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Study Unit

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material By

Robert G. Turner Jr., Ph.D.

All terms mentioned in this text that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Use of a term in this text should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

About the Author

Robert G. Turner Jr. holds a B.S. in business and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in sociology. He has more than 20 years of teaching experi- ence, mainly at the college level, and is currently serving as an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg. Dr. Turner is primarily employed as a professional freelance writer. His literary credits include two stage plays, two novels, and two nonfiction works, along with an array of publications in academic and educational venues.

All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to Copyright Permissions, Penn Foster, 925 Oak Street, Scranton, Pennsylvania 18515.

Printed in the United States of America

08/22/14

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So far you’ve been working with documents that are relatively short—just a few pages at most. Occasionally, however, you may have to develop a lengthy report or proposal. In this unit, you’re going to begin to prepare yourself for such writing. To that end, you’ll

be studying three topics that are basic to both business and technical writing:

• Approaches to organizing and outlining your documents

• Researching information for use in reports and proposals

• Using visual aids to illustrate your data

In addition, this study unit includes an appendix that you should use as a reference while writing any document. It includes information on the correct use of numbers and abbreviations. It also provides a good list of rules and exam- ples for proper capitalization and punctuation. Whenever you’re unsure of how to handle a particular situation, refer to this section. Use it now as you’re working your way through this course, and use it later when you’re writing documents for your occupation.

When you complete this study unit, you’ll be able to • Describe the purposes of organizing and explain the steps in

the organizing process

• Use techniques that will help you establish the purpose of a report or proposal

• Describe various patterns you can use in organizing your material

• Explain the processes involved in effective outlining

• Outline the purposes of research in business and technical writing

• Differentiate between primary and secondary research and explain the different approaches to each

• Explain how to convert report data into graphic form through tables, line graphs, bar graphs, and pie graphs

• Properly document your sources in a report

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ORGANIZING YOUR MATERIAL 1

When to Organize 1 Why Organize? 2 How to Organize 2 Patterns of Organization 7 Outline Options 9 Developing an Outline 11 The Formal Outline 15

RESEARCHING YOUR MATERIAL 19

Why Research? 19 Before You Begin 20 Types of Research 20 Documenting Your Research 29 When to Document 29 Methods of Documentation 30 Documenting Web Sites 32

ILLUSTRATING YOUR DATA 34

The Proper Use of Illustrations 34 Tables 35 Graphs and Charts 36 Page Design 41

SELF-CHECK ANSWERS 45

APPENDIX: MECHANICS IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL WRITING 47

Abbreviations 47 Capitalization 49 Numbers 50 Punctuation 53

EXAMINATION 67

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ORGANIZING YOUR MATERIAL

When to Organize

Any time you sit down to write something—an e-mail mes- sage, a letter, a report, a proposal—you must organize the material you’re going to present (Figure 1). Of course, short documents, such as e-mails and memos, don’t require the same degree of organization as long reports, but the quality of any written document improves when you think out what you want to say and, sometimes, write an outline.

In this study unit, you’re going to focus primarily on what it takes to organize the material for a report or a proposal.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

FIGURE 1—No matter how short or how long your doc- ument will be, always take time to organize your material. Sometimes, just jotting down your thoughts and ideas is a good begin- ning for organizing your topics.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Why Organize?

Your basic objectives in organizing a business document are to make it

• Clear

• Logical

• Readable

First, to be clear, you must understand the purpose of your document. Is it meant to inform? Is it meant to present a proposal that requires a response? Knowing roughly what you want to say and why gives purpose to your writing and helps you to present your material clearly.

Second, you must order your topics in a logical way. Clearly identify main topics, and gather subtopics under the main topics in a logical order. Doing so guides your readers through the material. It’s like giving them a map so they can easily get from start to finish.

Finally, having done these things, and assuming you’re prepared to write effective sentences, you’re more likely to produce a readable document.

On the other hand, if you fail to organize a report or proposal around a clear purpose, you’ll most likely produce the following results:

1. Your points will be unclear.

2. Your writing will be muddy and confusing.

3. You’ll use more words than necessary.

4. You’ll burden your reader with irrelevant information.

5. Your document won’t reflect well on you.

How to Organize

How you go about organizing your material for a report, pro- posal, or other document depends on the material itself and on your own personal preferences. In this section, you’ll examine several ways you can go about organizing informa- tion. Try them all to see which one works best for you. You

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 3

may find that one approach works for one topic and a different approach for another topic.

In the following paragraphs, you’ll be examining the following methods for organizing material:

• Reasoning

• Stating your purpose in writing

• Brainstorming

• Writing

Reasoning

Sometimes your material will naturally fall into some type of pattern if you simply sit down and reason it out (Figure 2). Let’s say you’ve been asked to write a report on safety condi- tions in an assembly plant. You think (reason) that you might begin your report by specifying the location of the plant and the issues your report is intended to address. You might also want to say a few things about the background of the situa- tion, including the worker complaints that led to the request for a report. Next, you might reasonably explain how you studied the problem, whom you talked to, what you observed, and so on. Once you’ve done that, you would report your findings and, if you’ve been asked to, draw conclusions and make recommendations.

FIGURE 2—Sometimes just thinking about your subject will help you put your mate- rial in order.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

This reasoning process actually gives you the main headings or topics for an outline of your report:

I. Location of Plant and Nature of the Problem

II. Investigation of the Problem

III. Findings

IV. Conclusions and Recommendations

Once you’ve developed these main headings, you can expand them, if necessary. For example, under the second heading, “Investigation of the Problem,” you might include subhead- ings like these:

A. Interviews with Employees

B. Conditions Observed

From this simple example, you can see that sometimes sim- ple logic or reason will produce your outline. In other cases, however, the material may be too complex or you may not be as familiar with the topic. The information may not fall into logical steps. In other words, the way to give your reader clear and accurate information isn’t always obvious. When this is the case, there are other techniques for preparing a usable outline.

Stating Your Purpose in Writing

Producers or agents often ask professional screenwriters to summarize a proposed movie plot in one sentence. One sentence! The sentence might come out like this:

A Vietnam veteran must choose between rage and justice when he returns to his hometown and finds his childhood sweetheart has been murdered.

In a typical business situation, you’re not likely to have to write such a sentence. However, you’ll be wise to take a lesson from this practice. In other words, if you truly want to understand the purpose of your report or proposal, try to write it in one or two sentences.

The first draft of that sentence should be mainly “bone”—that is, just the basic idea of the information you’re going to write about. The sentence may be phrased as a question.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 5

Example: Does our market research indicate that we can sell enough HomeGyms to 16- to 28-year-old males in the Southeast to warrant the effort?

A more formal, detailed statement might look like this:

Example: The purpose of this report is to analyze market research into the consumer behavior of young men, 16 to 28, living in the Southeastern United States, who indicate an active interest in physical fitness and, through this analysis, determine potential market share and the feasibility of our HomeGym line in this region.

Once you’ve written this statement of purpose, you’ll be sur- prised at how much easier the task of organizing becomes. With this statement, you have some direction. Maybe you can then begin to use the first method (reasoning things out) to develop your outline. Or maybe one of the following methods will be more to your liking.

