2
Getting Organized

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Write an outline with the appropriate level of detail.

• State the first two questions that a reader asks when receiving a memo, letter, proposal, or report.

• Name four criteria for good evidence.

• Describe direct and indirect patterns of organization and explain when each should be used.

• Name and define five common sequences of supporting ideas.

You’ve considered the needs and purposes of your readers and figured out what you want to cover in your piece of writing, but there is more preparation to do. The next prewriting step is to organize the material you wish to present.

As we noted in Chapter 1, your readers may not be as familiar with your subject as you are, which is to your advantage, but your expertise can also complicate your writing task. Something that may be perfectly obvious to you can be confusing to someone else unless you present your ideas and information in a logical and organized way. There are also the dangers of citing faulty evidence or inundating your reader with unnecessary details. Taking the time to organize your ideas carefully before you write is the best way to avoid these pitfalls. It will also make the process of writing more efficient.

CREATING AN OUTLINE

An outline is a blueprint or plan for what you want to include in a piece of writing. It can be an extremely useful tool for putting your thoughts in order and for revealing gaps, redundancies, and overlapping ideas. People have different ways of conceptualizing things, so outlining doesn’t work for everyone. Still, we recommend knowing how it works and trying some version of it a few times to see if it is helpful to you.

Formal and Informal Outlines

You probably learned how to write a formal outline in school: parallel headings (we’ll talk about parallel structure in Chapter 4), at least two subheadings under each main heading—that sort of thing. But a long, detailed outline, the kind that earned you an A in English class, isn’t always necessary in business writing. When your message is short and straightforward, your outline can be quite informal: a few phrases jotted down, then numbered or organized by arrows in the order in which you’ll present them. For longer messages and complex subject matter, however, you’re likely to need a more detailed outline.

How your outline will be used determines its level of detail. If you are the only one who will use it, your outline may consist merely of a list of nouns, or topics to be covered, or short phrases to note the actions to be taken. Here are two outlines you might write for your own use in preparing a memo about establishing guidelines for more effective meetings:

If other people working on a project with you will be using your outline, a formal one is probably better. An outline consisting of short sentences is less ambiguous and easier to follow than one that uses single words or short phrases. It also indicates the relative importance of the ideas and how they relate to one another. Exhibit 2–1 is an example of a formal outline for this chapter.

Note that the main headings are labeled with roman numerals and the first divisions of those headings with capital letters. If you were to break the divisions down further, you would use arabic numbers, then small letters, and finally arabic numbers in parentheses. Each subdivision is indented farther than the one it supports. As logic demands, when you divide a topic, you must have at least two subheadings. Also, all headings are written in a parallel grammatical form; for example, Orating an Outline and Developing Your Topic, not Creating an Outline and How to Develop a Topic.

The Outline as a Test of Logic

Because an outline shows relationships among ideas, it provides a good test of logic and order. Suppose you are analyzing the economic impact on your city of its electronics industry. Your main point is this: The electronics industry has had a significant economic impact on Dotcomtown during the past five years. You list your supporting ideas:

1. Direct economic impact

2. Indirect economic impact

3. Noneconomic impact

In reviewing this list, you see that noneconomic impact doesn’t fit, because what isn’t economic can’t be a subcategory of economic impact. You could solve this logic problem in one of two ways: (1) If the section on noneconomic impact is a digression from what you want to emphasize—economic impact—you can simply eliminate it. (2) If your real subject is the electronics industry’s general impact on Dotcomtown, not just its economic impact, you can omit the word economic in your main point and subdivide your supporting ideas slightly differently:

1. Economic impact

a. Direct

b. Indirect

2. Noneconomic impact

An outline can help you identify other logic problems, such as subject areas that overlap or are too broad, flaws in the sequence of ideas and order of presentation, and disproportionate space and weight allotted to certain topics. As a whole, an outline reveals the design you have chosen and lets you catch any structural flaws, but it can do this only if it is subdivided logically and if its parts add up to a coherent whole. It’s wise to spend some time creating a good, workable outline, even if you’re just scrawling it on the back of an envelope.

