Ikenna Nzimora. Ones Selector. Jacqui Pearl de Ocampo. More From Valerie Marquez. Valerie Marquez. Maria Fatima Macanan. Joe VaTa. Earl Donne Cruz. Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians and Philippians.
Popular in Arts, Culture And Entertainment. Jeromejeff Chan Chee Kong. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh. Heritage Auctions. Nagaratna Reddy. Naheed Irshaduddin. A grammar of the Urdu or Hindustani language in its romanized character. Robert C. Worstell Publisher: Lulu. As you are reading this, you are obviously interested in how Marketing actually works and what is actually effective. You already have been through the wringer with all these online marketers who use the same copy-paste template of a sales page, with mailing lists which send you unwanted traffic several times a week and insist that you are stupid enough to believe their hype, over and over and over.
The Masters of Marketing Secrets series brings you these classics so that you can make up your own mind. All that has been done with these books is to give you modern versions of them which have been mostly cleaned up of typo's and poor editing - and also made available in ebook and paperback so you can study them at your leisure. George Frederick lived in those times and wrote about the people and principles of advertising they discovered. His book has been handed around for years, and as you study the other books in this series it starts pulling the pieces together for you.
As its name shows, that is, On Teaching That Works, this book is about teaching that, hopefully, can empower our students to be better in their life in and after their formal schooling.
To be better is, of course, not just dependent on teaching; it also depends on learning. In that sense, although the focus of this book seems to be in and around the teaching and learning of writing in general, in English as a foreign language EFL in particular, it may also be relevant for those who are interested in educational issues in general like how a teacher can be an inspiring one and not just a good or a superior one Chapter Four or how our schools should be redesigned in order to make them more effective in empowering our students in and beyond their formal educational processes Chapter 9.
We have to acknowledge that the articles presented in this book have been made public before, either in academic journals or in academic seminars. We believe that by transferring those articles into a book form the ideas we have discussed before can then have broader audience and, therefore, be more beneficial for its audience worldwide. We believe, however, that this book is not a perfect one. The element that is under your control is how you identify your subject in the heading, or title.
The authors come from the advertising business, and may be prejudiced on this point. You need a subject line that compels attention and gives a sense of what follows. It can be formal or informal, serious or colorful, bland or newsy.
It cannot be absent. Think of the consultant on the plane. Which e-mail will he read first — Status of proposal or Winning client approval? Busy executives filter their e-mail. Some use automatic filters that sort incoming messages into a priority system or just scan the index of senders and subjects. Terri Dial, who runs Wells Fargo in California, deletes a third of her messages without ever opening them and, as a consequence, now pays more attention to her own subject lines so mail she sends gets read.
She cautions against trying to get past this filtering by marking messages urgent. And remember that if you cry wolf too often, others will note it and your e-mail will get even shorter shrift. It is especially important that e-mail messages sent to a group quickly communicate the content so each recipient can determine if it is relevant to him or her. It is annoying to find after three paragraphs that the content is of no interest to you. Try to make clear at once which readers your message is for, e.
While you cannot inflate your importance to the recipient, you can at least make clear who you are. E-mail addresses that are all numbers or signal your interests should show your name in the display in some way. Among our fishing friends, we quickly identify troutsmith emailserver, but can never remember who goes by dryflier emailserver.
People learn quickly to delete junk mail. Title, too, if that helps. Cut to the point We mean that literally. Cut ruthlessly. E-mail is a different medium. Reading long memos on a PC screen is a pain; anything over one screen risks not being read and is better sent as an attachment. Someone asked Rodin how he could sculpt an elephant out of marble.
Their executives are told that people want fast answers to simple questions. Beyond FYI, most are new slang not familiar to enough people. Responding without attaching or referring to the original message makes the reader search through Sent messages if saved to make sense of the reply. Can you come? If the writer sends a message and the reader has to ask for clarification, the e-mail points of contact have been doubled.
Be clear about the purpose of your message. What do you want the reader to do? Set the right tone of voice E-mail is faceless and voiceless. The mood of the sender cannot be communicated by the inflection of a voice as on the telephone.
E-messages are a different animal, subject to misinterpretation. These take time to insert, are more used by teens than business, and not always understood. The subject heading can be a good place to establish the tone you want. How do we reply?
