1) Revising Your Message: Evaluating

the First Draft

 Effective communicators understand that the first
draft is rarely as tight, clear, and compelling as it
should be.
 The following are examples of how to evaluate
and improve the first draft of a message:
 1) Evaluate your Content, Organization, Style,
and Tone
 2) Evaluating, Editing, and Revising the work of
others
 1) Revising Your Message: Evaluating the
First Draft
 1) Evaluate your Content, Organization, Style,
and Tone: To evaluate the content of your message,
answer the following questions:
 1) Is the information accurate?
 2) Is the information relevant to the audience?
 3) Is there enough information to satisfy the reader’s needs?
 4) Is there a good balance between general information
(giving readers enough background information to
appreciate the message) and specific information (giving
readers the details they need to understand the message)?
 1) Revising Your Message: Evaluating the
First Draft
 When are you are happy with the content of the your
message, review it’s organization by answering the
following questions:
 1) Are all the points presented in the most logical manner?
 2) Do the most important ideas receive the most space, and
are they positioned in the most noticeable positions?
 3) Would the message be more persuasive if it was
organized in a different sequence?
 4) Are any points unnecessarily repeated?
 5) Are the details connected in a logical manner, or are they
spread out through the document?
 1) Revising Your Message: Evaluating the
First Draft
 Next, think about whether you achieved the right
tone for your audience.
 Is your writing formal enough to satisfy your
audience’s expectations without being too formal or
academic?
 Is your writing too casual for a serious subject?
 1) Revising Your Message: Evaluating the
First Draft
 2) Evaluating, Editing, and Revising the Work
of Others: Before you evaluate, edit, and revise
some else’s work, you must understand the dual
responsibility this task involves.
 First, unless you have been specifically asked to
rewrite something in your own style or change the
focus of message, do not do that.
 Never impose your writing style or pursue your own
agenda on someone else’s message without
permission.
 1) Revising Your Message: Evaluating the
First Draft
 Second, make certain that you understand the
writer’s intent before you start suggesting or making
changes.
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 There are four methods that will make your
message easier to read and easier to skim:
 1) Varying your Sentence Length
 2) Keeping your Paragraph Short
 3) Using Lists to Clarify and Emphasize
 4) Adding Headings and Subheadings
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 1) Varying your Sentence Length: By choosing
words and sentence structure carefully, you can:
 Develop a rhythm that highlights important points
 Brighten up your writing style
 Make information more interesting to your audience
 Each sentence length has its advantages.
 For example: Short sentences can be processed
faster and is easier for nonnative speakers and
translators to interpret.
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 Medium-length sentences are good for showing
the relationships among ideas.
 Long sentences are usually the most effective way
to explain complex ideas, listing related points, or
summarizing or previewing information.
 Each sentence length also has its disadvantages.
 Too many short sentences in a row could make your
writing choppy.
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 Medium sentences may not have the impact of short
sentences and the informative power of longer
sentences.
 Long sentences may be difficult to understand
because they contain a great deal of information
and have complex structures.
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 2) Keeping your Paragraph Short: Break up
your thoughts so that you do not end up with very
long paragraphs that will intimidate even the best
readers.
 Shorter paragraphs who usually contain 100 words or
less are easier to read than long paragraphs and
they make your writing look more inviting to your
audience.
 You can also highlight ideas more effectively by
isolating them in short, forceful paragraphs.
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 3) Using Lists to Clarify and Emphasize: A
very effective substitute to traditional sentences is to
place important ideas in a list.
 A list is a series of words, names, or other items.
 Lists can:
 Show the sequence in your ideas
 Increase their impact visually
 Enhance the chance that a reader will find key
points.
 Example of Narrative vs. List
 Narrative  List
 Owning your own business has  Owning you own business has
many potential advantages. three advantages:
One is the opportunity to  Opportunity to pursue
pursue your own personal personal passion
passion. Another advantage is
the satisfaction of working for  Satisfaction of working for
yourself. yourself
 As a sole proprietor, you also  Financial privacy
have the advantage of
privacy because you do not
have to reveal your financial
information or plans to
anyone.
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 The items in a list should be parallel which means that
they should all use the same grammatical pattern.
 Example of nonparallel list items: Wrong approach
 Improve our bottom line
 Identification of new foreign markets for our products
 Global market strategies
 Issues regarding pricing and packaging size
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 Example of parallel list items: Right approach
 Improving our bottom line
 Identifying new foreign markets for our products
 Developing our global market strategies
 Resolving pricing and packaging issues
 Parallel forms are easier to read and skim
2) Revising to Improve Readability
 4) Adding Headings and Subheadings: A
heading is a brief title that informs readers about the
content of the section that follows.
 Subheading are subordinate to headings, showing
subsections with a major section.
 Heading and subheadings serves the following
important functions:
 Organization
 Attention
 Connection
 3) Editing for Clarity and Conciseness

