Writing Process

Corresponding Lecture

Planning Your Messages: Process & Audience Analysis (Chapters 2)

The planning stage involves research, analysis, creativity, and judgment. What is the situation? What do those facts mean? What are some possible communication strategies? Which is the best course of action? To be able to answer these questions, the writer will perform these activities:
⦁ Determining goals: In determining goals, writers should ask themselves what a reader should think, feel, do, or believe as a result of reading a message. The writer’s communication goals are very much connected, then, to the writer’s business goals

⦁ Analyzing the audience: Analyzing the audience is key to any successful business message. Writers need to break down their audience by the audience’s characteristics and then tailor a message to meet that audience’s need.

⦁ Gathering information: Solving a communication problem can be viewed as part of solving a larger business problem. In other words, figuring out what to say often involves, as well, figuring out what to do.

⦁ Analyzing and organizing the information: Once writers have collected what looks like sufficient information (though they may find later in the process that they need more), they need to analyze it and organize it.
Interpretation and logic help the writer determine what to say and in what order. Clearly, the message’s main points need to be based upon the gathered information, and they need to be arranged logically.

Adaptation is critical as well. Which comments in which order will be likely to have the best effect on the reader? The reader’s likely reaction will determine whether the message is written in the direct or indirect order and will also affect the order of the rest of the contents.

Choosing the form, channel, and format: The medium is not just a container for the message; whether one anticipates writing a letter, email, brochure, web page, or some combination of these, and how one anticipates they should look, will significantly affect the planning of the message.

Note: For the message portfolio, you’ve been given the channel/form and the audience.

Planning the Message Portfolio

Based on the Message Portfolio assignment sheet, complete the following process planning worksheet. Complete 1 sheet per message. Submit your worksheets here in one file. This assignment is worth 10 completion points.

Printable Worksheet: Process Planning.docx

Process Planning Sheet: Message Portfolio

Scenario: Briefly describe the business situation you are addressing.

Reader (audience) analysis

What is your context as the fictional writer? Fill in your profession, your organization, and a phrase describing you personally.

        Profession:

        Organization:

        Personal:                                

Now do the same thing for your reader—their profession, organization, and personal contexts. What you don’t know, imagine! Make a clever educated guess.

        Profession:

        Organization:

        Personal:

Will this document have additional readers? Who? What might you need to adjust for them?

What formality level makes sense for this document?

Purpose and content

What concrete, specific actions you want this document to achieve? Look for more than one.

What main idea are you trying to get across?

What are 3-4 key points that support that idea?

Number those points in the order it makes sense to discuss them. This is your little blueprint!

Now, for each numbered point, jot down two concrete or specific details you could use to develop that point