Exported for Susan Cox on Wed, 19 Jan 2022 21:35:00 GMT

Part IV. Genres

1. Create a Presentation
Presentations allow you to engage with your audience on a personal level to demonstrate the skills or
qualifications that you (or your team or company) possess. They also give you a readily available forum to
answer questions that your audience might have or make adjustments to a plan or proposal based on
audience feedback

However, presentations are limited in the sense that (when not supplemented by other documents) they do
not provide the audience with a way to refer back to your content, meaning that your information could be
forgotten or misremembered later. It is also extremely difficult to give presentations across distances or to
large audiences without added expense or preparations. In the same way, presentations also require that all
audience members be available in the space and time during which you will give your presentation.

2. Write a Research Report

Research reports allow you to draw on the experiences of other people or companies to help solve a
problem in your business. They require that you examine, compare/contrast, and evaluate available
information from a variety of sources and then convey your conclusions in a way that is easily readable for
your audience.

Reports allow for reflection on detailed information to help the audience make responsible, productive
decisions based on credible information. They help to synthesize information that might, in another format,
be difficult for the audience to sort through and apply to the necessary context, so they are a way of making
the information more convenient for the audience. They can also help to build ethos with an audience by
justifying choices or options before and during a decision-making process.

However, reports can be limiting in the sense that they are asynchronous—they are meant to be delivered
and then read by the audience on their own time, and they therefore don’t allow for immediate
conversation about the topic. They likewise can be time-consuming for both the writer and the audience.

3. Write a Plan
Plans can serve a variety of functions in business writing: they can keep workers (including the original
author) organized and working productively, they can demonstrate to bosses or potential funding sources
that work will be completed well and in a timely manner, and they can expose missing or inadequate
resources needed for a project.

Plans should be extremely readable for any potential audiences—the goal is to be able to hand your plan to
the people who need it and have them carry it out with as little clarification or further instruction from you
as possible.

Because the primary goal of plans is clarity and readability, there is very little room for justification or
rationale (for example, plans are almost never in paragraph form, meaning that tasks have to be detailed
but thought process cannot).

4. Write a Request for Proposals (RFP) or Request for

Submissions (RFS)
A Request for Proposals (RFP) or Request for Submissions (RFS) allows you to indicate the availability of a
position. In the case of an RFP these positions are usually subcontractual—you are not hiring a new person
to work at your business, you are hiring a company or sub-contractor to do a job that your business needs
done but is not equipped to handle alone. You might also distribute an RFP to individuals or teams within
your company to ask them to develop proposals for handling a new project. Requests for Submissions
(RFS) are similar to RFPs in that they are a way of asking for materials to help your business fulfill a goal. Job
advertisements are a common form of RFS wherein you are asking potential future hires to submit
application materials. You might also request submissions of single documents or items to be used in
marketing, fundraising, social media, team building, and other scenarios from current employees or outside
contractors. The key difference between a proposal and a submission is that proposals offer to carry out a
plan for a project that will take place over time whereas submissions are a static set of documents.

Both RFPs and RFSs function as sets of instructions that allow you to clearly indicate what you need to
make your decision. The clearer you are with your instructions, the more likely you are to get well-organized
materials submitted by qualified applicants that will help you make your decision quickly and easily. If,
however, your instructions are vague or your needs are unclear you will find yourself wasting time sorting
through materials from applicants who are not qualified for the position or hunting down documents that
you need that were either not included at all or are lost in a sea of disorganized materials.

5. Create a Proposal
A proposal, as the name suggests, proposes an idea, a plan, a solution to accomplish a certain goal or
answer a stated need for an organization. It allows you to demonstrate your knowledge of a situation and
articulate a clear and viable way to address the issue at hand. Proposals need to be organized in a way that
makes sense for your audience, usually with the most important information placed towards the beginning
of the document, and should make effective use of document design principles like headers and/or other
stylistic elements. The content of proposals should be detailed enough to meet the needs of the situation.
For example, if one party expects to be paid, the details of payment amounts and schedules should be
included. Likewise it is important to include practical elements such as timelines, deliverables,
qualifications, licensure, etc., so your audience understands what precisely is being proposed.

Proposals require a robust understanding of the context, needs, and limitations of the situation and the
audience. Ineffectively organized proposals jeopardize the potential for business relationships, and unclear
proposals can cause unnecessary complications during the completion of a project.

6. Write a Letter
In business, letters are designed to convey information and almost always serve as documents of record.
They always contain formal style elements, like date, addresses, salutation, body paragraphs, closing or
valediction, and signature. Business letters are often, but not always, used to communicate with external
audiences and must therefore be carefully composed in order to meet the needs of people unfamiliar with
the internal jargon of the organization.

Remember that business letters by their very nature must be delivered by an outside courier, and so receipt
of a letter by a certain time (or at all) cannot be guaranteed. The time and monetary expense of printing,
enveloping, and paying postage should be taken into account when considering sending a business letter.

7. Write an Email
Email, short for electronic mail, is perhaps the most common form of business communication, especially
internal communication between members of a business or organization. Usually this kind of writing is fairly
short and to the point, with the reason for writing stated upfront, while still generally adhering to the formal
stylistic elements of a letter, i.e., salutation, body, closing, signature. Emails sometimes also serve as
documents of record, meaning that they can function as evidence of a certain policy, promise, or obligation.

Because emails are usually quick to write, easy to deliver, and very common, they are often assumed to be
casual or informal. However, it’s important to remember that, like any other form of composition, emails are
a representation of your professional self and should reflect your best communicative abilities. Additionally,
most company emails, including your university email, are not private and you do not own the content.
Whichever organization granted you the email account usually retains the right to archive any or all emails
within the organization for any future purpose.

8. Write a Memo
A memo is an internal business document usually used to notify employees of changes within a business or
information necessary to do their jobs effectively. Memos follow a static format similar to an email, i.e., date,
to, from, subject line, and need to be organized in a way that places the most important information first.
Unlike a letter, this is a more concise form of communication that is normally distributed widely within all or
part of an organization, either via email or posted in a heavily trafficked area.
The most effective memos almost always do not require or invite any follow up, meaning that they are
written in such a way that addresses all possible questions and concerns of the parties involved. Given that
this document is usually no longer than a page, the ideas must be succinct and purposefully organized.

Exported for Susan Cox on Wed, 19 Jan 2022 21:35:00 GMT