A Guide to Effective Writing Margaret C McLaren v Universiti Putra Malaysia Press Serdang 2008Copyright: Formerly held by Pearson Education Malaysia Sdn. Bhd, Alltights eserred, No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrival system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, Photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission ofthe copyright UPM Press is a member of the Malaysian Book Publishers Association (MABOPA) ‘Membership No: 9802. Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Malaysia Cataloguing in Publication McLaren, Margaret C. A guide co effective writing / Margaret C. MeLaren. udes index ISBN 978-967-5026-09-6 1. Business writing--Handbooks, manuals, ete. 2. English language--Business English—Handbooks, manuals, ete. I. Tile. 808.0665 Printed by Ampang Press Sdn Bhd No.6, jalan 6/91 ‘Taman Shameln Perkasa 56100 Kuala Lumpur E-mail: ampress@streamyx.com Previ sy published in 2000 by Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Malaysia Sdn. Bhd, Contents... Preface L 2 3. 4. . THE FLOW OF THE LANGUAGE... CHNICAL TERMS... TE ‘A. Parts of speech B. Single words and phrases G D. SENTENCE STRUCTURE PUNCTUATION AND OTHER CONVENTIONS .cseneee23 Punctuation Abbreviations Ili Capital letters Spelling moomD> WORDS TO WATCH.. A. Confusables B. Jargon A. Style B. Tone CC. Register D._ DiscriA Guide to Egfective 7. REFERENCING A. Footnotes, notes and references B. Bibliography C. Appendices D. Useful abbreviations 8. QUANTITATIVE INFORMATION... A. Numbers B. Principles of visual display C. Kinds of visual display 9. ERRORS TO WATCH FOR. 10. STRENGTHS TO BUILD INTO YOUR WRITING... 11, SAMPLE FORMATS A. Proposals B. Letters C. Memoranda D. Reports E. Publishers’ proof reading marks Index stim Preface ~ Pacific who need to write in English for business, for . government or for the media, The aim is to help you edit what you write so that it is easy t0 understand and, at the same time, professional, clear and graceful, a pleasure to read. ‘The English that is advocated here is En; wherever you are. Most of the time, it However, iF you choose to will understand you perf asa verb is unfamiliar except in Malaysia. This is different from saying jon” when you are away from home on personal affairs, send” her to Singapore, since or forcing someone to go, rather than courteously taking them there, to native speakers of English. My thanks go to many members of the staff of Universiti Putra y am especially grateful to Dr Tan Hooi Universiti Putra Malaysia for the graph in the chapter on Quant (0 Tan Poh Hong of Pearson Education Malaysia for his ‘encouragement and support, and above all, to my husband, Ian McLaren, for his patience and his willing, wise and meticulous proof reading. My hope is that this small book will help you ensure that your writing always conveysthe meaning you intend,sossnsnnmnnnenns A Guide to Effective Writ ‘Summarising in summary in short in conclusion to conclude to sum up Sequence first, second, subsequently Tilustration for example for instance When any word has been used once, it can be used later as a transition, a paragraph firmly together. Notice the reuse paragraph below: nportant plants in a vegetable garden are lettuce, high and The four most ‘amin C to stave off ci colourful and useful at all times of the year. Tomatoes t better from the home garden. Last, but perhaps most important, parsley provides iron and serves as a flavour booster and an attractive garish in innumerable dishes. Experienced journalists develop this knack of linking information in a way that will carry the reader along easily. 66 Chapter 7 REFERENCING Three systems of referencing are available, two for academic or formal ‘work and one for more casual writing: 1. The American Psychological Association (APA) system This system is the one that seems to be most favoured in academic, and business pul sin Asia and the Pacific. It is most often used in scholarly papers ce and manage The author's name, followed by the date of pul yn and number of the page where you found the information you are quoting, is given in brackets (Zabid, 2000, p. 43). If the author wrote more than one book in the given year, the books will be listed alphabetically in the bibliography with a, b, c and so on, Zabid (1999a) The Euro-Asian Experiment Zabid (1999b) E-Commerce in Malaysia A reference in the bibliography to the book given as (1999a) above would be cited in brackets in the text this way: (Zabid, 1999a, p. 43). 2. ‘The Modern Language Association (MILA) system This system, almost always used in the humanities and in. writing for general rather than scholarly purposes, consists of footnotes. They can be numbered consecutively throughout a whole piece of work. If page 1 had two footnotes, page 2 none, and page 3 two footnotes, those on page I would be numbered I and 2 and those onA Guide to Effective Writing page 3 would be numbered 3 and 4. If you prefer, numbering can start afresh on each page, which is certainly easier for you as writer if you want to add or take out footnotes as you go. It is probably easier for the reader to follow as well. A variation of this system is used for legal documents. 