Career as a Professional Writing Consultant by Stephen Sherbune

There is a wide variety of options to choose from when becoming a professional writing consultant. Here is a list of just some of the options chose from when deciding what to do as a professional writing consultant.

Writing analysis- analyzes you writing and show you were improvements can be made. Help develop you into a better writer. A person could do this for companies.

Developing your own workshop- providing customers with templates, in order to have a properly formatted email, memo, and or document to somebody. Just providing general knowledge about how to become a better writer and how to look and be professional

Simply being an editor- Proofread and edit documents, papers, memos, resumes, and academic work for students. There are several companies that do just this edit documents for there customers. Some bigger companies would actually hire their own professional writing consultant to proofread all documents that get sent out.

Becoming a professional writing consultant has many different opportunities. You could even write your own book such as Writing That Works. Some companies actually offer all of these activities, some individual’s do all of these activities and some do just editing and proofreading documents for example.

Works Cited

1. http://www.professionalwritingaustralia.com.au/professional-writing-and-consulting-services-what-we-do.html

2. http://www.professionalwritingaustralia.com.au/images/img-writing-consultants-advice.jpg

Photostory: Humor in Professional Business Writing

Writing Clear by: Justo Almodovar

According to Edward T. Thompson who is/was the editor in chief of Reader’s Digest there are only three basic requirements to writing clearly:
1) You must want to write clearly
2) You must be willing to work hard.
3) You must know and follow some basic guidelines.

These basic guidelines that Mr. Thompson mentioned are:
1) OUTLINE WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY meaning that you need to make sure that you know what you are going to say and know when you are going to stop.
2) START WHERE YOUR READERS ARE which means keep it simple and do not write at a higher level than where your reader’s knowledge is about the subject.
3) Don’t use words, expressions, and phrases known only to people with specific knowledge or interests, basically AVOID JARGON.
4) USE FAMILIAR COMBINATIONS OF WORDS; be careful because the term familiar combination of words does not mean incorrect grammar.
5) USE "FIRST DEGREE" WORDS which are words that bring an image to your mind almost immediately such as: face, stay, or even book.
6) This is where the outline in step one helps you drastically because you want to make sure that you STICK TO THE POINT.
7) Last but certainly not least BE AS BRIEF AS POSSIBLE because whatever you write, shortening condensing almost always makes it tighter, straighter, and easier to read and understand.

Sources:

http://www.harmonize.com/probe/aids/manual/Write_cl.htm
http://www.digital-rights.net/images/writing.gif

Present It! By Meg L Bostick

When creating an effective presentation, one must take into consideration many things. First of all, a presentation should never be too informative to the point that it is overwhelming to the audience. Information overload is never a good thing, as it can cause your audience to become bored, and you don’t want that! To prevent this from happening, minimize not only the amount of information you provide within your slides, but the number of slides you have within your presentation. Next, choose a font that is both interesting and easy to read so your audience does not get a headache trying to read the information you are giving them, yet it is still aesthetically pleasing. Also, to make certain your presentation is aesthetically pleasing, use graphics that make sense with the information and are just as interesting to look at. To ensure that the audience can easily read the information provided, make sure you use bullet points and short sentences. Finally, make sure spelling and grammar are correct!

When delivering an effective presentation make sure to keep eye contact with the audience, making the delivery personable and not “robotic.” Also, it is important to project your voice so everyone in the audience can hear and understand the presentation. Make sure while you are projecting your voice, you are using a steady pace so as not to lose the audience. Never Rush! And finally, use movement and gestures to help animate your presentation and make it that much more interesting. Most importantly, have confidence!

Sources:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA102078641033.aspx

Walter E. Oliu, Charles T. Brusaw, Gerald J. Alred. Writing That Works: Communicating Effectively on the Job. . Ninth Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007: 499-502.

Recommendations to the Readers by Adam Glick

So What Do You Recommend?

Some people think they know everything there is to know about a subject and that only their opinion matters.  However, if you're not a politician, you would use other sources besides your own knowledge to relay a non-biased message to your readers.  A few examples of "other sources" would be a journal, book, magazine or video. For this week, we will focus on video recommendations.