Although your outline will be especially useful in helping you plan before you begin writing, you’ll find that it also can serve as a checklist as you write. Refer to it often as you work—especially when you do your final rewrite—to make sure you’ve included everything you intended.

DEVELOPING YOUR TOPIC

We’ve talked about the writer and the subject, two components of your purpose for writing. Now we need to look again at the role of the reader, though from a different perspective than in Chapter 1.

A good place to begin is with you. When you receive a memo, letter, or proposal, what is the first thing you want to know? Most readers wonder, What’s this about? and What is the writer trying to tell me? You want to get to the main point quickly and understand it easily, and you appreciate writers who don’t waste your time. What’s the second thing you want to know? Probably, Why should I bother reading this? or What are the benefits for me? If the benefits are promptly and clearly stated, the rest of the message stands a good chance of holding your attention.

A good business message isn’t a detective novel. It isn’t intended to build suspense up to a surprise ending, with stops along the way for detailed descriptions and false leads. Try that in business writing and you’re more likely to annoy than entertain. Instead, here are three rules of thumb for all business writing:

1. Get to the point at once.

2. Stick to the subject.

3. Avoid unnecessary description and narration.

Once you have figured out what you want to achieve and have established the message you want to communicate, you need to make your point to convince readers of its validity. To do this, it may help to construct an argument that supports your position by:

• providing facts and ideas and putting them in context;

• presenting ideas in a logical sequence, building from one point to another; and making the relationships between ideas explicit;

• supporting all specific ideas with good evidence;

• answering the questions you pose; and

• drawing conclusions based on the evidence you present.

Good Evidence

Good evidence always has all of the following four characteristics: It is accurate, relevant, representative, and adequate. If a body of evidence is missing one or more of these characteristics, beware of depending on it as sufficient, or even substantial, support for an argument—yours or anyone else’s. Exhibit 2–2 lists the attributes of these four characteristics of good evidence.

Validity and Logic

In the movie Duck Soup, one of the Marx Brothers asks another, “Who you gonna believe: me or your own eyes?” The world is a better place for the Marx Brothers and their talent for standing logic on its head, but unless you’re as funny as they were, you’re better off abiding by the rules of reason in your business writing. Your purpose may be to persuade, but relying on manipulation to do that can backfire.

A primary form of manipulation is faulty reasoning, asking a reader to accept conclusions that are either unproven or “proven” by false logic. With the Marx Brothers in mind, let’s consider some forms of bad logic to avoid when trying to persuade others.

False Analogy

The false analogy is a common form of flawed argumentation. An analogy—describing one thing in terms of something similar and probably more familiar—can be a useful tool. But in a false analogy, the reader is asked to believe that because two things are alike in some ways, they are alike in all ways, which doesn’t make sense.

Example Businesses are like sports teams because both involve competition, so employees who aren’t competitive undermine a business’s success.

Begging the Question

Arguments that try to prove a point by merely rephrasing and restating it are said to beg the question. Such arguments try to induce the reader to accept an opinion or proposition as a foregone conclusion.

Example The most important goal for our company is shareholder profit, because the company’s main purpose is to pay dividends on its stock.

Either/Or Argument

Most either/or arguments propose only two unappealing alternatives, while ignoring all others.

Example To compete in today’s economy, businesses must either downsize radically or jeopardize their market position.

Oversimplification

An oversimplification reduces a cause-and-effect argument to such basic terms that it is no longer relevant, realistic, or worth mentioning.

Example Older people drive up health care costs, so to bring medical expenses under control, we should levy a surcharge on all employees over 50.

Vague Generality

A vague generality attributes opinions or evidence to an ill-defined and often mythical everyone. It makes generous use of all-inclusive words, such as all, always, everywhere, and never.