 After you reviewed and revised your message, the

next step is to make certain you message is clear
and concise.
 You can make sure that your message is clear
and concise by doing the following:
 1) Edit for Clarity
 2) Edit for Conciseness
 3) Editing for Clarity and Conciseness

 1) Edit for Clarity:

 The following are steps that you can take to make
sure that your message is coherent and intelligible:
 1) Break up overly long sentences: If you have too
many long sentences in your message, you are probably
attempting to make the sentence do more than it can
reasonably do such as:
 Expressing two dissimilar thoughts
 Providing the reader with too many pieces of
supporting evidence at once.
 3) Editing for Clarity and Conciseness

 2) Rewrite hedging sentences: Hedging means

retreating for making a confident statement about the
topic.
 3) Impose parallelism: When you have two or more
similar ideas, make them parallel by using the same
grammatical pattern.
 4) Clarify sentence structure: Keep the subject and
predicate of a sentence as close together as you can.
When the subject and predicate are far apart, your
audience may need to read the sentence twice to
understand who did what.
Revising for Clarity
 3) Editing for Clarity and Conciseness

 2) Edit for Conciseness: Many of the modifications

that you make to enhance clarity will also make your
message shorter.
 Next you need to examine the text with the goal of
decreasing the number of words.
 The following are some advice on how decrease the
number of words in your message and increase the
efficiency of your message:
 1) Delete unnecessary words: To determine if a word
or phrase is essential, try the sentence without it.
Revising for Conciseness / Unnecessary
Words and Phrases
 3) Editing for Clarity and Conciseness

 2) Shorten long words and phrases: Short words

and phrases are usually more vivid and easier to
read than long words and phrases.
 3) Eliminate redundancies: In some word
combinations, the word say the same thing.
 Example: “visible to the eye” is redundant because
visible is enough without having to add “to the eye.”
Revising for Conciseness / Long Words
or Phrases
Revising for Conciseness /
Redundancies
 3) Editing for Clarity and Conciseness