Or, Thanks a bunch, everybody! Another place to suggest tone is the salutation. For example, Hello Mr. Brown is informal and friendly yet professional, and somehow seems more appropriate in these electronic times than Dear Mr. With colleagues and everyday associates, a simple Hello, George, or Hi can suffice. Or just use the first name. A lot of e-mail ends abruptly — no signature of any kind. It just stops. Since the sender is identified at the beginning, goes the reasoning, why repeat his or her name at the end?
But unless the tone of your message is absolutely clear, closing with Thanks or Best wishes or Cheers removes any doubt as to your state of mind. In the past, people took the time to think, to consider what they wanted to say, before responding to a letter or memo. The possibility for instant response to e-mail — indeed the expectation of it in many cases — increases the danger of going off half-cocked.
Compose yourself, then compose your message. Old-style memos and letters, which had to be typed, then read and signed, then put in the Out box, and then mailed, gave senders time to cool off and reconsider. Some people protect themselves by handling correspondence off-line, downloading all messages, both incoming and outgoing, before answering, so they can read and correct before sending. They find they tend to be hasty when the modem is on and the Send button is at the ready.
Nonetheless, there are old-fashioned virtues like courtesy and neatness that remain relevant in this modern medium. In e-mail, one translation of courtesy is Limit the number of copies.
The only thing easier than sending an e-message is adding people to the list receiving it. Copies are sent to far too many people — for the wrong reasons. To impress them. To cover yourself. If you want action, list only one name in the TO: field.
With more than one name, it is not clear who has the responsibility to act and becomes likely that no one will take it on. Reply All may be the most dangerous button on the screen. Count to ten before you unleash this plague on your victims. Double-check to make sure your message goes only to the people you want it to go to. An evaluation of a partner in an accounting firm was inadvertently circulated among several thousand people.
To: L. I had a problem in the configuration of my outlook and it forwarded by rule all the messages to the L. I did not mean to cause you any trouble. Note: Do not reply to this message because it will go to all the members of the list. To: eaworld eahq Subject: E-mail fever In the past few weeks, many EA folks have expressed their frustration over the huge quantity of e-mail we at EA seem to send each other. Many of us feel overwhelmed. Do not copy unneeded persons on your e-mail.
Send notes only to those that need to read it. Do not join in the e-mail circus by adding your thoughts or short ideas to these never-ending e-mail threads that clog up our in boxes. Instead, when you see a monster e-mail thread starting, stop the flow and call a real face-to-face meeting to resolve the issue.
Do not use e-mail when a quick word over a cube wall will do the trick. Avoid using broadcast e-mails unless absolutely required yes, I see the irony in this. Try to follow this rule … unless what you are sending a imparts new information to someone who needs it, or b agrees to a request, or c responds to a question or d asks a question or makes a request, do not send anything.
I know many of us get the shakes if we do not send an e-mail every few minutes, but take a deep breath and try to get over it. John Riccitiello says he has to send this reminder every six months or so. Try not to make people scroll through a page or more of addressees before getting to the subject; they tend not to bother.
One way to handle a long list is to give the group an alias name in the Address Book — we used e-pals for this book.
If you find yourself caught up in a series of copied messages which are of only peripheral interest to you, politely ask the author to take you off the copy list. When someone sends a batch of questions that will require too much time to answer in writing, ask the sender to set a telephone date for you to tackle them. A brief voice mail message works here; actual contact is not needed. The general rule remains: e-mail or phone, but not both.
Another principle of etiquette, neatness, translates as making it easy to read — and is covered in the chapter with that title. However, one aspect of making it easy to read applies particularly to e-mail: how to handle attachments.
When sending large attachments or multiple files, your reader will appreciate it if you compress the files. Check your PC manual or Help program to figure out how. Compression conveniently groups files together and shortens download time. This is especially relevant outside the United States. Remember that many people around the world pay per-character charges and telephone surcharges to receive your e-mail.
If your e-mail contains an attached file or refers to a www address, your reader may not be able to get important information. If you ever receive attachments with e-mail, you should definitely install a virus checker. The Chernobyl virus caused computer meltdowns around the world. Handle attachments with care — and back up anything important.
When NOT to e-mail Most circumstances in which snail mail is preferable to e-mail are obvious: legal matters requiring signatures, invitations to formal events, fund-raising letters. Here are a couple that may be less obvious. If you have to change or cancel a meeting on short notice, a phone call or fax works better than e-mail. E-mail is not usually the best way to introduce yourself to someone. The executive contacted is probably flooded with messages and is not likely to open or read yours.