3. The journalistic or informal style There are times when you are writing for a wide audience when both the APA and the MLA style would be inappropriate In a newspaper article, for instance, some acknowledgement like In the words of Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be all that is needed. In such quotations you, as writer, must details, and also that you could supply them instantly if chal All three systems have variations, known as “house style”, according to the publisher or the journal. You should be able to adapt easily if you remember the two formal systems both have the same purpose ~ to give author, title and facts of publication so that a reader can check or follow up any reference, or order a pages will give details that can be useful. . Footnotes, notes and references 1ced at the foot of each page) and references (placed the text in brackets or at the end of the whole document) allow the writer to keep the text light and clear and yet support what is being said. They serve four purposes: to acknowledge the source of quoted or paraphrased facts and opinions; . “to direct the reader to publications which contain further relevant information; to cross-reference; poet 7 ager eset 4. to comment on or explain the text. Both footnotes and references allow access to information that is interesting to some but not all readers. Footnotes work best for most lay readers. They can be considered carefully, glanced at, or ignored. The disadvantage is that some writers dislike them because of spacing difficulties, and some word-processing packages restrict the number a writer can use per page. However, notes in brackets (The APA system) can slow down and even irritate the reader. Notes, at the end of a text tend to be overlooked. Whichever system you choose, respect the following conventions: 1. The place in the text where a note is indicated Punctuation except the dash, whic full-stop, a circle or any other decor Passage to whict ‘The number follows the refers, or the quotation it acknowledges. 2. Dates must be given if possible. If a work is printed without a date, {n.d.] (no date) should be written. If the work is not dated, but the date of publication is known, the date should be given in square brackets (e.g. [1995 3. Authors’ and publishers’ names must be as they appear on the title page. For example, Addison-Wesley or Prentice-Hall must not be changed to Pearson even though you may know that Pearson has now taken over both Addison-Wesley and Prentice-Hall 4. Editors are only named if they have made a substantial contribution or have integrated separate articles into a book. Editors of periodicals are not named. The abbreviation for edition is edn, for editor, ed., and for editors, eds. . Place of publication is given for books, but only for journal articles when two journals of the same name are known to be published in different countries. 6. Reports are cited under the author’s name if it is given, and otherwise by title, with authority and date following. 7. Person-to-person discussion in any interview, at a meeting, on the 0—§ telephone or in any other situation, is given with the speaker's name | wm A Gulde to Effective Writing ~ first, then the date and place, and finally the words “personal communication”. . Radio and television references should include speaker, programme ). The notes are arranged in numerical order, whether at the bottom of the page or at the and of the document. If you do not have a references are abbreviated, and of the whole work (i.e. book or inverted commas, or left “The new airport, Langka or: The new airport, Langkai ). To reference information from the World Wide Web, as for any other referencing, your aim should be to supply directions for your reader to find the text easily. Start ith the name of the person or last updated and the date you visited the sit URL which can be put in angle brackets but does not really need them. Remember to give the URL ex: central library you would give the citation: Universiti Putra Malaysia Library http:/www.lib.upm.edu.my Last updated 2 December 1999; site visited 8 March 2000. When you work a quotation into your text, be sure that it nestles comfortably into the sentence. WRONG: She said that, “I am preparing for the meeting here nov RIGHT: She said, “I am preparing for the meeting here now.” ALSO RIGHT: — She said that she was preparing for the meeting there then. 7 - 2. Referencing, nnnnnnnnnon ‘Notice that in the last version (sometimes called indirect quotation) /ords she, here and now all change, each being one stage away from the immediacy of the exact words spoken. Direct speech is livelier. Indirect speech can be more