Example Everybody always prefers working regular hours.

Sweeping Generalization

The sweeping generalization bases its argument on too little evidence or evidence that is unrepresentative of the whole.

Example Al, Hal, and Cal don’t want to sign the contract, which proves that all men are no good at making commitments.

Bandwagon Approach

The bandwagon approach asks the reader to jump on board and believe something or behave in a certain way because everyone else does. Though the folly of this seems obvious, the technique is effective, particularly in advertising, because it is hard to go against popular opinion.

Example Most major companies in America insist on an MBA for all middle-management positions; therefore, our company should too.

Red Herring

A red herring is an attempt to deflect attention from an issue by introducing an irrelevant argument or complaint.

Example We didn’t meet our sales quota in the last quarter because the new software program doesn’t do a spelling check on clients’ names.

Non Sequitur

A non sequitur (Latin for “it does not follow”) is a statement that puts unconnected ideas together as if some relationship existed between them.

Example A year-long drop in the inflation rate has forced us to change our logo.

Ad Hominem Attack

Ad hominem means “to the man,” and an ad hominem argument attacks the person—man or woman—rather than the person’s ideas. Many arguers indulge in this kind of false reasoning when they don’t have a good argument against the issue itself.

Example The new family-leave plan will never work; it was proposed by Eli Ely, who has been divorced two times.

Stereotyping

Stereotyping is a kind of name calling in which a group of people are lumped together through an overgeneral or inaccurate characterization. It can be positive as well as negative, but it’s always weak argumentation.

Example I recommend Cao Li enthusiastically for your accounting firm because Asians are good in mathematics.

Exercise 2–1 lets you practice spotting faulty or weak reasoning.

Exercise 2–1: Finding the Flaw in the Argument

INSTRUCTIONS: The following arguments all involve a form of faulty or false reasoning. For each, write the kind of bad reasoning it represents in the space to the right, then check your answers with the ones given at the end of the chapter.

Details, Details

In writing a story, one of the most effective ways to build a scene, character, or mood is through specific, concrete words and images. Similarly, for business people, effective communication depends on using specific language, concrete ideas, and explicit information. The reason is simple: We think in terms of specifics. It is easier, and probably more satisfying, to picture a “50 percent profit” than a “pretty good year.”

It is important to find the most significant, telling details, though, and not to bury your reader in a mound of minutiae. As a writer, one of your tasks is to determine the appropriate level of detail for your message. For example, a one-page, preliminary memo alerting managers that the company is considering moving to new office space will require fewer details than a subsequent memo proposing a specific plan for their consideration.

In writing that includes a lot of numbers or percentages, you need to find the best way to present that information without overwhelming or confusing the reader. You may decide that rounded-off figures are sufficiently accurate for the point you want to make, or that the numbers and their relationships are best displayed in a chart. Keep in mind that long strings of figures are hard to follow and may discourage the reader.

The following example comes from a 1996 report about the future of commerce online. It was written for an educated but general audience at a time when electronic publishing was a new and fast-changing phenomenon. That made it hard to define its scope precisely—within a couple of years, the authors’ prime example had closed up shop—but they knew they had to come up with some indicators as evidence of the point they were making.

To a great extent, fortunes made from the Web are still more potential than real. Time’s popular Pathfinder site, for instance, brought in just $2 million in advertising in 1995; industry estimates put its start-up cost at about $3 million. Other parts of the digital universe are already generating large revenue streams, however. Market researchers estimate that the market for online services in 1995 was about $15.7 million, and it is likely that the sale of full-text articles from newspapers and magazines is already a multibillion-dollar business.

Note the various uses of numbers here: as dates, dollar amounts, and more general estimates written in words, rather than numerals. All of these help delineate the situation, while making the information easy to follow and absorb.

ORGANIZING YOUR MATERIAL

After determining your purpose and organizing your material, you must choose the best organizational pattern. Two options are direct and indirect organization.