Brainstorming

In organizations, brainstorming involves a small group of people who are looking for new or novel ideas. Imagine four people sitting around a conference table. The topic is how to market a line of cosmetics. Here are the rules they following during their brainstorming session:

• Everyone participates.

• Anyone can toss out an idea, no matter how strange the idea may sound, since ideas pulled from the air may generate other ideas.

• No one attacks or criticizes the ideas.

• Someone writes down each idea.

• After the session is over, the ideas are sorted and discussed.

• The best ideas are developed.

Once you have the purpose of your report clearly in mind, you can have a brainstorming session of your own. Assemble a stack of blank note cards and a pencil. In a quiet space free from distractions, think about your topic. Write down

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

ideas, one per card, as quickly as they come to mind. Don’t be fussy and critical about them; just write them down. If you begin to evaluate each idea, you may disrupt your think- ing process. Write down everything you think of about your topic.

When you feel your brain has been drained of all originality, put the cards aside. To give your subconscious mind time to work on the problem, get a good night’s sleep and approach the problem fresh the next day. Yes, “sleeping on it” is a technique that works—ask any successful creative person.

Later in this section, you’ll learn how to take your ideas from brainstorming to develop an outline for the material you’re writing about.

Writing

One famous author devised this rule for any writer: Apply seat of pants to chair; turn on typewriter. What he meant was simply that the process of sitting down and writing will in itself produce some ideas for the content of your document (Figure 3). You probably won’t believe this until you experi- ence it for yourself. If you work diligently at this course, you’ll probably discover the truth in it sometime during your studies. Meanwhile, keep in mind that the process of writing actually generates ideas. In fact, many of your best insights and ideas about organizing and producing a report (or any other presentation) will benefit from the writing process.

FIGURE 3—Sometimes, just sitting down with a paper and pencil or typing on a computer will give you ideas and direction for your writing.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 7

Patterns of Organization Sometimes the nature of the information you collect deter- mines how you should organize it. Other times, the decision may not be so clear. In this section you’re going to examine the following types of organization:

• Chronological order

• Spatial order

• Classification/division

• Comparison/contrast

• Cause and effect

Chronological Order

Chronological order has to do with time. A document written in chronological order presents the material in the order in which it happened or should happen. For example, suppose you must write a report on the steps necessary to perform a particular production task. You would

start with the first step and proceed in the order in which the steps should occur. Such information fits naturally into the chronological order pattern.

Material written in chronological order uses words like first, second, third, next, then, after, and finally. These terms help the reader establish the order in which things occur.

Spatial Order

Spatial order involves physical space. A document written in spatial order pres- ents the material in the order in which it is physically arranged. For example, sup- pose you want to describe the arrangement of furniture in a room. You might begin with one corner and work your way

around the walls. Or maybe you’ve been given the responsi- bility to develop the layout of your production area or office space or the arrangement of products in a showroom. Such material would lend itself to organization in spatial order.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Material written in spatial order uses words and phrases like at the extreme left, next, above, over, under, beneath, to the right, and at the end.

Classification/Division

To use the classification/division pattern to develop a document, you begin with a collection of items of any kind and then group, or classify, them according to some similar property or properties. Or you may begin with one whole item and divide it into various parts.

Suppose your boss wants a report on all the clients your department worked with last year and the types of jobs you did for each one. You start out with a list of all the jobs you completed last year. Then you could group them according to client or according to the type of job. This type of information lends itself well to the classification/division pattern of organization.

Note: Later in this study unit, you’ll see that the brainstorm- ing exercise about inspecting used cars will develop into a classification/division pattern.

Comparison/Contrast

When you compare two or more items, you show how they’re similar; when you contrast two or more items, you show how they’re different. When preparing a document, you may use only comparison or only contrast, or you may encounter a subject that should show both.

Suppose the department you work in uses batteries produced by Company A. Your supervisor has discovered that Company B produces the same kind of battery but charges approxi- mately 25 percent less. Your supervisor wants you to look into this issue and write up your findings.

This situation is a perfect one for the comparison/contrast pattern. Once you gather all the information on both types of batteries, you can show the similarities and differences between the two types.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 9

In setting up the material for a comparison/contrast docu- ment, you can present all of the information on one item first followed by all of the information on the other item. Or you may decide to discuss the similarities and/or differences one by one, going back and forth from one item to the other.

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect organization involves examining certain elements (causes) to determine what will occur (effects). For example, you may work in a department that produces parts for automobile radios. You want to know how production would be affected if you added one more

machine to your department. The adding of the machine is the cause, and the change in production is the effect.

Although most reports written in the cause and effect organi- zation begin with the cause and proceed to the effect, you can also begin with the effect and work backward to the cause. For example, you may have noticed that the quality control employees in your department have recently been discovering a high percent of defective parts, and you want to know why. In this case, you begin with the effect (a high number of defective parts) and work toward the cause of this problem.

Outline Options

Preparing an outline is an important part of any writing. Don’t be tempted to skip over this task. First of all, with an outline you can see at a glance what you’re going to include in your document. An outline can also reveal to you that you’ve left something out. If so, you can easily add it to your outline. If you decide to revise or reorganize the information, you can do it much more easily with material in outline form than you can with written paragraphs.

The two types of outlines are sentence outlines and topic outlines.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Sentence Outline

A sentence outline consists of complete sentences for each item in the outline. This type of outline has one main advantage—it provides the topic sentences for your main paragraphs. Figure 4 presents part of a sentence outline developed for a market report.

Sentence Outline

I. Our appraisal of the retail market for HomeGym in the Roanoke Valley area of Virginia has reached a satisfactory conclusion.

A. Basic research supplied by the Association of Sporting Goods Manufacturers (ASGM) has provided the following information:

1. The Roanoke Valley area of Virginia is an appropriate market for HomeGym.

2. Competing products should not impinge on a satisfactory market share.

B. In light of the unserved market for HomeGym in the Roanoke Valley, our purpose in this report is to suggest preferred retail outlets in Roanoke and

surrounding communities. The following topics are considered in this report:

1. A research summary provided by the ASGM provides factual summaries on 14 qualified retail outlets in the Roanoke Valley.

2. The report from ASGM also includes a recom- mended schedule for product insertions into

the qualified outlets.

II. Research provided by the ASGM explores our target market region through demographic profiles of three market segments.

FIGURE 4—Partial Sentence Outline for a Market Report

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 11

Topic Outline

A topic outline consists of words or phrases, organized according to the way in which they’ll be covered in a written document. Topic outlines are more commonly used than sentence outlines and are often the result of your brain- storming or initial note taking.

There are three advantages of topic outlines:

1. They’re easier to prepare than sentence outlines.

2. They become the basis of a table of contents for the document.

3. They supply the internal headings for your document.

Figure 5 illustrates a topic outline of the same information in Figure 4.

Developing an Outline

Brainstorming is an excellent way to help you develop an outline for a report—or for anything you write, for that mat- ter. Suppose you have the responsibility to put together a report on how to evaluate the quality of a used automobile. To get an idea of what you want to include in your report,

Topic Outline

I. Results of appraisal

A. Research from Association of Sporting Goods Manufacturers (ASGM)

1. Appropriateness of Roanoke Valley as market for HomeGym

2. Competing products

B. Preferred retail outlets in Roanoke and surrounding communities

1. Research summary from ASGM

2. Schedule for product insertions

II. Demographic profiles of three market segments FIGURE 5—Partial Topic Outline for a Market Report

When you’re preparing a topic outline, make sure to write your words or phrases in parallel structure, as discussed earlier in this program.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

you conduct a brainstorming session. After the session, you have a pile of index cards. Each card contains an item that a person should inspect before purchasing a used car.