I will now open the floor up for any questions you readers may have.

Q: So Adam, Why Would I Use a Video Recommendation?

A: Well reader, I am glad you asked.  There are several reasons for the use of a video in your writing. If your reader would like to learn more about the subject presented, they can simply click on the video instead of having to research more information on their own.  Also, if you are trying to sell a product, a video can help relay a positive image of that product.  An example of such a video would be a commercial. Next question please. 

Q: Where Should I Put My Video Recommendation?

A: I recommend you put your recommendation wherever you as the writer recommend.  Most video recommendations are put near the information that they are associated with rather than being placed randomly across your work.  You can also put your recommendation at the end of your work so that your reader can greater their knowledge even further if they so desire.  Your reader will only use your video recommendation if you did your job as a professional writer and sparked further interest.

I hope that I answered all of your questions thoroughly.

Below is a video I recommend for a very brief overview on this course.

Sources:

http://web.uvic.ca/akeller/pw401/demos/video_web_D.html

Writing Informal/Formal Reports By Jonathen Peck

A report is defined as an organized presentation of factual information prepared for a specific audience. Beyond that they can be broken down into two different categories. These two categories are informal and formal reports. First off the main difference between them is usually length and amount of time and scope of coverage on the topic. Formal reports generally take many months and run about several hundred pages with devices to aid the reader to help find specific points throughout the whole report. Informal reports are more toned down running only a few paragraphs to a couple pages and provide information on projects that take only a few hours or days to complete.

Informal Reports

Most informal reports describe incidents, note the progress of ongoing activities or summarize the results on these projects. Due to the nature of the use for these reports they are typically written as a memo, letter or email message.

Key questions to ask yourself when considering audience and purpose are:

• Who is the audience?
• What specifically have the readers requested?
• How knowledgeable are your readers on the subject?
• Have you selected the right format?
• Have you provided the background information?

Types of informal reports

1. Trouble Reports
2. Investigative Reports
3. Progress Reports
4. Periodic Reports
5. Trip Reports
6. Test Reports

Formal Reports

These reports are written accounts of major projects such as new developments, exploration of a new product, or an end of year review on new developments. Formal reports are very long and require a great deal of formatting to help the reader and to be presented professionally. Most formal reports include a cover letter and a table on contents at the beginning.

Key Parts of a Formal Report

• Table of contents
• Executive Summary
• Conclusions
• Recommendations
  
• works Cited

Formal Reports also must have supplementary back matter including a bibliography, appendixes, a glossary, and an index that shows a list of all major topics and subtopics in the report.

I have never written a formal report and it seems these take a lot of time and research on a certain topic. They require a great deal of knowledge on the subject. Informal reports on the other hand you can find yourself writing these week to week for your job. Over my career I really did not realize I would write types of informal reports. I've written accident reports to progress reports.

Sources:
Writing That Works(Oliu, Brusaw, Alred)

Personal Business Writing by Leandro Caputo

When using personal business writing, you need to start with a good structure, by refering on how you choose to present the information. A good structure can make your piece flow, and enahnce the readers ability on what you want to let the reader know. Here are some tips on getting a good structure in your personal business writing:

Structure

• Choose a Focus: refers to the main point of your statement
• Create a Frame for your Focus: gives a shape to talk about your focus
• Create Strong Transitions: refers to the language to move between ideas.

Style

• Grammar: make sure syntax is correct
• Follow through and flesh out: follow through on raise issues
• Show, Don't Tell: most valuable piece of advise given to writers

Business requires that we communicate in writing, which has an impact in your organization and reputation. So it is essential that business executives are trained correct in business writing.

Good Business Writing includes:

• Taking personal responsibility for ensuring the communication takes place.
• Audience and reader focus – understanding who will be receiving the message.
• Impact analysis – how will this communication be received and acted upon.
• Accuracy and clarity.
• Cultural sensitivity – to the culture of the organisation and to national cultures.
• Timeliness – prompt and to deadline.
• Focus on value. What value will this communication deliver?
• Risk management – knowing what can go wrong and how to mitigate these risks.
• Setting high personal standards.
• Follow-up and follow-through.

