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Writing Routine Letters, Memos and Emails - Pearson

What infor-mation needs to beincluded in routinemessages andwhat should be left subjectlines that providean accuratedescription of thecontents of a routinemessages to beginwith a key idea fol-lowed by necessarysupporting email mes-sages, letters, andmemos to followstandard clear, courte-ous email mes-sages that are sentonly to the appro-priate readersLEARNING OUTCOMES8 Writing Routine Letters, Memos and EmailsCHAPTERA fter completing this chapter, you should be able to do the 11/7/09 12:20 AM Page 170 THE COST OF COMMUNICATIONAn article in the Globe and Mailestimated that if a $40 000-a-year employeespent two hours a day reading and Writing email , the annual cost would be$9000. The writer noted that both the $40 000 salary and the two daily hoursspent communicating were probably conservative is cost of communication is undeniable, but it is an expense that mostbusinesses consider worthwhile.

THE COST OF COMMUNICATION An article in the Globe and Mailestimated that if a $40 000-a-year employee spent two hours a day reading and writing email, the annual cost would be

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Transcription of Writing Routine Letters, Memos and Emails - Pearson

1 What infor-mation needs to beincluded in routinemessages andwhat should be left subjectlines that providean accuratedescription of thecontents of a routinemessages to beginwith a key idea fol-lowed by necessarysupporting email mes-sages, letters, andmemos to followstandard clear, courte-ous email mes-sages that are sentonly to the appro-priate readersLEARNING OUTCOMES8 Writing Routine Letters, Memos and EmailsCHAPTERA fter completing this chapter, you should be able to do the 11/7/09 12:20 AM Page 170 THE COST OF COMMUNICATIONAn article in the Globe and Mailestimated that if a $40 000-a-year employeespent two hours a day reading and Writing email , the annual cost would be$9000. The writer noted that both the $40 000 salary and the two daily hoursspent communicating were probably conservative is cost of communication is undeniable, but it is an expense that mostbusinesses consider worthwhile.

2 What is more, good communication skillscan provide a valuable boost to your career. An article in the journalSupervisiondescribed how one man s career progressed over five years froma low-level supervisory job in the computer department to a managementposition that paid three times his original salary. The author attributed thismeteoric rise to the man s carefully prepared presentations, which improvedhis image as a resident communicator and earned him a reputation as thedepartment problem era we live in is often called the Information Age, largely because theexplosive growth in computers has made information a valuable product andcommunication a useful tool. The cost of communication comes both fromthe 25 percent of their day3that people devote to managing their writtencommunications and from the supporting infrastructure: hardware, soft-ware, networks, printers, and how to fine-tune Routine communications letters, Memos ,and Emails can be invaluable to your 8 Writing Routine Letters, Memos and Emails171 The dream of the paperless officewas around long before the firstcomputer was introduced.

3 Morethan a century ago, inventorThomas Edison predicted that hisphonograph would allow officeworkers to record their wordsinstead of Writing them down phonograph went on toachieve success as an entertain-ment device, but it was never con-sidered a practical tool for theoffice. For most types of office com-munication, reading is faster andmore efficient than the 1970s, the increa-sed use of computer technologygave rise to numerous predictionsabout the declining role of paper inthe modern predic-tions have a logical basis. Paper isexpensive to produce, bulky tostore, and awkward to , such predictions havenot become OF PRINTINGP aper is not disappearing. Walkinto any office in the country andyou will see numerous printers,photocopiers, filing cabinets, sta-plers, and all the other tools usedto process paper.

4 Our volume ofpaper use has not declined office paper consumptionalmost doubled between 1980 Dream of thePaperless 11/7/09 12:20 AM Page 171 Covering the Country in PaperIn 2003, Canadians consumed kilo-grams of paper per person. This is almost20 000 pages for each person, enough tocover an Olympic swimming is one of the world s leadingproducers of paper, yet the paper indus-try is in trouble. Should people beincreasing their use of paper productsto support the industry?TAKE IT FURTHERWith computers, the internet,and email , people are now readingand Writing more at work than everbefore. A study conducted for Lexmarkfound that 40 percent of workers insmall- to medium-sized businessesprint correspondence that is receivedelectronically. Two-thirds of all infor-mation created is printed at often prefer paper whencomposing, editing, and reviewingdocuments because it allows themto pencil in quick comments andannotations.