Direct Organization

Almost all business writing calls for a direct pattern of organization. This means stating your main point in a clear topic sentence near the beginning of your message and then explaining and developing that main point in what follows. In a short message (a page or less), the main point usually appears in the first or second sentence. In a medium-length message (one to three pages), the main point is usually in the first paragraph. In a message longer than three pages, the main point still comes early in the introduction, which is about probably the first fifth of the message.

Often, people don’t read the entire message but skim it or read only the beginning to see if they need to continue. By putting your main point near the beginning, you increase the odds that your reader will find it immediately. Businesspeople deal with a lot of information each day, so they appreciate writers who make their point in a clear and straightforward manner.

Here is an example of how consideration of readers’ needs and interests might affect the organization of a message. Suppose you work for a telephone company and are writing a letter that will go to a group of customers in a particular area. You begin by telling the customer:

The section of the telephone-exchange area in which you are located has grown sufficiently to warrant an extension of the base-rate area and a revision of our locality boundaries. Recently, we filed a tariff change with the state Public Service Commission, extending the base-rate area and locality boundaries, effective December 28.

After more sentences explaining the new policies and procedures, you finally get to the main point—or at least what your readers would consider the main point:

As a result of these changes, your basic monthly charge for telephone service will be reduced. The amount of the reduction, which will be reflected in your next monthly bill, depends on your location and type of service.

This is good news, but how many readers will have read far enough to find it? To ensure that your company gets every ounce of goodwill out of the message, you would need to revise it so the main point comes first:

Starting next month, your basic telephone charges will be reduced. The amount of the reduction depends on your location and type of service.

Then go on and present all the technical details. Often, you’ll find that revising a message so that its main point comes first also makes your writing clearer and less wordy. See how you do at rewriting messages in Exercise 2–2 so they begin with the main point.

Exercise 2–2: Get to the Point

INSTRUCTIONS: Revise the following messages using direct organization so that their main point comes first. Then compare your revisions with those suggested at the end of the chapter. Don’t worry if yours aren’t exactly the same, as long as your organization is similar.

1. Now is the perfect time to take another look at Mallmart, where you’ll find something for the whole family: toys for the kids, today’s fashions for teens, the latest home appliances for Dad, and electronic equipment for Mom. To do this shopping, you can use our new debit card for which you’ve been approved.

2. Over the past year, we have solicited proposals from seven architectural firms. This week, we selected two firms as finalists to design our new facility. It will be a $4.5 million project. Department heads are invited to a meeting this Thursday when the finalists will make their presentations.

3. Homeowners can now keep more of their money. Our company has created two new programs to attract the second-mortgage market, who may find it hard to get out of debt. Did you know that if you make minimum monthly payments on a $4,000 debt, it could take 30 years to pay off the balance? We are now offering a Debt Less Program that lowers monthly debt payments, and a Begin Again Program that helps homeowners reestablish good credit ratings and begin anew.

Indirect Organization

Though direct organization is best for almost all business messages, a few situations call for an indirect pattern, in which an introduction, comprising some preliminary concepts or arguments, sets the stage for the main point. For example, if you have to break bad news or write something that you think will disappoint, anger, or displease your reader, you could try to soften the blow by starting with a neutral statement or some hint about what is to follow.

The needs and concerns of your reader determine when you should use an indirect approach. If you start with the main point (e.g., I must reject your request for a leave of absence), your reader may never get to the explanation for your decision. To avoid this, begin with some background information and your reasons for the decision. By leading your readers through your train of thought, you hope they will see the validity of your decision, even if they’re not happy with it. In using the indirect method to break bad news, be careful not to delay the news for so long that you frustrate your reader, who is, ultimately, more interested in the decision than in the explanation for it.

A few other situations also call for indirect organization. For example, research reports or project proposals often are organized with the conclusions presented near the end. Logic points to this sequence since such conclusions are the logical outcome of everything—research, analysis, insight—that preceded them. Even in this kind of writing, though, an abstract or summary often precedes the report, so a busy reader can quickly grasp the main point or conclusions.