Next, you study the items on the cards and eliminate those that you feel are unnecessary or irrelevant. After you’ve done this, you’re left with a stack of cards that contain topics you want to cover in your report. Suppose the topics you have are those listed in Figure 6.

Once you have the topics you want to cover, you can begin to categorize them. To do this, you must arrange the items in some logical sequence or order. As you study the list of topics in Figure 6, you notice that the items fall into three main categories: exterior inspection items, interior inspection items, and engine inspection items. You arrange the cards into three separate piles, grouping them according to these three categories. Once you’ve done that, you have the start of a good outline. Here’s what you have now:

FIGURE 6—Here are the ideas you generated during your brainstorming session.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 13

I. Exterior inspection items Body Headlights Dents Turn Signals Scratches Brake Lights Rust Lights

II. Interior inspection items Air conditioner Radio Speedometer Gas gauge Passenger safety devices Door locks Seat belts Instrumentation Accessories

III. Engine inspection items Fan belt Cooling system Air filter Oil filter Water pump Filters Radiator Fuel filter

Now that you have this initial outline, examine the items in each of the three major topics again. Try to determine if you can divide these main sections even further.

As you examine your beginning outline, you discover that each of the sections can be divided into two subdivisions. Once you make adjustments for these subdivisions, you’re outline looks like this:

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

I. Exterior inspection items A. Body

1. Dents 2. Scratches 3. Rust

B. Lights 1. Turn signals 2. Headlights 3. Brake lights

II. Interior inspection items A. Instrumentation

1. Gas gauge 2. Speedometer

B. Accessories 1. Radio 2. Air conditioner

C. Passenger safety devices 1. Door locks 2. Seat belts

III. Engine inspection items A. Filters

1. Air filter 2. Oil filter 3. Fuel filter

B. Cooling system 1. Radiator 2. Fan belt 3. Water pump

Now you have something you can work with as you begin your writing. The outline gives you direction. Notice, too, that you can use this outline as your table of contents. Then, as you prepare your report, you can also use these topics as headings for the body of the document. Including them gives your readers some direction and focus as they read your information.

This outline represents the B (body) part of the ABC technique. You still need to add an abstract (introduction) and a conclusion.

Including headings in a report helps your read- ers understand the order of your material. Headings also help readers find the infor- mation they need.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 15

The Formal Outline

While a formal outline may vary in structure according to the nature of a report, most outlines have three sections, which correspond to the three main sections of any written document:

1. Introduction (A, or abstract)

2. Body (B)

3 Summary (C, or conclusion)

The following paragraphs briefly review these three sections.

Introduction (Abstract)

The introduction establishes the purpose of your report. To make that purpose clear or to put it in context, you may also include background information that explains the history of the problem and the reasons it demands attention. Perhaps the most important part of the introduction is a list of the major topics discussed in the body of the report. Needless to say, the topics should be listed in the order in which they’ll be covered in the body of the report.

Body

The body of your report should contain the information needed to fulfill the purpose of your report. It will elaborate on each of the major topics given in the introduction. Your outline of the body of your report should be logically ordered in terms of major headings, secondary headings, and possibly detailed headings under the secondary headings.

Summary (Conclusion)

The summary of most reports briefly repeats the main topics and draws conclusions that lead to recommendations. A purely technical report, however, may simply come to a conclusion that’s the basis of the report. For example, a discussion of the utility of a particular kind of circuit board may simply end with a concluding statement that declares the thing useful in a certain context.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

A formal outline generally follows a particular pattern, as shown in Figure 7.

The Structure of a Formal Outline

I. Introduction

A. Background

B. Statement of purpose

C. Sources of researched information

D. Explanation of why some data is unavailable

E. Definitions of terms or concepts

F. Sequence of major topics discussed in report:

1. Major topic #1

2. Major topic #2

3. Major topic #3

II. Major topic #1

A. First subtopic

1. Detail of first subtopic

2. Detail of first subtopic

B. Second subtopic

1. Detail of second subtopic

2. Detail of second subtopic

a. Subdetail of second subtopic

b. Subdetail of second subtopic

III. Major topic #2

(This topic follows the same developmental structure as major topic #1.)

IV. Major topic #3

(This topic follows the same developmental structure as major topic #1.)

V. Summary

A. Restatement of main theme or concept

B. Conclusion(s)

C. Recommendation(s)

FIGURE 7—A formal out- line generally follows the structure shown here.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 17

In a formal outline, you may have only two major topics, or you may have many more. Some major topics will have subtopics and details of those subtopics; other major topics may have no subtopics at all.

Finally, if you must divide a topic into subtopics, you must include at least two subtopics. Never list only one item under a topic.

Incorrect: Correct:

I. Introduction I. Introduction A. Topic 1 A. Topic 1

1. Subtopic 1. Subtopic 1 B. Topic 2 2. Subtopic 2

B. Topic 2

In the incorrect example, “Topic 1” has only one subtopic. This is an incorrect construction. The correct outline lists two subtopics under “Topic 1.” Think of it this way: You can’t divide something and end up with only one part. When you divide a topic, you must list at least two subtopics.

In the next section of this study unit, you’re going to study how to research a topic you must write about. Before going on to that material, please complete Self-Check 1.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material18

Self-Check 1 At the end of each section of Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material, you’ll be asked to pause and check your understanding of what you have just read by completing a “Self-Check” exercise. Answering these questions will help you review what you’ve studied so far. Please complete Self-Check 1 now.

1. What should be your three basic objectives in organizing a business document?

__________________________________________________________________________

2. List at least four problems that result when you fail to organize a document around a clear purpose.

__________________________________________________________________________

3. What pattern of organization would be most appropriate for the following subjects?

a. Why production is down in Department A b. Whether you should purchase your supplies from Company A or Company B c. The steps in the process of producing your product d. The physical rearrangement of a manufacturing plant e. The reason for poor morale f. Items to be included on a routine safety inspection

4. Explain the advantages of sentence and topic outlines.

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________

5. Challenge question: Think of a topic you’re interested in. The topic may or may not be related to your employment. Decide what you might like to write about that topic, and then develop an outline for the report.

Check your answers with those on page 45.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 19

RESEARCHING YOUR MATERIAL

Research is the thorough investigation of a topic and the gathering of all available information. It almost always involves finding information that you don’t have yourself.

Later in this course, you’re going to study how to prepare reports and proposals. Although most routine memos, letters, and e-mails don’t require much outlining or research, reports and proposals require both. In this section, you’ll be studying techniques to help you find the information you need.

Why Research? The reasons for conducting research generally fall into two categories:

1. To confirm or verify information. You may need to confirm in a report or proposal that what you claim to be true is indeed so. This doesn’t imply that you lack credibility. Rather, reinforcement of your views enables others to make decisions based on a well-documented position. The most recognized authorities in any field are usually the most thorough researchers. Researching other published works that will confirm your own find- ings is usually essential for long reports and proposals.

