Is The Ability To Write Important?

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Comment by rochgypsy on June 20, 2009 at 9:34am

For someone who is thinking about whether to write their own or have someone else do it for them I think it is important that they first know whether they know how to capture the audience they are trying to reach. Here is and excerpt from a guide I offer.
1.0 AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
The audience of a financial or business report—or any piece of writing for that matter—is the intended or potential reader or readers. For most writers of financial documents and business reports, this is the most important consideration in planning, writing, and reviewing a document. You "adapt" your writing to meet the needs, interests, and background of the people who will be reading what you have written.
The principle seems absurdly simple and obvious. It's much the same as telling someone,
"Talk so the person in front of you can understand what you're saying."
It's like saying, "Don't talk rocket science to your six-year-old."
Do we need a course in that? Doesn't seem like it. But, in fact, lack of audience analysis and adaptation is one of the root causes of most of the problems you find in business and financial documents
1.1 TYPES OF AUDIENCES
One of the first things to do when you analyze your potential audience is to identify its type (or types—it's rarely just one type). Some common division of audiences are listed below.
Experts:
These are the people who know the theory and the principle inside and out. Often, they have advanced degrees and operate in business worlds. The non-specialist reader is least likely to understand what these people are saying-but also has the least reason to try. More often, the communication challenge faced by the expert is communicating to the executive.
Executives:
These are the people who make business, economic, administrative, legal, governmental, political decisions on the stuff that the experts work with.
Executives are likely to have a lot more financial knowledge about the subject than the non-specialists.
Non-specialists:
These readers have the least amount background knowledge of all. Their interest may be as practical as executives, but in a different way. They want to examine the investment and they want to understand it enough to know whether to be for or against it. Or, they may just be curious about a specific item and want to learn about it—but for no specific, practical reason.








1.2 AUDIENCE ANALYSIS

It's important to determine which of the categories the potential readers of your document belong to, but that's not the end of it. Audiences, regardless of category, must also be analyzed in terms of characteristics.
Background-knowledge and experience
Needs and interests
Other demographic characteristics
More than one audience
Wide variability in an audience
Background-knowledge and experience
One of your primary concerns is just how much knowledge and experience you can expect in your readers. If you expect some of your readers to lack certain background, do you automatically supply it in your document?
Consider an example:
Imagine you're writing a guide to using a software product that runs under Microsoft Windows.
How much can you expect your readers to know about Windows?
If some are likely to know little about Windows, should you provide that information? If you say no, then you run the risk of customers' getting frustrated with your product.
If you say yes to adding background information on Windows, you increase your work effort and add to the page count of the document (and thus to the cost).
Obviously, there's no easy answer to this question—part of the answer may involve just how small a segment of the audience needs that background information.
Needs and interests
To plan your document, you need to know what your audience is going to expect from that document. Imagine how readers will want to use your document; what will they demand from it.
For example, imagine you're under contract to write a financial analysis on global warming for a national real estate association—what do they want to read about; and, equally important, what do they not want to read about?
Other demographic characteristics
There are many other characteristics about your readers that might have an influence on how you should design and write your document—for example, age groups, type of residence, area of residence, sex, political preferences, and so on.
Audience analysis can get complicated by at least two other factors: mixed audience types for one document, wide variability within audience, and unknown audiences.






More than one audience.
You're likely to find that your report is for more than one audience.
For example, it may be seen by financial people (experts) and administrative people (executives).
What to do?
You can either write all the sections so that all the audiences of your document can understand them (good luck!).
Or you can write each section strictly for the audience that would be interested in it, then use headings and section introductions to alert your audience about where to go and what to stay out of in your report.
Wide variability in an audience.
You may realize that, although you have an audience that fits into only one category, there is a wide variability in its background. This is a tough one—if you write to the lowest common denominator of reader, you're likely to end up with a cumbersome, tedious book-like thing that will turn off the majority of readers. But if you don't write to that lowest level, you lose that segment of your readers.
What to do?
Most writers go for the majority of readers and sacrifice that minority that needs more help. Others put the supplemental information in appendixes or insert cross-references to beginners' books.