For both direct and indirect organization, you can set up the information on the page to guide the reader’s eye to the most important information. Bold face, bullets, paragraph breaks, and indentations can help clarify relative importance. Just be careful not to overburden your writing with graphic flourishes. They can get in the way too. You will find more information about visually appealing formats in Chapter 10.

PUTTING YOUR SUPPORTING IDEAS IN SEQUENCE

After you decide which pattern of organization to use, you need to think about ordering the ideas that back up your main point. Start by analyzing the supporting material that you want to include: evidence, comparisons, recommendations by others, expert opinions, and so forth. Some of these will be drawn from your notes, some you’ll have found in reference documents, and others will come as you brainstorm for your outline.

It is useful to assemble this material in a working list or outline, like the ones we discussed earlier in this chapter. If you jot your list on a piece of paper, you can indicate possible sequences by using arrows, numbers, or color coding. Computers are convenient for ordering information and creating formal outlines because they make it easy to move items around, but low-tech index cards still work well for long and complex projects because you can spread them out on your desk and rearrange them until you find a sequence that makes sense. Whatever system you use, this is a good time to combine related items and delete superfluous ones. It is another place to test the logic of your message.

Let’s look at an example of the process of organization. Pretend you are writing a letter of recommendation for your assistant, Liz Ramirez, who has decided to go to graduate school. You plan to use direct organization, and you’ve clarified your main point as I highly recommend Elizabeth Ramirez for your graduate program in business administration. Then, as they come into your head, you scribble down specifics. Now complete Exercise 2–3 to organize your list and come up with an informal outline for writing the recommendation.

Exercise 2–3: From Brainstorm to Order

INSTRUCTIONS: Analyze the ten items on the following list to find relationships among them. Then, using arrows, numbers, color coding, or whatever method you prefer, organize the items under a few main headings. Next, order the headings and supporting material in a logical sequence, keeping in mind that the readers will be the admissions committee of a business school. A discussion of one likely thought process follows. See how it compares with yours.

ELIZABETH RAMIREZ

In analyzing the list of Elizabeth’s attributes, it becomes clear that some items are related to others, either as examples or as further explanation. The items fall easily into four main groups, so the list could be organized as follows:

The next issue is how to order these categories. Once again, the answer lies in part with why the letter is being written and who will read it. Since its purpose is to persuade a business school admissions committee that Elizabeth has relevant skills and knowledge and the potential to learn, it makes sense to begin with the attributes that will be most important to them. So, by combining similar items in each of your categories and finding the most impressive or the strongest evidence, you might come up with a working outline for the letter of recommendation that looks like this:

Has been responsible for $500,000 annual budget for 4 years

Supervised staff of 5 and earned their respect and friendship

Displayed good writing and speaking skills

Is consistently reliable and capable

In a writing project, several sequences may work, so base your choice on logic and appropriateness to your subject matter and reader. Take the time to choose the best. Most important, don’t present your supporting ideas randomly or as they came into your head.

In this chapter, we will discuss five of the most useful and common sequences: chronology, categorization, problem/solution, comparison, and process analysis.

Chronology

A chronology, or time sequence, is easy to use because it follows the natural order of events. For example, you’re writing a sales report and find that your main point is that sales rose steadily from 1988 until 1998, when your company began to feel the effects of recession in Asia. To demonstrate this, you decide to break your data into two-year segments, beginning ten years ago. These five segments then become your supporting data. This example goes from past to present. Other writing, such as a job application, calls for a reverse chronology, in which you discuss your current job first, because it’s the most relevant, and then work backward to discuss earlier jobs.

Other chronologies feature only a sequence of events, with little attention to exact dates and times. They are used when you want to focus on more recent history, for example, how Thursday’s Congressional hearing evolved into a brawl.