2. To clarify and to learn. You may need to find out how something works or what comprises a specific machine or instrument. For example, suppose you’re writing a descriptive report on the physical characteristics of a specific transistor for use in an amplifier. You may need to know that this transistor has a beta of 100, something you would find only through research. Or perhaps you need to clarify something either for yourself or for your readers. Proper research may provide you with a detailed explanation of what you need to know. A draftsperson, for instance, may be writing an analytical report on a proposed triangle in drafting. That person needs informa- tion to decide the potential usefulness of that triangle.

Without research to back up your claims or clarify your information, your report or proposal may lack credibility.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Before You Begin

Any effective business or technical document that requires research begins from a crucial starting point—its purpose. In other words, before rambling about on the Internet, browsing your company’s stock of journals, or wandering through the stacks of a library, sit down, take a deep breath and write out the purpose of your document. You’ll hear this again later on in this course. And why not? The issue of purpose is central to effective business and technical writing.

Your purpose statement for a proposal might begin with questions like these:

• Why will adopting a team approach increase productivity in the ceramic-casting division?

• How has an employee-team approach been used successfully in other companies?

• What steps need to be taken to accomplish this goal?

• How will the team approach affect morale?

• What costs will be involved in changing to new procedures?

Of course, these are the types of questions that will help you formulate your purpose. The beginning of a more formal statement of purpose, which will end up in your actual proposal, might look like this:

My research has shown that a team-based approach in the ceramic-casting division of Alter-Cast, Inc. will increase productivity, enhance employee morale, reduce absenteeism, and offer higher levels of profitability for our ceramics prod- ucts. The purpose of my proposal, therefore, is to demonstrate the feasibility of replacing our shift approach with a rotating team approach.

Types of Research As you become clear about the purpose of your writing, you’ll also become more focused on how to research and collect the data you need. You’ll generally need to conduct two types of research: secondary research and primary research.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 21

Secondary research involves using books, magazines, data- bases, and other written material to find information. This is where you’re most likely to begin your research. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. In other words, remember that most technical and business problems have already been consid- ered by someone else. Research their information and use it to back up your case.

However, because you’ll be dealing with the unique problem of applying your research to an actual situation involving your organization and the people in it, you may also want to conduct primary research, which is the collecting of data on your own through such tools as surveys and interviews.

Secondary Research

You’ll probably begin your research with secondary sources. In this section of the study unit, you’ll examine three com- mon secondary sources: print resources, the Internet, and electronic databases.

Print resources. In spite of personal computers and the Internet, a library, especially if it’s a large public or university library, remains a resource with considerable, even unpar- alleled depth (Figure 8). Books contain in-depth information sometimes not available any- where else. In a good library, you also have access to cur- rent and back issues of periodicals and journals.

FIGURE 8—A library is a good source of secondary information.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Most libraries today have their books catalogued on a com- puter system. Accessing topics and titles is easier than it was when you had to search through a card catalog. If you have trouble using a library’s computer system, ask a librar- ian for help. If you can’t find what you want on the premises of a library, you can often access it from the library through computer networks. Good libraries also give you access to microfilm files through which you can access back issues of journals, general periodicals, and newspapers.

Your company may have a small library of its own, which includes current and back issues of periodicals related to your field. If so, you should probably start your research there.

When you need information you can’t find in your own library, you may wish to move on to other periodicals. Today, periodicals range from the general to the specific. It seems as if there’s no technical or specialized business field that doesn’t have at least one periodical devoted to it. To access such information, you can examine the Business Periodicals Index. This reference book provides information needed to track competitors, monitor new products, gather data on industry and financial trends, and more. The database pro- vides indexing of 527 key international English-language business periodicals including Business Week, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Business Periodicals Index can be accessed on CD-ROM, in print, or through the Internet.

The Internet. The Internet is a global network that connects millions of computers. Through the Internet, computers can exchange information, graphics, sound (music and speech), and other kinds of data—as long as both computers are con- nected to the Internet.

The World Wide Web isn’t the same thing as the Internet. The Web was originally developed so scientists and specialists could exchange information. Today, the Web claims the most commanding position in the Internet. It uses a special lan- guage, called HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), to transmit data. HTTP is only one of the many languages understood by the Web.

Whenever you go to a library to conduct research, be sure to check in with the refer- ence librarian, who should be able to give you direction in your search.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 23

Every Web site has its own address, or URL, which generally begins with the letters www for World Wide Web. Today, every new computer comes loaded with some kind of web browser (such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer), which enables the computer to communicate via the Internet.

When using the Internet for research, you must use a search engine, like Yahoo.com or Google.com, to help you find your way around. Once you have access to a search engine, it’s relatively easy to find your way to a specific Web site for a periodical, research foundation, government agency, or company. When you get to the page you’re looking for, you can then proceed to click on links that will carry you to additional Web pages or to other related sites.

The Internet is a gateway to an ever-widening expanse of information (Figure 9). Whether you think of it as an infor- mation highway or as a route to chaos, however, depends in part on how you go about using it. Figure 10 presents some tips that can help your Internet research go smoothly.

Almost every organiza- tion today, large and small, has a Web site.

FIGURE 9—Using the Internet for your research allows you to access all kinds of information, current and historic, right from your own home or office.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Electronic databases. An electronic database is a collec- tion of information organized in such a way that a computer can quickly search for and select desired pieces of data. Think of a database as an electronic filing system. While electronic databases have been around on CD-ROM for a while, online databases are becoming increasingly available through the Internet.

A good example of a Web site that gives you access to many databases is that of the U.S. Bureau of the Census (http://www.census.gov). This site provides information on such things as people, businesses, jobs, and geography. Another good example is the Web site for the National Opinion Research Center (http://www.norc.uchicago.edu). This site provides information on such topics as economics, education, health, statistics, and the population. If you have access to the Internet, why not take some time now to browse around these two sites? Find out what they have to offer just in case you need such information some day.

Internet Research Tips • Know your search engine. Broad spectrum search engines like Dogpile.com, Google.com,

and Yahoo.com, for example, have basic characteristics. Check out the way they operate. Look over their options. Take a few minutes to inquire into FAQs (frequently asked questions) on the engine’s home page to see how to best conduct searches with that particular search engine.

• Use more than one search engine. Depending on the way in which the engine searches for information, different engines may produce different results.

• When you locate an Internet site that will be useful to you, save it on your Web browser through the Bookmark or Favorites feature. Written notes get lost. If you don’t save the Web address, you may find it difficult to get back to the site.

• In writing out a search request, omit articles (like the, a, and an) and prepositions (like on, of, and by), which are known as stop words. In other words, they don’t tell the computer anything it wants to know.

• When giving the search engine information to search for, be as specific as possible. Otherwise, you’ll access a lot of irrelevant links because your information was too general. For example, instead of searching for “keeping customers happy,” try using “customer satisfaction.”

• Be persistent and patient. Try different combinations of words in the search window. Explore Web sites that may have useful links, even when they’re not directly related to the focus of your research.

FIGURE 10—Use these tips to make your Internet research easier and more productive.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 25

Your company may already use or have access to useful databases. If not, most libraries provide such access. Sometimes, companies may have to pay subscriber fees to gain access to certain databases. However, if the information is useful, the fee could be a sound investment.