 4) Rewrite “It is/There are” starters: If you begin a

sentence with an indefinite pronoun such as it or
there, there is a good chance that you can shorten
the sentence and make it more effective.
 Example: “We believe….” is a stronger opening
than “It is believed that….” because it is shorter and
it identifies who is doing the believing.
 4) Producing Your Message
 It is now time for you to put your hard work on
display.
 The production quality of your message which
includes:
 The total effect of page or screen design
 Graphical elements
 Typography
 The production quality plays a critical role in the
effectiveness of your message.
 4) Producing Your Message
 The following are some principles to effectively
design your message:
 1) Designing for Readability
 2) Formatting Formal Letters and Memos
 3) Designing Messages for Mobile Devices
 4) Producing Your Message
 1) Designing for Readability: Design impacts
readability in two ways:
 1) Design elements can enhance the effectiveness of
your message.
 2) Visual design sends a nonverbal message to your
readers, affecting their perceptions of the
communication before they read a single word.
 4) Producing Your Message
 To ensure effective design, pay attention to the
following design elements:
 1) Consistency: Be consistent in the use of margin,
typeface, type size, and space.
 Also be consistent with your vertical lines, columns
and borders.
 2) Balance: Like the tone of your language, visual
balance can be too formal, just right, or too
informal for your specific message.
 4) Producing Your Message
 3) Restraint: Always try to simplify the design of
your message.
 4) Detail: Make sure to pay attention to the details
that will impact your design and therefore your
message.
 For example: very wide columns of text can be
difficult to read.
 It makes sense to split the text into two narrower
columns.
 4) Producing Your Message
 You can make your printed and electronic
messages more effective by understanding the
following:
 1) White Space: Any space that does not contain
text or artwork, both in print and online is called
white space.
 To increase the probability that your audience will
read you message, be generous with the white
space.
Example of White Space
 4) Producing Your Message
 2) Margins and Justifications: Margins define the
space around text and between columns.
 Margins can be justified (which means they are
flush, or aligned vertically, on both the left and
right),
 Flush left with ragged right margin, flush-right with
ragged-left margin, or centered.
 4) Producing Your Message
 3) Typefaces: refers to the physical design of
letters, numbers, and other text characters.
 Typefaces impacts the tone of your message, making
it look more authoritative, friendly, businesslike,
casual, classic, or modern.
 4) Type Styles: refers to any modifications that
offers contrast or focus to type including boldface,
italic, underlining, color, and others.
Examples of Typefaces
 4) Producing Your Message
 2) Formatting Formal Letters and Memos:
Formal business letters often follow specific design
methods.
 Most business letters are printed on letterhead
stationary which includes the company’s name,
address, and other contact information.
 The first element that appears after the letterhead
is the date and the that is followed by the inside
address which identifies the person receiving the
letter.
 4) Producing Your Message
 The next element that appears is the salutation,
often in the form of Dear, Mr. or Ms. Last Name.
 The message comes next and then is followed by
the complimentary close, such as Sincerely, Best
Regards, or Cordially.
 The last element is the signature block, space for
the signature, followed by the sender’s printed
name and title.
Example of Formal Business Letter
 4) Producing Your Message
 3) Designing Messages for Mobile Devices:
 The following are tips to format the content for
mobile device:
 1) Think in small chunks
 2) Make generous use of white space
 3) Format simply
 4) Consider horizontal and vertical layouts
 5) Proofreading Your Message
 Proofreading refers to the quality inspection stage
for your document.
 It is last chance to make certain that your document
is ready to convey your message and your
reputation to your audience.
 Look for the following types of mistake during
proofreading:
 1) Unseen mistakes from the writing, design, and
layout stages
 2) Mistakes that occurred during the production.
 5) Proofreading Your Message
 The following techniques will help you become a
professional at proofreading and ensure high-
quality output:
 1) Make multiple passes: Go through your
document several times, focusing on different
elements each time.
 2) Use perceptual tricks: To keep your brain from
tricking you, you have to trick your brain by
changing the way you process the visual
information.
 5) Proofreading Your Message
 You can trick your brain by:
❖ Reading each page backward, from the bottom to
the top
❖ Putting your finger under each word and reading it
silently
❖ Making a tear in a sheet of paper that reveals only
one line of type at a time
❖ Reading the document aloud and pronouncing each
word very carefully
 5) Proofreading Your Message
 3) Double-check high-priority items: Double-check
the spelling of names, and the accuracy of dates,
addresses, and any number that may cause
problems if incorrect.
 4) Give yourself some distance: Do not proofread
immediately after you have finished a document.
 5) Be vigilant: Do not read a large amount of
material in one sitting and do not proofread when
you are tired.
 5) Proofreading Your Message
 6) Stay Focused: Concentrate on what you are
doing. Try to block out distractions and focus on
proofreading.
 7) Review complex electronic documents on
paper: Some people have a difficult time
proofreading webpages, online reports, and other
electronic documents on-screen.
 Try to print the materials so that you can proofread
them on paper.
 8) Take your time
 6) Distributing Your Message
 When distributing your message consider the following factors:
 1) Cost: Cost may be an issue for lengthy reports or multimedia
productions.
 Be sure to consider the nonverbal message you are sending
regarding cost.
 For example: Overnight delivery of a printed report could make
you look responsive in one situation and wasteful in another situation.
 2) Convenience: How much work is involved for you and your
audience.
 For example: if you a file-compression utility to shrink the size of
email attachments, make certain that you receivers have the
technology to expand the files
 6) Distributing Your Message
 3) Time: How soon does your message need to reach your
receivers?
 For example: Do not waste money on overnight delivery if the
receiver is not going to read the report for a week.
 Also, do not mark a message, printed or electronic as “urgent”
if they are not.
 4) Security and privacy: Always weigh the convenience that is
offered by electronic communication against security and
privacy issues.