Categorization

Supporting material can be easier to grasp when the facts, ideas, or examples are divided into groups with common themes or characteristics. This sequence is called categorization. The categories might be objects, such as the products your company designs; concepts, such as questions to be answered before making your company public; or geographical areas, such as sales regions.

As an example, the requirements for securing a Federal Housing Administration loan could be organized into three main categories:

1.  Stable employment

2.  Proven credit rating

3.  Ability to pay

The quantifiable details are subcategories, for example, At least two years’ work with one organization or proven competency in a profession, trade, or business, or prompt payment of regular obligations. Categorizing a mass of details not only improves the clarity and coherence of a written message but also increases the impact of each detail and the message as a whole.

Frequently, the justifications for a recommendation or decision are categorized. To convince the reader of the soundness of your ideas, you need to give specific reasons, and those reasons should be organized into categories. For instance, if your main point was, The company should offer a Roth IRA to all employees, you could organize your supporting reasons into three categories:

1. Benefits to employees

a. Supplements retirement plan

b. Provides longtime employees with sizable retirement income

c. Introduces younger employees to advantage of saving plans

2. Competitiveness

a. Brings company in line with others in the industry

b. Helps attract best applicants for jobs

3. Motivation

a. Enhances employee morale

b. Treats classes of employees equally

c. Shows management sensitivity to effects of inflation

Problem/Solution

At some point, your job has probably required you to analyze problems and suggest solutions. In this kind of message, the natural order in which to arrange supporting material is (1) analysis of the problem, (2) proposed solution, and (3) benefits of the solution. This is a cause-and-effect sequence because you show how an action leads to an outcome.

Suppose you want a fax machine for your office. You could write a memo stating the problem and presenting the evidence that led you to your proposed solution. Your main point is your recommendation: Our office needs its own fax machine. This probably would come after your analysis of the problem, but you could put it first. Your outline of the problem might include the following:

•  Projects X and Y were delayed because faxes were lost or sent to the wrong office.

•  Faxes from the communal machine on our floor are poor quality because no one is in charge of maintenance.

•  Employees would save time by not having to check if the machine is in use or if a fax has arrived.

This would be followed by your recommendation or by a list of the benefits of having your own fax machine:

•  It would allow the office to respond to faxed messages quicker and more efficiently.

•  It would cut down on lost or misplaced faxes.

•  It would ensure more consistent quality because someone would be assigned responsibility for maintenance.

•  It would more than pay for itself within a year.

By clearly detailing first the problem and then the solution and its consequences, you improve both the focus and the persuasive quality of your message.

Comparison

Many management decisions involve making a choice among people, products, procedures, or policies, a task that also involves justifying the choice. This requires assembling information on all the alternatives in order to make a comparison.

When you must compare numbers, such as prices, other costs, or profits, a special caution is advised because, though numbers don’t lie, they can mislead. Make sure that in comparing prices, for instance, you are looking at similar packages, sizes, quantities, capabilities, or support provisions. Also be sure to compare numbers from the same time period. If, for some reason, you must look at numbers, products, or services that are not directly comparable, account for this in your analysis.

Suppose you have been asked to compare software programs X and Y and recommend which should be the standard for your department. First, you must decide which criteria to consider in evaluating the software—to be fair, you must use the same criteria for both programs. Let’s say you decide that user-friendliness is the most important criterion, cost is second, and support is third. These are the only criteria you look at, though others may exist.

After evaluating the programs and comparing the results, you conclude that program X is better than program Y in all three areas. Now you must decide how to present the information supporting your recommendation. One way to organize it is by item; a second is by criterion.

When you compare items, you present all the information about the first alternative (program X) and then all the information about the second (program Y). You would begin by stating your recommendation, program X, and the three criteria you considered. You would follow this with a paragraph or two evaluating program X on all these criteria, then you would do the same with program Y, making it clear why program X is preferable.