Primary Research

Secondary research may not give you all you’re hoping for or need. In such cases, you may need to gather data that’s distinctive to your organization and the kind of problem you’re dealing with. In other words, you may need to conduct primary research.

There are four common approaches to gathering primary data:

• Surveys

• Interviews

• Observation

• Experiments

Surveys. At one time, surveys involved asking subjects to fill out written questionnaires. In more recent years, however, computer-assisted telephone surveys have been replacing written questionnaires, especially for political, marketing, and opinion research organizations.

Surveys are intended to sample particular populations to get information about things like product preferences, purchas- ing patterns, and so on. The data is then evaluated with statistical methods that summarize the data and establish a margin of error for the accuracy of the results.

Although surveys can provide accurate and useful informa- tion, be careful in using them. Here are some important cautions you should be aware of before you begin to use surveys for gathering information:

• Surveys must reach a representative sample of the population you’re studying. Otherwise, your data may be so inaccurate that it’s useless.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

• Because the pace of life in our economy is so fast, people will frequently discard mailed questionnaires as junk mail. Therefore, the return rates may be too small for a useful statistical analysis.

• Surveys conducted by phone may encounter family squabbles, a conversation with a babysitter, or a reply from an answering machine.

In spite of these shortcomings, surveys can be useful in some situations. For example, surveys administered to employees who have an interest in the information being gathered may provide a very satisfactory return rate and very useful data (Figure 11).

Interviews. Interviews tend to be very time-consuming. They require you to pay attention, take notes, and possibly transcribe the interview from your tape recorder. On the other hand, interviews provide in-depth information you may not get in any other way (Figure 12). Actually talking to fel- low employees, managers, or potential customers may give you insights you hadn’t considered. Interviews with experts in the field related to the focus of your research can actually save you a great deal of time and provide crucial information.

FIGURE 11—Conducting sur- veys with interested employees can provide informative and helpful data for a report.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 27

When you decide to conduct an interview to obtain data, keep these points in mind:

• Prepare for your interview by thinking out and writing down the questions you want to ask.

• Make sure you have a laptop computer, a tape recorder, or a notepad handy for recording information from the interview. If the person you’re interviewing is put off by a recorder or even by note taking, make sure to make notes immediately after the interview.

• During the actual interview, be an active listener. Encourage the people you’re interviewing by making it clear that you’re interested and alert. Encourage them further by keeping your comments minimal. Let the people you interview do the talking.

• Be friendly, courteous, and respectful of whatever time limits you’ve established for the interview.

• Run a debriefing with yourself after an interview. Looking over your notes and thinking about what you’ve learned will help in preparing your report or proposal.

FIGURE 12—Taking careful notes is an important part of any interview. Even though they can take a lot of time, interviews often provide information you wouldn’t be able to gather in any other way.

You can show your interest during an interview by leaning forward, making eye contact, and asking questions to encour- age elaboration of answers.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

• Take time to send your interviewees thank-you notes, especially if you’ve taken time from the schedules of busy people.

Observation. In the human and management sciences, observation is often called field research. In many instances, there’s no substitute for going to where the action is and seeing what you can see. If you’re interested in employee

attitudes, take time to observe how employ- ees behave during working hours. If you’re interested in customer behavior in supermar- kets, go to a supermarket and watch how customers shop (Figure 13). If you want to truly understand what it’s like to work in a dress factory, visit such a factory and, if pos- sible, participate in whatever tasks various workers perform.

Make sure to document your observations carefully. First, make some notes about what you want to study and how you want to go about it. Go “into the field” with whatever you need—a notepad, a tape recorder, or even a camera. Finally, either on site or off site, take systematic notes that include all of the relevant details, such as who, what, when, where, and why.

Experiments. In research, experiments are intended to discover what causes what. In fact, only through experiments can some- one assert that X causes Y. In an industrial situation, a simple experiment may involve comparing productivity under procedure A with that under procedure B. In a marketing

situation, researchers might engage in experiments aimed at determining how people respond to a new hand lotion.

In general, here’s how researchers would approach such a study. First, they would gather a group of people with similar characteristics and then divide them into two matched groups. One group, called the experimental group, would use the hand lotion being considered. The second group, called the control group, would use a substitute, which isn’t really a hand lotion. It might be only a little glycerin and scented water.

FIGURE 13—Observation is a firsthand method of obtaining primary information. For example, watching people shop in a grocery store can give you a lot of infor- mation about their buying behaviors.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 29

After both groups have used their “products,” each partici- pant would complete a survey, which might ask participants to compare the softness of their hands before and after using the product. If the new lotion receives substantially better results in the experimental group as opposed to the control group, the researchers could assert that the product was effective to that extent.

Documenting Your Research Basically, documentation in written material means giving credit where credit is due. In other words, when you prepare a document, you must acknowledge, or recognize, the source of the primary and secondary material you’ve used. Sources may include books, periodicals, newspapers, films, Web sites, interviews, surveys, or any other information you obtain from sources other than yourself. Giving credit strengthens your argument, protects you from charges of using other people’s ideas, and adds a depth of information that can be pursued by your reader.

To give credit, be careful to

• Cite sources in the text of your document using foot- notes or references to endnotes

• Cite sources for any illustrations, graphs, and tables

• Prepare a list of sources (a bibliography, a reference list, or a works-cited page), especially if you’ve used a large number of sources

When to Document You must document your sources in the following situations:

• When directly quoting or paraphrasing a source

• When using someone else’s unique ideas

• When using factual, statistical, or visual material from some outside source

Never plagiarize. Plagiarism, or literary theft, is the use of someone’s words or ideas without giving that person credit. This practice is an illegal act that carries legal consequences.

Paraphrasing is rephrasing someone else’s words in your own words.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

You don’t have to provide documentation for information you use that’s common knowledge. Simply put, common knowl- edge is the information most people know without doing any outside research or reading. The following statements are examples of common knowledge:

• There are 12 inches in a foot.

• Protractors are used to draw angles.

• The birthday of the United States of America is July 4.

• The formula for water is H2O.

If you’re unsure whether something is common knowledge or not, be on the safe side and document the source.

Methods of Documentation

There are generally three different ways of citing the sources you’ve used in preparing a document:

1. Footnotes

2. Endnotes

3. Notes in the body of the text

No matter which method you use, you should always include a list of sources at the end of the document. The list should be arranged alphabetically according to the last name of the author.

Footnotes. Footnotes should appear at the bottom of the page that includes the material being cited. They should be numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript. In the manuscript itself, place a superscript “1” after the copy for your first documentation. At the bottom of that page should be a footnote numbered with a superscript “1.”

Footnotes can appear awkward when you must cite a num- ber of sources in one document. They take up space at the bottom of a page and may be distracting to the reader. It’s best to use footnotes only if you’re citing just a few sources.

Here’s an example of what a footnote should look like: 1Market resistance is discussed at length in

Marion Frome’s article, “Moving the Market,” in Market Place, 78.2 (2000): 121–132.