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."- Ben Franklin

Work Cited

http://www.cmu.edu/hpp/achieve/pstips.html

http://www.selfleadership.com/services/business_communication/business_writing_skills/

How to Properly Plan a Meeting By Stephen Sherburne

Planning a meeting can be a difficult and time consuming task. If planned and carried out successfully can make the meeting a success leaving your attendee’s with more knowledge and or experience then what they came in with. There are 6 simple steps that take you through the planning process to help make your meeting productive.

1. Find the purpose of the meeting. It should answer the question of those who are attending what they want to know, believe, and to be able to do as a result of this meeting.

2. Who should attend this meeting? Invite only the participants who will achieve the goals that you have set out for the meeting to achieve.

3. Decide when the meeting should be held. Once you have decided who the key participants in the meeting will be, decide on a time were the key participants are available and can attend. The length of the meeting is important, make sure it is not to long but, still covers what you need to get done.

4. Decide where the meeting should be held. If it is a first time meeting, then meet at a neutral zone, an off-site meeting place that is not any of the member’s business locations. If you have met more then once and you are hosting the meeting use one of your locations.

5. Once you have decided the above steps you need to make an agenda for the meeting. An agenda is an outline of what is going to be covered in the meeting and the amount of time each item is going to be discussed. This should also be sent out a few days prior to the meeting to give the attendee’s time to prepare and be ready for the meeting.

6. Delegate somebody in the meeting to be taking the minutes of the meeting, or another words take down what is being discussed in the meeting. Either rotate this task or have this task be assigned to a person like somebody’s secretary for example.

Works Cited
1. www.cartoonstock.com/.../jsi/lowres/jsin86l.jpg

2. Walter E. Oliu, Charles T. Brusaw, Gerald J. Alred. Writing That Works: Communicating Effectively on the Job. . Ninth Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007: 499-502.

Analyze That Reader! By Meg L. Bostick

When analyzing your reader, it is important to figure out what they know and what their skills are. Let’s face it, we are not all alike and some have strengths where others don’t! The more we know about our reader as far as their skills and what information they are able to relate to and what may be over their head, the easier it is to write something in which they can relate to.
Take for instance someone who is athletic, yet has no sense of artistic flare. If the writer composes a piece of writing based on Michelangelo and his famous portraits, for he/she to read, they are most likely going to have no idea about what the writer is referring to because they cannot relate to what is being said. Therefore, the writer has not analyzed the reader well enough to know what he/she understands.
If you are looking to write for a variety of readers, a way to accommodate all is to write in such a way that is universal and easy to understand. In other words, don’t go overboard and in extensive detail on a certain subject, as it will most likely be too much for many of the readers to handle, especially if they do not know much about the topic.
A great way to make sure you have written for either a “specific” reader or a “universal” reader is to have someone within that category read your piece and find out if they understand what is being said.

A guide to Writing Technical Instructions by Jonathen Peck

Writing Technical Instructions is basically trying to teach someone how to do something that they don't know much about. It is usually very challenging due to all of the things you have to consider. These thoughts that need to be considered when starting this process are who is your audience, what is your purpose, context, how lengthy they will be, and how complex these instructions are going to be. Technical writing is a profession in its own. You may think these specialists usually write their own but most of them actually only review the documents technical writers design to make sure things are correct

A good way to go about starting this process is to ask yourself a few simple questions.

1. Who will be the audience for your instructions? Why are these readers the best audience?
2. How will you have to tailor your instructions for this audience?
3. How long will your instructions be? How many different parts will you have to explain for your audience?
4. Will you need to include pictures or diagrams in your instructions? How many pictures will you need? What will those look like? Why are these important?
5. How might your finished instructions look? Will they be 1-page long or more? Will it look like a book or a pamphlet? How else might it look?

A great rubric that shows how well your documents are put together and how clear they are can be found here. http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson1101/SampleRubric.pdf. This rubric is based off of how well you define your audience, purpose, visual design, and how complete your work is.

Personally I don't think I have ever written instructions for an audience but going through school and work your experience this more than you realize. There is basically a list of instructions for almost everything you can learn.

Sources:
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1101
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson1101/SampleRubric.pdf
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson1101/PlanningSheet.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writer