Nothing is private When you seal a letter, place a stamp on it, and mail it, it does not become the property of the U. Postal Service. Your office e-mail, however, is the property of the company that pays for the e-mail system.
Companies have the right to search their company mailboxes, and many do. Everybody uses office systems for personal messages. Some people describe e-mail as a high-tech watercooler, a place for off-color jokes, gossip, gripes about management. People have lost their jobs for sending jokes that they believed to be harmless but which offended someone who then complained.
E-mail records of exchanges that may have seemed innocent at the time have been credited as the U. All it does is move material to another folder, like Recycle. You can delete again, but all that does is remove pointers to the message. The message itself still exists and can be found, unless you go another step and shred it by scrambling the codes.
In any case, a record remains on another computer somewhere. Your odds of keeping something private are better if there is no written file. The Internet is changing language. It has propelled the previously deliberate pace of language evolution to higher speeds.
That was the general agreement at a meeting of the Modern Language Association. This is a new medium and an opportunity to be creative — and an invitation to abuse. The Reagan-Bush White House created two hundred thousand electronic files; the Clinton office is creating six million files a year.
E-mail is becoming more ubiquitous with wireless transmission and access from mobile phones and handheld computers. Beyond millions of new users coming on-line, e-mail voice recognition has arrived — with the terrifying prospect of people dictating stream-of-consciousness e-mails. With such developments, the fight to stand out in the clutter can only intensify.
E-mail is frequently the only written record of agreements. Voice mail is often abused, with messages that are too long and repetitive yet not complete.
Names and phone numbers are either not given or not clear. The obligation to keep it short and sweet is even greater than with e-mail. Prepare yourself by thinking about what you want to say. Make it concise and to the point.
No pleasantries necessary. Jot down a few bullet points that will make your message short and clear. If it must be long, announce this — and the reason — at the start.
State your name and number clearly and slowly, especially the number. This is the most violated principle, and its violation the most irritating, especially from people who want something done.
Then hang up. On the other hand, we have yet to see an office without a printer or an executive without pencil and pad of paper. The written word remains the best way to communicate in a variety of circumstances. Unlike a phone call, one can refer to a memo or a letter over and over. Unlike voice mail, you can scan a memo for the points important to you.
You can study it, ponder it, pass it on to other people, or pull it up and print it out to refresh your memory days or years later. Unlike presentation decks, with their telegraphic and abbreviated points, memos and letters spell things out without relying on a spoken explanation.
As the writer, you can express your thoughts precisely, with every nuance just so. As the reader, you can consider a written matter when and where you choose and for as long a time as you wish. Good memos and letters can solve problems, clarify issues, straighten out misunderstandings, raise questions or answer them, spread the word, complain, mollify, cheer up, and praise. Here are some ways to assure that your memos and letters succeed in their missions.
How to Write a Memo Memos are letters to people within your organization, or to people outside it with whom you work closely. You are writing to colleagues; write in a conversational style. But an informal tone of voice is no excuse for sloppy thinking or careless expression. A confusing or ambiguous memo slows things down or messes them up. Whether sent by e-mail or on paper, good memos follow similar formats. Put a title on every memo In e-mail memos your title is in your heading.
Your title should never be tricky or obscure. It should identify — swiftly, and for all readers — what your memo is about. Address memos only to the person who must take action Send copies to the people you merely want to keep informed. If several people must do something, address the memo to all of them and make clear what each must do. If you list them in order of importance, you often run into complications. Is the head of manufacturing more important than the head of research?
Who comes first among four assistant deans? Such problems evaporate if you put all names in alphabetical order, except when that would be ludicrous.
It would be ludicrous, for example, in a memo to the Human Resources director with copies to two assistants and the president, to list the president alphabetically among the assistants. Make your structure obvious Before you start to write, decide on structure. It will depend on the length, complexity, and nature of your subject. Any memo longer than half a page or screen requires a structure — and the structure should be apparent to your reader.
Otherwise your memo will seem to ramble. Your reader will have a hard time remembering your points and how they hang together. If what you want to say falls into conventional outline form — for instance, three main points, each supported by several examples, with a comment or two on each example — your outline will serve as your structure. A clear structure helps your reader to remember your points. It also makes your memo easy to refer to.