If the headings for your comparison were User-friendliness, Cost, and Support rather than Program X and Program Y, you would still begin with a recommendation and the criteria you considered. Next you would discuss the most important factor (user-friendliness) in regard to both programs, then cost in regard to both and, finally, support.

When choosing between these two ways of organizing a comparison, consider the circumstances. A comparison of criteria allows you to emphasize that one criterion is more important than another, and it avoids requiring the reader to flip between pages to make specific comparisons. However, it may be that neither of these advantages is important to your presentation, whereas a complete evaluation of one alternative followed by a complete evaluation of the other would give the reader a more realistic and comprehensive view of each alternative.

Process Analysis

When your message is designed to answer such questions as How does it work? or How do you do it? the sequence in which you organize your supporting information should be a process analysis. For example, if you wanted to explain to your company’s supervisors how to set up training programs, you could organize your material as steps in the procedure. You would begin with your main point: In planning and implementing a training program, supervisors need to follow these steps in this order:

1. Assess employees’ needs.

2. Gather relevant information, organize it, and prepare all necessary material for training sessions.

3. Conduct sessions.

4. Evaluate results.

The process-analysis sequence is useful for instructing someone in a procedure, explaining how something will be implemented, or describing how you or your reader will get from point A to point B. It requires forethought and analysis of how things work, and it is probably less appropriate for preliminary proposals or for discussing issues that have not yet been resolved.

GETTING GOING

Planning—and outlines, organizational patterns, and ordering sequences are plans—is an essential step in the writing process. But, as any good procrastinator will attest, the best-laid plans won’t do the writing for you. Sometimes, we just get stuck, and since that is so common, writing-process experts have come up with techniques to get past this block and get started writing. Exhibit 2–3 lists some of these ideas. They work at various points during the writing process, so you may want to keep the list handy to refer to as you write.

Organization is essential to clear, effective communication, so it is worth taking time before you start writing to determine specifically what you hope to achieve. You’ll also want to think about how to present your main points and supporting evidence to greatest effect. Organization achieves only part of that effect, but it can make the difference between a message that is read and heeded and one that gets buried at the bottom of an in-basket.

An outline is a useful tool for organizing your thoughts and your writing. It helps put your ideas in order and reveals gaps, repetition, and overlapping material. It can also help you determine whether to use a direct pattern of organization, which is the most common pattern in business writing, or an indirect pattern, which is appropriate in situations calling for extra tact. You can choose from a variety of sequences in which to organize your supporting material. Common sequences include chronology, categorization, problem/solution, comparison, and process analysis.

When all is thought and organized, the task of writing remains. There are many techniques or tricks to getting started writing and keeping at it until you’re done, primarily the following: thinking of writing as a process; using unstructured time; trying different prewriting techniques and different methods of writing; writing without worrying about rules, then going back to rewrite; taking breaks; allowing yourself sufficient time; and putting your writing away and returning to it later.

ANSWERS TO EXERCISES

Exercise 2–1

1. oversimplification

2. non sequiter

3. red herring

4. bandwagon approach

5. overgeneralization

6. either/or argument

Exercise 2–2

Suggested revisions:

1. Congratulations! You’ve been approved for Mallmart’s new debit card. Here at Mallmart, you’ll find something for the whole family: toys for the kids, today’s fashions for teens, the latest home appliances for Dad, and electronic equipment for Mom.

2. Department heads are invited to the meeting this Thursday to hear presentations by the two architectural firms selected as finalists to design our new facility. Over the past year, we have solicited proposals from seven firms for this $4.5 million project.

3. We are now offering homeowners two new ways to keep more of their money: our Debt Less Program lowers monthly debt payments, and our Begin Again Program helps homeowners reestablish good credit ratings and begin anew. These programs are aimed at the second-mortgage market, who may find it hard to get out of debt. For instance, if someone makes minimum monthly payments on a $4,000 debt, it could take 30 years to pay off the balance.