A superscript is a number or symbol that appears partially above the line of text. For example, the number at the end of this sentence is a superscript.1

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 31

Endnotes. Endnotes are easier to handle than footnotes, and they make your presentation more readable. To identify endnotes, put a superscript “1” after the copy for your first documentation, just as you did for footnotes. This time, how- ever, instead of placing the documentation at the foot of the page, you should include it in a list at the end of the manu- script. Start a new page for the list of endnotes, and label it “Notes” or “Endnotes.” List all of the citations in the order in which they appear in the manuscript, and number them accordingly. Here’s how a listing for endnote 14 should appear on the “Notes” page:

14. Clarence Feldman, “Productivity in a Mid- western Assembly Shop,” Midwest Manufacturer 70 (1998): 344.

If you cite the same author and work again later in the document, your entry on the “Notes” page should be as fol- lows:

27. Feldman, 345.

Notes in the body of the text. Instead of using either foot- notes or endnotes, you may elect to document your reference right within the body of the text. If you use this technique, you must also include a list of works cited at the end of your report.

Here’s an example of how to document a source in the body of your text: “A good exam requires students to assimilate

Hints for Formatting Endnotes or Footnotes • Single space within footnotes, but double space

between footnotes on a given page.

• There are numerous documentation methods, and each has its own variations. Certain disciplines prefer a specific method. For a detailed description of how to cite different kinds of sources, consult a current style manual like The Chicago Manual of Style or the style- book of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA).

• Use your computer’s word-processing program to help you format your documentation properly.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

and apply the material they’ve learned” (Jones 1998, 72). Place your documentation outside the quotation marks but inside the punctuation at the end of the sentence. The refer- ence here refers to page 72 in a 1998 publication by Jones. In the works cited, you should give complete information on this source.

Documenting Web Sites

Any current style manual should give you a good sense of how to document print sources, but the conventions for citing Web sources are still evolving. The most common usage sug- gests a citation that includes the author’s name (when available), along with the document title, Web page title, the date the site was accessed, and the Web address. For exam- ple, a bibliographic entry for a Web source might look like this:

Alderson, Stephen. “Consumer Flexibility in Bear Markets.” University of Minnesota Resource Library, Retrieved 11 December, 2001. http://www.umin.edu/library/res/html.

In the next section of this study unit, you’ll examine how graphs, tables, illustrations, and other visuals can make your document easier to read and understand. Before begin- ning that material, please complete Self-Check 2.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 33

Self-Check 2 1. What’s the difference between primary and secondary research? Give three examples

of each one.

__________________________________________________________________________

2. True or False? The card catalog at a public or university library is the best way to locate sec- ondary sources.

3. Yahoo.com and Google.com are examples of _______.

4. What is the main advantage of electronic databases?

__________________________________________________________________________

5. Explain the difference between footnotes and endnotes.

__________________________________________________________________________

Check your answers with those on page 46.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

ILLUSTRATING YOUR DATA

The Proper Use of Illustrations

Visual images are often a vital part of reports and proposals. At one time, adding such visuals to a report was a complex and time-consuming project. Today, personal computers allow you to create professional-looking tables, graphs, charts, illustrations, and diagrams and to insert them into your text (Figure 14).

Graphs, photos, line drawings, and other graphics can add interest to your report and make it more pleasing to look at. However, always remember that the main reason for using visual aids is to clarify your data—not to make your document look flashy.

Here are some basic guidelines for using visual aids:

• Decide who your readers are and how much information will be useful to them.

• Make sure any visual aids you use are clear, simple, and logical.

• Develop your aids so that each one illustrates or clarifies only one point.

FIGURE 14—Computer pro- grams make it relatively easy to develop tables, charts, and graphs to include in reports.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 35

• Label each visual aid clearly. If you’re using a table, include a table number and title either above or below the table. If you’re using a figure (graph, map, photo- graph, diagram), include a figure number and title either above or below the graphic.

• Place captions beneath the titles of visual aids to high- light and elaborate on their most important aspects.

Tables

The purpose of a table is to present a clear display of quanti- tative information in columns and rows. Because tables display a lot of information in a small space, they’re the visual aid most commonly used in reports and proposals.

Figure 15 illustrates a table that outlines the income for various product lines of The World Crafts Company. As you study the table, notice the following points:

• The columns and rows have clear headings.

• The figures are arranged in a logical order (by year).

• The unit of measurement is provided (thousands of dollars).

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0002 4.31 9.02 4.01 7.44

1002 3.61 2.81 7.41 2.94

2002 8.51 8.41 9.71 5.84

*3002 8.21 5.21 6.02 9.54

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FIGURE 15—Tables like this one organize a lot of information in a small amount of space.

If you have no data to enter into a particular cell in a table, use the abbreviation N/A, for not available, or insert a dash (—) in the empty space. If you leave the cell empty, your readers may think you forgot to input the

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Most word-processing programs have the capability for devel- oping rather sophisticated tables. If you have such a program available to you—either at home, at your place of employment, or at a library—learn how to use the table function. You’ll be surprised at the complex tables you’ll be able to create.

If you create a long or complex table with your word-process- ing software, shading alternate columns makes it easier for your readers to follow the information in the table. Figure 16 is a shaded version of the table shown in Figure 15.

Graphs and Charts

There are three basic kinds of graphs, or charts:

• Bar graphs

• Line graphs

• Circle, or pie, graphs

Bar Graphs

When you want to use a graph to compare two sets of data, such as sales totals over a period of years, bar graphs make such a comparison easy to see. When properly created, bar

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FIGURE 16—Shading alternate columns makes a complex table easier to read.

If you have access to spreadsheet software, like Microsoft Excel, use it to develop graphs and charts for your reports. Most spreadsheet software allows you to create such graphics automat- ically.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 37

graphs make dramatic presentations of certain data. In addi- tion, they allow readers to immediately understand the relationships between two sets of figures.

In a bar graph, the vertical axis at the left generally represents the item you’re comparing—usually something like dollars generated or products manufactured. The horizontal axis that runs along the bottom of a bar graph represents data like individual years, products, or departments.

For example, look at Figure 17. This graph graphically repre- sents the data in the table of Figure 15. The table gives specific information—Southwest Pottery had $12,600 of income in 1999. The graph, however, allows a reader to visu- alize the difference between three different product lines over the course of five years.

The World Crafts Company

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003*

Years

D o

ll a

rs Southwest Pottery

Imported Ceramics

African Guild Figures

Source: Marketing Department*Projected Income

FIGURE 17—Bar Graph

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Line Graphs

A line graph is a method generally used to show trends—that is, how something (for example, price) changes over a period of time. Like a bar graph, a line graph has two axes. The hor- izontal axis generally represents the period of time, and the vertical axis represents the item that’s changing over time.

The main advantages of a line graph are that it clearly demonstrates trends and it’s easy to understand. On the other hand, a line graph isn’t as precise as a table. Therefore, you may decide to include both a table and a line graph where trends or patterns need to be emphasized from the tabular data.

Here are the basic guidelines for preparing a line graph:

1. Obtain some graph paper, which already has a grid printed on it. If you’re unable to find graph paper, draw a grid of squares on a sheet of paper.

2. Along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the graph, arrange your time component in even increments.

3. On the vertical axis at the far left of the graph, mark values of the quantity (money, units produced) per unit of time.

4. Prepare dots on the graph, taking your best estimate of the correct position for each intersection of the variables you’re presenting. For example, suppose you’ve marked the vertical axis in units of 100, 200, 300, and so on. To indicate a quantity of 225, place a mark approximately one fourth of the distance between 200 and 300. The dots will help you prepare accurate lines for your final graph.