Some memos are actually complex reports or recommendations, running a half-dozen pages or more. Need to commit to the media and begin production of television by July 26 in order to make mid-September launch. Do you agree? Please let us know your comments and approval to proceed by Monday July Or write a brief covering memo and attach your report or plan as a separate document.
This works well for major papers. One useful structure is often overlooked: a simple series of numbered points. It has many advantages. It suits your purpose exactly when you wish to make several loosely related observations on a single subject. It eliminates the need to write connectives. It organizes your thoughts visually for your reader. Your numbered sections can be as long or short as you wish.
Some can be a single sentence, others two or more paragraphs. All that matters is that each number should indicate the start of a new and distinct thought. Numbers make your memo easy to refer to. End with a call to action Say what you expect to happen as a result of your memo — exactly what must now be done, by whom, and by when. Be specific. We need to move on the new products organization.
I need your thoughts on candidates by end of business on Friday. We need a new strategy for increasing attendance at the benefit before we send the invitation out. If your memo is a report, draw conclusions from what you saw or heard or found out. Specify how certain you feel about your conclusions. Some will be beyond question, others purely speculative. Tell your reader which are which. Send handwritten notes Brief memos written by hand save time and by their nature are more personal and direct.
Get some rest now — you deserve it! Since handwriting is personal, make sure whatever you write sounds personal. That includes people who may not be on your list but might see a copy of your memo.
Avoid irony or sarcasm. Somebody will take it straight and get upset. People can brood for days over an innocently intended witticism. As for anger, when you get angry in person, you leave nothing behind other than the memory of your behavior. When you put it in writing, you leave a permanent record. You may be sorry about that, after you cool down.
Angry memos do have their place. This is particularly important with e-mail, which is all too ready to indulge your spur-of-the-moment fury. Should it be a memo at all? How to Write a Business Letter There are times when only a letter will serve your purpose.
Legal and financial matters call for precision and detail in a form that can be easily referred to. There is no substitute for a handwritten note of thanks, congratulations, or sympathy. Receiving and opening a first-class letter still is a pleasing ritual for some people. Here are ways to make sure you never let down any reader thus prepared for your message. Get the name and address right A misspelled name gets you off on the wrong foot.
Check all names, no matter how much trouble it takes — on the envelope and in the letter, the names of individuals and of firms and organizations. Use Mr. Mickey, Terry, Gerry, Sandy, and many other names come on both girls and boys. Check every detail. Always put a return address on the envelope.
The stamp might fall off, or God knows what. Odd and antiquated though it may sound, efforts to avoid it seem artificial, self-conscious, and downright rude. In less formal letters, a handwritten Peter or Hi Peter seems to work fine. Use titles — Dr. Or somebody important and senior to you whom you know only slightly. Or the other way around. Consider beginning with a title Many business letters are parts of a long-term correspondence between seller and customer, attorney and client, private firm and government bureau.
Consider using a title even on one-time-only letters to strangers. Then your first sentence has to perform the function of a title.
Your reader wants to know at once what the letter is about. There is no need for the written equivalent of small talk. Annoying small talk Dear Classmate, As you know, we had a wonderful fifteenth reunion last June. We can all be proud of the class gift we presented at that time. Now we are well into the first year of the end-of-the-century campaign. What about letters responding to inquiries or on a subject introduced in previous correspondence?
Can you presume that the reader will know what your letter is about, having brought up the subject himself in an earlier letter? Yes — up to a point. On the next page are two answers to a request for information. Too windy Too abrupt Dear Mr. Allen: Dear Mr. Unfortunately, we are all out of our pamphlets on this subject, information that may but perhaps the following information will be of assistance.
The letter on the right presumes too much. If Mr. He needs a speedy reminder of his inquiry — more direct than the first letter, less abrupt than the second. Dear Mr. Meanwhile, maybe this information will help. The short first sentence reminds Mr. Allen of the subject and tells him the chief thing he needs to know. Always identify your subject in your first sentence.
Avoid platitudes like these: Please call if you have any questions. I hope this answers your concern. Please give this matter your careful consideration. Unless you have something to say that is more than a formality, simply stop. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read.
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Read more. Writing That Works is the definitive guide to business writing. These blinks are full of advice on how to write clear, compelling and succinct business communications, covering everything from quarterly reports to presentations, emails and even resumes.
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