Fundamentals of Administrative Writing:
1)
Privilege the purpose over all else
Your writing succeeds when it
most easily achieves your purpose:
it helped you achieve your goal.
Your writing
fails when you either:
a) didn't achieve your purpose
b) spent too much time trying to achieve it.
2) Analyze
And Understand Your Audience and Adapt the Message to Him/Her/Them
You will achieve your purpose efficiently when you understand the reader, your
reader's attitude and feeling toward the topic and toward you or your
organization, what motivates him or her, and his or her core values etc.
3) Use
"You Attitude"
Choose your words
carefully and rephrase sentences so that your reader believes you, the author,
are taking her and her needs and demands seriously
a)
privilege the reader's demands, needs, desires, ego over your own/the writer's
b)
offer a tangible extrinsic and/or intrinsic reader benefit.
4) Use
Positive Emphasis/Spin
When necessary, privilege optimism over reality or
"truth" (within ethical limits):
a)
eliminate or minimize negative info whenever possible
b)
emphasize all positive news, including benefits.
For example, doctors and dentists usually say "This may cause you a little discomfort" rather than saying "Hold on, this is going to really, really hurt like hell!" Words like "may", "little" and "discomfort" all act to cast the pain in the most positive light possible.
5) Build
and Maintain Goodwill
Develop positive relationships with the reader(s), especially
when you
don't want to. The reader should finish reading your document:
a) wanting to deal with you (emotional appeal:
pathos)
b) trusting you and your organization (ethos).
6) Use
Good Process
Pre-write, draft, revise, peer-review, edit.
Sometimes it helps to put a
quantifiable dollar amount on everything that you write: what is this document
worth
to you in terms of time/money/goals? For example, if you are trying
to break your lease and still get your deposit back from the landlord, that
letter is worth the amount of your deposit; so, let's say, it is a $700 letter. Make sure the document's quality accurately
reflects that value and then invest the time equal to that value.