concise and safer since it does not use exactly the same words as the speaker did. However, you still cannot change the meaning. In either form you are responsible for conveying exactly what the writer did, in context, say. Notice also the following conventions: is 2 Articles are always named before the publication they appear in. is p. and for pages, pp. Page numbers pp. 473-479, not 473-9. The abbreviation for one page following is f. and for two or more, ff., e.g, p. 271 ff. When exact page numbers are known they should be given in preference to f. and ff. Ifa volume or issue number is given as well, the abbreviations are often dropped, e.g. II, 17. h terms wherever possible. If the house style of a stops after them because they are abbreviations. Supra, idem, passim, and jo not because they are full words. Usually foreign words are italicised or underlined. Example: ie Chew Tek Ann (1999) History of Economic Thought. Kuala ‘Lumpur: Pustaka Prinsip p. 40. ison J. & McLaren M.C. (1999) Do New Zealand citizens get a lation? Issues in Writing. Vol9, No? Spring/Summer pp 154.195, . Harrison & McLaren, p.182. Chew, p. 60. See above, p. 31. ». Dr Susela Devi, University of Malaya, 30 May 2000, personal communication. nos snnnnnnnnn A Guide to Effective W graphy rian, as opposed to scholarly, reports seldom need a bibli- Ut ography. Articles and essays normally do. If you decide it is appro- priate to include one, place it at the very end, unless you have an index in which case it precedes the index. oral nor person any other articles a, an or the at the end. A newspaper article under the jing “An extraordinary stud” would be listed alphabetically as “Extraordinary stud, An” . Appendices Appendices contain any material which a reader might want but does not have to read in order to understand whatever is written. Don’t be tempted to include working papers which took time but tum out to have no real bearing on your conclusions. The appen- dices are there not to show your labours but to enable a reader to look at supplementary material without having to search for it. Statistical analyses, tables used for reference, segments of regu- lations or acts, questionnaires, and supporting illustrative material such as brochures, photocopies of passages from annual reports, ‘computer printouts and so on belong in the appendices. Each appendix should have separate Roman numeral and a title, the appendices are bound separately when what you are .. Useful abbreviations Notice that the En; other languages, h words are in plain type but the words from words not yet accepted as Bee Dee LOPE COPE e ene nae vsnnnimenen J, Referencing appendix article (plural, arts) circa, about or approximately compare chapter, (plural, chs) department editor, edited by (plural eds) edition exempli gratia, for example et alii, and others ibidem, in the same place idem, the same person below translated by no date given (notice the square brackets) no place given (notice the square brackets) no publisher given volume or volumes manuscript or manuscripts 37 1 Chapter 8 QUANTITATIVE INFORMATION A. Numbers Usage differs, but the following principles are widely followed. Write out in full the number one and round numbers which can be expressed in two words (like three hundred or six thousand). Express the following in di except for © Page and chapter numbers (ch. 4, p. 132) © Decimals and percentages (12.5; 40% or 40 percent) e ° ” which can easily be confused with ‘Technical numbers (33° Celsius or 33 degrees Celsius) Sums of money (RM 20, $USI2 ) When a number begins a sentence, always use words. This overrides all the other rules in this ‘Twenty-five people were injured in the accident. Write ordinal numbers in words. ‘The twenty-first century ‘The wedding is on the first of next month, ‘When you are writing out a date, use words for the month and digits for the day of the month and the year. This gets over thevvenenmmnsn A Guide to Effective problem of different cultures following a different order with day and month, since the order becomes unimportant. It is now considered old fashioned to use ordinal numbers (e.g. 6*) for the day of the month, so use cardinal numbers (¢.g.6). 6 May 2000 or May 6, 2000 Notice that the order, May 6, 2000 needs 2 comma to separate the 6. Write out fractions when they stand alone. Three quarters of the staff were made redundant, 7. Ifyou have more than two numbers in a sentence, use digi for all of them. ‘The woman bought 10 oranges, 2 papayas and 6 apples. Bur itis perfectly acceptable to write ‘The woman bought ten oranges, two papayas and six apples. 