which are: planning, drafting, revising, and
editing. For my personal benefit, I also
included another stage at the end called peer review. I learned this process from my first English
professor in college who I also had for the second English course as well. I found this method very effective. The extra step that I added was sometimes
used in the course, but it was not listed as a stage.
Many people tend to neglect the
planning stage. However, I find it to be
one of the most critical of all the stages.
My professor taught us to do this in the best fashion of our choice,
which is why most people neglected it I theorize. I found that brainstorming and free writing
were the most effective methods for planning because it produced the best
results for me. When it came time to
drafting, I felt as if I never ran out of ideas, and sometimes new ideas would
branch out of old ideas while writing.
This is where a lot of other students struggled because of the lack of
prewriting.
When it came the time to revise and
edit, I found it better to just combine the two stages into one. Basically, I would call it review where revising
is correcting the organization and content, and editing is correcting the punctuation,
grammar, wording, and sentence structure.
By combining the two stages, I would save time and understand my own
writing style better.
The peer review was particularly
important to me like the planning stage because it would give me an extra
opinion and perspective about my writing.
This part would especially be important in the business world because it
would catch any issues that would be normally invisible to the writer before
reaching the audience. In the work
place, a coworker or superior would suffice just like a classmate in
school. This third party approach would
also remove any bias or even add important details that would otherwise be
lacking.
For my question to the reader, I
would ask what is your approach when it comes to writing any kind of work, if
there is any?
Bovée, Courtland L., and John V. Thill. "Achieving
Success Through Effective Business Communication." Business
Communication Today. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 2014.
Print.
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ReplyDeleteI use a very similar concept. This could help out a lot of struggling writers
ReplyDeleteI have found in the past that when it comes to a writing process I pretty much don't have one. Typically when it comes time for me to write an essay or anything else I do not spend any time thinking about what I am going to write before I actually get to writing. I understand it is important to engage in the planning stage I have just never really been able to sit down and think about writing without ending up just diving into the writing. I also do not often engage in peer review and typically just review my own work. By adding simple steps to my writing process, or lack there of, the quality of my work could improve greatly.
ReplyDeleteJames, I follow a very similar approach to yours when I am creating a piece of writing. But the main difference is that due to the lack of time that I have when composing my writing assignments I spend a little more time in the the planning stage and write the work as quickly as possible following the plans that I have created. Then I spend a lot of time revising the work and re-reading it to ensure there are no grammatical errors and the work is coherent and relevant. I have found this to be efficient and effective in my writing.
ReplyDeleteMy approach is as follows.
ReplyDelete1: Draft. The first version is never my final version. I always read it over out loud and re-write/re-work as I go through it.
2: Keep it simple. There is no need for use of extravagant words or complicated sentence structure when a simpler one could get your point across better.
3: Triple check. While this goes along with the first person, I always read it through one more time to check tone, spelling, grammar, word usage, and flow to ensure that I come across and make my point in the way I intend.
By using this approach, I have found some success in achieving my intended goals in writing. However, this does not mean my writing is perfect by any means, for I believe we will always have room to improve in everything in life, especially writing.