5. Once you have the dots in place, connect them with a line.

Figure 18 shows a line graph for just one of the products in the table of Figure 15.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 39

Line graphs may also represent a trend for more than one variable. For example, the line graph in Figure 19 compares the trends in product revenues for both Southwest Pottery and Imported Ceramics.

Revenues for African Guild Figures—1999 to 2003

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003*

Years

D o

ll a

Source: Marketing Department*Projected Income

FIGURE 18—This line graph illustrates the trend in the revenues for the African Guild Figures between 1999 and 2003.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

Pie Graphs

Pie graphs are excellent graphics for representing proportions of a whole. In particular, they’re useful for showing percentages of such quantities as sales, regional distributions of sales, or relative percentages of sales for different product lines. In pie graphs, the size of each “slice” of the pie can be immediately seen in relationship to the other slices (Figure 20).

Remember that a pie graph represents proportions of some whole thing, such as all sales or all age categories of customers in a market. To help readers understand the relationship among the parts of the pie, include the values and percent- ages on each segment—or out to the side if the slice is too small to hold the information.

Comparison of Product Revenues

Southwest Pottery and Imported Ceramics

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

40,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003*

Years

D o

ll a

Imported Ceramics

Southwest Pottery

Source: Marketing Department*Projected Income

FIGURE 19—This line graph compares the trends in revenues for Southwest Pottery and Imported Ceramics for the years 1999 to 2003.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 41

Pie graphs with too many slices become difficult to read. Keep the number of pie segments fairly small—definitely fewer than 10. If you find that you have too many slices to represent meaningfully in a pie graph, see if you can com- bine some of the smaller slices into one category, called something like “Other.”

Page Design

Which would you rather read—10 pages of copy with one paragraph after another or 10 pages of copy with headings, graphics, indentions, and different kinds of type? Chances are, you would pick the second one, as would most people. A page of text that’s full of copy with nothing to break it up is not appealing to the eye. In addition, it makes the copy difficult to follow.

2000 Income by Product Line

20,900 (47%)

13,400 (30%)

0,400 (23%)

Southwestern Pottery

Imported Ceramics

African Guild Figures

10,400 (23%)

Source: Marketing Department

13,400 (30%)

20,900 (47%)

FIGURE 20—This pie graph shows the relationship in revenues for the three product lines of The World Crafts Company.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

When you’re developing your material for a report, think about what you want your pages to look like. Here are some good points to keep in mind to make your pages more appealing to the eye:

• Make sure you have plenty of white space on each page. Leave a margin of at least one inch at the top, bottom, and sides. Break up your pages with side headings and illustrations.

• Check the length of your paragraphs. Lengthy paragraphs give the reader the idea that the content is complicated and difficult to understand. Shorter paragraphs give variety to the page design and allow the reader a brief break before he or she begins to read again.

• Insert headings according to your outline. Differentiate between the headings for major topics and minor topics, and be consistent throughout the report. For example, if you’re using a computer to prepare your report, you may decide to make the headings for major topics in a larger type size or a different font type than the headings for minor topics. Or you may insert major headings in all caps and minor headings in capital and lowercased let- ters. (Examine the headings in this study unit to see this principle at work.)

• Put a little more space above each heading than below it. In that way, the reader can connect the heading with the material that follows it.

• Use italics, boldface, and underlining to provide empha- sis and visual appeal.

Your goal is to prepare a report that your readers will read and understand. To do this, you must have a clear purpose, you must gather and organize your information, and you must prepare the report so it visually appeals to your reader.

You’ve just completed the final section of this study unit. You’re almost ready to begin your examination. Before you do that, please complete Self-Check 3.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material 43

Self-Check 3 1. What are the main advantages of tables, bar graphs, line graphs, and pie graphs?

__________________________________________________________________________

2. Explain the relationship between paragraph length and readability.

__________________________________________________________________________

Check your answers with those on page 46.

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

NOTES

Self-Check 1 1. Your three basic objectives in organizing a business

document are to make the document clear, logical, and readable.

2. Your answer should include any four of the following:

a. Your points will be unclear.

b. Your writing will be muddy and confusing.

c. You’ll use more words than necessary.

d. You’ll burden your reader with irrelevant information.

e. Your document won’t reflect well on you.

3. a. Cause and effect

b. Comparison/contrast

c. Chronological order

d. Spatial order

e. Cause and effect

f. Classification/division

4. The main advantage of a sentence outline is that it provides the topic sentences for your main paragraphs. The main advantages of a topic outline are as follows: (a) They’re easier to prepare than sentence outlines, (b) they become the basis of a table of contents for the document, and (c) they supply the internal headings for your document.

5. No answer is provided for this exercise. When you com- plete your outline, examine it carefully yourself. Reread the material on how to develop a sentence or a topic out- line and make sure your outline follows this description.

A n

s w

e r

s A

n s

w e

r s

Self-Check Answers46

Self-Check 2 1. Primary research generates data through surveys, inter-

views, observation, or experiments. It’s necessary when secondary data doesn’t provide the data needed for a report or proposal.

Secondary research draws on data that has been gath- ered by others. Secondary data sources include books, articles, information from electronic databases, and information gleaned from surfing the Internet.

2. False

3. search engines

4. Electronic databases allow you to search quickly through their information for what you need and then select that information for use.

5. Both footnotes and endnotes are methods for document- ing the sources you use in the preparation of a report or other document. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page on which the citation occurs. Endnotes are listed at the end of a document, in the order in which they appear in that document.

Self-Check 3 1. Tables provide precise data in a compressed, tabular

format. Bar graphs show dramatic contrasts between quantities, such as sales figures. Line graphs show trends over time for one or more variables. Pie graphs graphically represent proportions of some quantity, such as amounts for different items in a budget or relative sales of several product lines offered by a company.

2. Lengthy paragraphs give the idea that the content is complicated and difficult to understand. Shorter para- graphs give variety to the page and allow the reader a brief break before he or she begins to read again.

MECHANICS IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL WRITING

Abbreviations

Abbreviations save writing space and sometimes make written presentations easier to read. For example, in many fields, writing AC instead of alternating current can make a docu- ment more readable and less formidable. For economists or people dealing with financial services, writing GNP instead of gross national product serves the same space-saving and simplifying purpose.

On the other hand, you can confuse your readers if you don’t use abbreviations carefully. Don’t abbreviate words or terms not used frequently in your text. For example, there’s nothing wrong with spelling out cubic centimeter, volt, or price-earnings ratio if they appear only a few times.

Avoid abbreviations that might cause confusion. For exam- ple, the abbreviation in. (inch) might be misread as the word in, if it comes at the end of a sentence. With these cautions in mind, use the following rules.

• Abbreviate units of measurement.

Examples: 5 hp (horsepower), 17 km (kilometers), 55 rpm (revolutions per minute)

10 in. (inches), 32°F (degrees Fahrenheit), 8 gal. (gallons)

bbl. (barrels), 20 doz. (dozen), 7 yr. (years)

• Never make an abbreviation plural, except for the abbre- viations for figures, volumes, numbers, and pages.

Examples: 5 hr., not 5 hrs.; 14 amp., not 14 amps.

but

3 figs., 4 vols., 5 nos., and 7 pp.