5 People also oftenprefer to deliver paper copies ofcompleted reports, partly becauseof the increased feelings of securitythat come with a tangible product,and partly so that they can answer172 Part 2 Routine CommunicationsPaper remains a common sight in almost every office in some more than 11/7/09 12:20 AM Page 172questions and maintain a morepersonal relationship with rising consumption of paperdoes not mean that people andorganizations are rebelling againstelectronic information. Far from are bypassing paper formany Routine transactions. More andmore employers pay their employeesthrough electronic direct depositsrather than the pay envelopes filledwith cash that were used a generationago or the paycheques used adecade USE OFELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONE mail is used heavily.

6 One study saysthat the typical American spendsabout half an hour each workday pro-cessing email about ten incomingand five outgoing messages. About15 percent of workers process morethan 50 Emails a day, and 4 percentspend more than four hours a daydoing email was new,and a novelty to many people, it wasa Routine for many people to print outall the messages that they received perhaps one or two a Paperless Office in CanadaThe widespread increase of computersthat began in the early 1980s sparkedpredictions of the paperless office, inwhich all information would be trans-mitted electronically. Instead, Canada sconsumption of printing and writingpaper more than doubled between 1983and 2003; Canada Post deliveries grewby 60 percent during the same that email and electronic billpayments have reduced Canada Post svolume, how do you account for the netincrease?

7 TAKE IT FURTHERC hapter 8 Writing Routine Letters, Memos and Emails173 Paper will always have a use around the 11/7/09 12:20 AM Page 173 Many North Americans usescanning technology to process infor-mation that originated on can be digitized andstored electronically, usually as PDF(portable document format) files. Anever-increasing proportion of mostcollege and university libraries consistof digitized journal articles stored inelectronic databases. In offices, blue-prints, reports, research articles, andother company records can all bestored this way, saving space andimproving PERSISTENCE OF PAPERNot all documents lend themselves toelectronic transmission and storage,though. For now, contracts and docu-ments requiring original signatureswill continue to be printed. Peopleresist having their personal notessaved for posterity, out of fear thattheir rough work will be misinter-preted or subpoenaed for courtcases.

8 The paperless office is unlikelyto become a reality any time soon,but the way everyone uses paper willcontinue to can make a big dif-ference in the volume of paper beingused by paying attention to their ownprinting habits. People are relyingmore on printers and less on photo-copiers, which indicates that they areprinting documents on an individualbasis rather than making multiplecopies for distribution. (Between1988 and 1993, the number ofphotocopiers in use around theworld rose by 5 percent, while thenumber of office printers jumped by600 )If people can choose to print adocument, in many cases they canalso choose to view it FUTURE OF THEPAPERLESS OFFICEU ndeniably, both computer use andpaper consumption have beenincreasing. This has two implicationsfor able to write routinedocuments has increased inimportance and will continue todo are growing increasinglyalarmed at the costs associatedwith paper Edison s vision of anoffice driven by recorded voice mes-sages was never realized.

9 However,the foremost technological innovatorof our time, Bill Gates, has predictedan increase in the sophistication ofspeech recognition tools that allowpeople to dictate directly into theircomputers while the programconvertstheir speech to use of this technologywill reduce keyboarding time but gen-erally not affect the Writing skills required to organize andplan Routine messages will likelychange very speech recognition does makeit easier to produce documents, it willlikely bring about a further explosionin the amount of written material pro-duced (with further implications forthe amount of paper used).Companies have introduced somemeasures to reduce paper use (suchas by increasing the use of web-based documents), but individualswill find ways to reduce their own useof FOR REDUCING PAPER USEThe following ideas can help youmake a difference: Learn to edit onscreen.

10 Manyword-processing programs comewith tools to improve the writingprocess: outlining features thatassist planning; spell and gram-mar checkers that help withproofreading; and reviewing toolsthat facilitate collaboration. Decide whether a printed versionis necessary. Some media, suchas visual presentations and doc-uments containing hyperlinks,work better electronically. When printing is necessary, max-imize the use of space. Reducethe size of margins and on both sides of a sheetand single space documents ifpossible. If you must print slidesfrom a visual presentation, putsix slides on a page. When printing revisions to a doc-ument, check to see whichpages have changed, and printonly Have you noticed paper being wasted at youreducational institution? Who are the biggestculprits: students, instructors, or adminis-trators?


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