8. If you are referring to millions of ringgit or baht or dollars or any other currency, use a combination of numbers and words: RM 2 million, $$8 million 9. Avoid using the word billion altogether, since in British usage it means a million million, whereas in American usage it means a thousand mi 10. Notice that decades and contractions do not take an apostrophe since they are plural, not possessive: the 1990s ; the ABCs of animal care the si Princ’ es of Visual Display Good layout, with thoughtful use of white space and indenting, can ‘make what you have to say easy to read and remember. When some of your information is quanti form of graphs or tables to support your argument reinforce your message. 16 ‘Visual support should conform to the reader’s expectations. 1. Like written En; should move from left to right as it draws attention to changing variables. 2. Like written English, it should move from top to bottom. The title of any figure is best put at the top, and supplementary ‘material (sometimes called the legend) at the bottom. ‘The Response of Malaysian Exports to the Volatility of Exchange Rates oSUEEEEGEE $e bas Source: Tan Hui Boon, Working paper on the Mal into the new rnillennium, May 2000, wi jan economy and management permission 3. Just as we expect large, strong things to be more important, than small things, so large, bold type suits headings and exam- ples which are supposed to stand out. ing normally uses both capitals and small letters, so isplays should also. Because of their equal sively are very hard to read. For any is better to use both capitals and small letters, not capitals alone. 5. Colours like red and green which the colour blind could find confusing should be replaced by black and blue. 6. Just as good writers when revising will cut all unnecessary words so they do not bore or distract the reader, so also they 7ss A Gude to Effective Writing wnsnnneon prune their visual support so that only the essential is left in. Round off numbers in a table. Eliminate fussy shading in a pie chart. Spell out words, so the reader does not have to hunt through the text to decode abbreviations. ‘Your purpose must always dictate the choice of visual aid. Any information used must be up-to-date. If you have not collected it yourself, cite your source. When results are based on sampling, you must indicate. how that your results could have happened by chance. “Significant at 0.05 level” means that you can be 95% sure that the results are correct. The lower the level of significance, the more reliable the data, since there is less likelihood of the result having occurred by chance. C. Kinds of Visual Display ‘Most graphics can now be produced on the computer. If you are unsure which kind of support wi experiment ve your purpose best, you can see iffa bar chart will serve your purpose more clearly than, say, a pie chart. 1 2: ‘Tables are the nearest to writing itself. They are best when you ‘want to present a great quantity of material in detail. But even so, make them as easy to read as you can by rounding off ‘numbers and percentages. Order the information so that the pattern of increase or decline or whatever you have to show is, clearly visible. Tables are more suitable than other graphical forms when the information is given for reference rather than to prove a point, Line graphs show direction rather than exact value. A simple message, such as that the wearing of helmets reduced the severity of cycling accidents over a ten-year period, could be shown much more convineingly—though less exactly—on a line graph than in a table. Bar graphs show changes in value reasonably well. You can tell reasonably easily that 50% is larger than 48%. Significant 8 ~~ 8 Quantitative Information difference shows up really clearly on bar graphs. Pie charts show distinct proportions effectively, such as 2%, 10%, 25% and 75%. They are easy to read but small differ- ences (such as between 18% and 20%) hardly show up at all, and have to be written on to the chart A group of pie charts on a page may look attractive but is an extremely inefficient way of conveying messages. The reader has to compare quantities not only within but between the possible exercise. Photographs are excellent when you want something to be immediately recognisable. They show external appearance in a ‘way no diagram could do. Line drawings include flow charts, sketches, drawings of models and simy -d maps. They allow y particular part since all unnecessary det wual support relies on interaction of words, numbers and pictures. So long as the combination is used to convey meaning, and not for decoration, visual support can lift your writing in a way words alone could not do. All forms of graphical support should be integrated as closely as possible into the text. They should be referred to before they are presented, and commented on afterwards, to highlight key points but not to repeat the information item by item. If you need to use graphical design to a major extent, you should read authoritative texts on the subject such as Edward E. Tufte's, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information rev. edn 1990, Graphics Press, Cheshire, Connecticut or the [British] Cabinet Office publication, Plain Figures, HMSO, 9