1.3 AUDIENCE ADAPTATION
You've analyzed your audience until you know them better than you know yourself.
What good is it?
How do you use this information?
How do you keep from writing something that will still be incomprehensible or useless
to your readers?
The business of writing to your audience may have a lot to do with in-born talent, intuition, and even mystery. But there are some controls you can use to have a better chance to connect with your readers. The following "controls" have mostly to do with making financial information more understandable for non-specialist audiences.
Add information readers need to understand your document.
Check to see whether certain key information is missing—for example, important background that helps beginners understand the main discussion; definition of key terms.
Omit information your readers do not need.
Unnecessary information can also confuse and frustrate readers—after all, it's there so they feel obligated to read it. For example, you can probably chop theoretical discussion from basic text.
Change the level of the information you currently have.
You may have the right information but it may be "pitched" at too high or too low a level. It may be pitched at the wrong kind of audience—for example, at an expert audience rather than a executive audience. This happens most often when investment notes are passed off as text.
Add examples to help readers understand.
Examples are one of the most powerful ways to connect with audiences. For example, when you are trying to explain a financial concept, examples are a major help—analogies in particular.
Change the level of your examples.
You may be using examples but the content or level may not be appropriate to your readers. Homespun examples may not be useful to experts; highly financial ones may totally miss your non-specialist readers.
Change the organization of your information.
Sometimes, you can have all the right information but arrange it in the wrong way. For example, there can be too much background information up front (or too little) such that certain readers get lost.
Sometimes, background information needs to woven into the main information—for example, in stating values it's sometimes better to feed in chunks of background at the points where they are immediately needed.

Comment by Laron on June 20, 2009 at 9:07am

I believe writing is important. I'm in the process of learning how to write articles and would really like to more. Especially how to get people to read them and respond.

Comment by tom brown on June 20, 2009 at 8:14am

I might add that in a UK survey it found 72% of job applications contained typo and grammatical errors. What do they teach in schools these days? I suggest text speak and write!!!

Thankfully I still preserve my standards of GCE Certificate of Cambridge "O" level in written and oral English.

Whilst in the Army I learned to speak in Braille but that's another story

Tom

Comment by Alfred M. Kamosa, Jr. on June 20, 2009 at 8:01am

I enjoy writing when there is a subject that need to be brought to the public's attention. But otherwise I am only mediocre at writing. While operating a business such as a Real Estate Brokerage it is advantageous to have experience in writing operation manuels and so on.
Its a shame, a person can write excellent ads and help wanted ads but a portion of the public remains illiterate and cannot comprehend basic word sentences. Yes if you are in business you need to write at some acceptable level.

Comment by Rob Easley on June 20, 2009 at 7:15am

Writing indeed is paramount in your success. But from my observations here, maybe some more attention to proofreading before publishing might be in order. I have some problems with grammar, but everything I author is checked for spelling. I am not a scholar, but I am a professional, and will do everything in my power to make all my responses reflect that.
I'm still working on the dress code for professionals, because I have outgrown my suit. I guess you might say I'm a casual professional.
God bless.
Rob

Comment by Coco Watkin on June 20, 2009 at 7:07am

Good writing is the ability not just to communicate something concrete or informative, but good writing, whether intended to teach, to question, to console, or to sell, engages the reader's imagination in such a way as to create an experience. It is essential to building both personal and business relationships.

Comment by Ron Tocknell on June 20, 2009 at 6:50am

We live in an age in which the majority of us have the means to communicate with the world at our fingertips and yet so few of us even know how to really use it. The sad fact is that much of what is published on the Internet and is available as self-published books that can only be ordered online is utter dross.

Now almost everyone is either a 'citizen journalist' or a self-published author. The benefit of not having to rely on the opinions of an editor or an agent or a publishing house to get one's work published is, to some degree, overshadowed by the sheer volume of unfiltered sluice we have to wade through to find anything of value.

The best thing about the Internet is that now anyone can publish anything they like. Arguably, the worst thing about the Internet is that they do.

Comment by H R Ingram III on June 20, 2009 at 6:31am

Writing is KING! And that, from a photographer, is saying a lot.
:o)
Ron I

Comment by Nancy Beahm on June 20, 2009 at 6:17am

Writing is so important. I have a tendency to judge a persons compentency level on how well they write. It's sad to say, that with the electronic medium used, writing, as well as social skills, in my opinion, have gone down hill. I believe that if a person can speak well, writing skills are not too far behind.

Comment by Konrad Fischer on June 20, 2009 at 6:04am

The question: "Is The Ability To Write Important?"
The answer: YES, it is.

But:

Much more important is the sense in the text. Not the syntax, spelling, grammar etc. Is good biz writing to write a bad thing good? That's the sophistical way and I don't prefer this.

The main thing is the character of your product / service. Is it a fair product or not?

Let's assume, it's really good.

To sell it it makes no sense to write about in golden shining words. All do / try so, but despite this it is (nearly) not working.

Better: Show and describe the world without your product / service (and with the usual "other" products) in any but provoking and humourous words. That's the way to make the readers aware of the benefits they are missing so long time. And then they will feel the need to buy - if only your benefits have a natural given purpose for their world. No praising of your products!

I do so since years - and customers will understand the benefits and pay in advance better fees than usual ...

Good luck to all!

Konrad
Germany

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