• Use periods after any abbreviation that may cause confusion, even if the practice in the technical field is to omit the periods.

A p

p e

n d

i x

A p

p e

n d

i x

Appendix48

• Always use a period after the abbreviations ibid., vol., and p.

• If you use a term often, but are uncertain of your reader’s familiarity with it, write the term out in full the first time you use it. Then place the abbreviated form immediately after it in parentheses. From then on, you can use the abbreviation alone.

Example: The quality factor (Q) of a tuned circuit is the ability to be selective at a particular frequency. The higher the Q, the more selective a particular circuit will be to a band of frequencies.

• With few exceptions, use signs and symbols in illustra- tions, but not in the text. Exceptions are dollar signs ($), percent signs (%), degree signs (°), and any symbols frequently used in your field. For example, the field of electronics would use symbols for ohm (Ω) and micro (μ). You can write 780°F., 360°lat., $25.56, or 55Ω, but avoid 25′ × 45′. Instead, write 25 ft. by 45 ft. Write 6 ft. 6 in., but avoid 6′ 6″.

• Abbreviate the title of an individual if the title appears before the name of the person.

Examples: Dr. Preston Smyth is a renowned surgeon. but The doctor is a renowned surgeon.

I had Prof. Thomas Wilkes for biology. but Thomas Wilkes was my biology professor.

Our new administrator is Col. John Hancock. but Our new administrator is a colonel.

• Don’t capitalize abbreviations unless the spelled-out word is capitalized.

Examples: B.A. (Bachelor of Arts)

Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)

C.P.A. (Certified Public Accountant)

rpm (revolutions per minute)

cc. (cubic centimeters)

amp. (ampere)

Appendix 49

• Don’t abbreviate the days of the week and the months of the year unless you’re listing them in a bibliography or footnote. Make sure the style manual you’re using allows such abbreviations. Some require that days and months be spelled in full.

• Use abbreviations only when you have a sound reason for doing so or when they’re standard usage in your field. For all other instances, follow this well-known rule:

When in doubt, spell it out.

Capitalization

• Capitalize the first word of a sentence.

• Capitalize the pronoun I.

• Capitalize proper nouns (the names of particular persons, places, or things).

Examples: Turkey (the country), but turkey (the fowl)

March (the month), but march (a type of music)

• Capitalize the names of days, months, and holidays, but don’t capitalize seasons.

Example: We left Chicago the first Wednesday in September and did not return until late in the fall, just before Thanksgiving.

• Capitalize words derived from proper names.

Examples: The Spanish-speaking welder uses a unique method.

In high school I had nightmares about Euclidean geometry.

Martha and I frequently dine at Italian restaurants.

• In titles of books, magazines, articles, films, and newspapers, capitalize the first and last words and all important words. Don’t capitalize prepositions, no matter how long they are.

Appendix50

Examples: Ms. Brown suggested I read The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.

The latest article on fad diets is called “Waisting Away to Nothing.”

The book for next semester is called Music through the Ages.

• Capitalize titles that precede names.

Examples: She recommended that Dr. Norris perform the operation. but She recommended that I go to a doctor for help.

The project was terminated by Vice President Gurney. but The project’s future was debated by the company vice presidents.

• Capitalize nouns such as republican, park, or university when they name a specific entity.

Examples: It was a democratic election that brought the Republican Party to power.

Among national parks, Arcadia National Park is my favorite.

My new college made Keystone College seem provin- cial and dull.

Numbers

The rules on how to use numbers correctly vary from one organization to another and from one occupation to another. In your own reports, you may find yourself using one style for one report and another style for another. For example, if you’re writing a report of a general nature, you may decide to spell out any number up to ninety-nine and use numerals for numbers over ninety-nine. However, if you’re writing a very technical report that contains a lot of numerical data, you may choose to use numerals for all numbers over nine. Above all, be consistent in your usage within a single report.

Appendix 51

Despite the fact that rules about numbers vary, here are some guidelines for you to use in your writing.

• Spell out all whole numbers between one and ninety- nine. (Note: If your material is highly technical, you may spell out only the numbers one to nine.)

Example: We sold more than eighty-five vacuum clean- ers during the one-day sale.

• For numbers over ninety-nine, use numerals. (Note: If your material is highly technical, you may use numerals for numbers 10 and higher.)

Example: The nursery stocks more than 150 kinds of perennials.

All 25 pins of the DB-25 connector are not used and, in fact, 9 pins are enough to do the job.

• If several numbers occur in one paragraph, don’t use figures for some and spell out others. Be consistent throughout the paragraph. If the largest number has three or more digits, use figures for all the related numbers.

Example: There are 25 people in the production department, 117 in the marketing department, 7 in the accounting department, and 56 in the development department, for a total of 205 people in the company.

• Use numerals, not words, for numbers that precede a unit of measurement.

Examples: Precipitation totaled 4 inches.

The mechanic worked on the car for 3 hours.

• Always use figures for monetary values and use the dollar sign with any amount expressed in figures.

Examples: The newspaper costs $.75.

The carpenters were paid $18.00 per hour.

• Spell out numbers used for approximate totals or amounts, unless they’re unusually long.

Appendix52

Examples: We have enough workers to produce about thirty units.

Approximately fifty-five men are in the field.

About 1,450 men and women are on the plant’s payroll.

• When two numbers are part of the same phrase, express one number numerically and spell out the other one, usually the smaller number of the two.

Examples: The project required 12 two-man teams.

The machine required two 13-inch blades.

The work was completed in four 8-hour intervals.

• Never begin a sentence with numerals.

Incorrect: 140 people attended the conference.

Correct: One hundred forty people attended the conference.

Incorrect: 1999 was a record year for sales.

Correct: The year 1999 was a record year for sales.

• Use numerals to express certain measurements (includ- ing degrees of temperature, times of day, and dates), regardless of the size of the number.

Examples: The temperature last Friday reached 70 degrees Celsius.

She began her employment as a professor on August 22, 2002.

The meeting will begin at 8:15 A.M.

• Express very large numbers in numerals, followed by the words hundred, thousand, million, billion, and so on.

Examples: The population of the country has grown to 35 million.

Last year, the company produced a record 3 billion CDs.

Appendix 53

• Use decimals instead of fractions for greater accuracy, unless it’s customary to use fractions. Place a zero before the decimal point if the value expressed is less than 1.00. Use a percent sign after a figure if it’s called for.

Example: The cost of living rose 0.75% during the month of May.

Some technical writing conventions are particular to a given field. For example, engineers may need to use specialized or mathematical forms, researchers may need to present large or small numbers through the use of exponents (6.4 � .106), and technicians may use special figures related to circuits and electrical currents. But, for practical purposes, this review of the use of numerals versus words should cover most concerns you’ll encounter in business and technical writing.

Punctuation

The purpose of punctuation is to show the reader how thoughts are related to each other. In general, English contains end and internal punctuation.

End Punctuation

End punctuation includes the period (.), question mark (?), and exclamation point (!).

• Use a period at the end of a statement of fact, condition, or probability. Put another way, a period should tell the reader that a complete thought or idea concludes here, even if that thought or idea has more than one part.

Example: The president of the company voted against the reorganization.

• Use a question mark at the end of any sentence that poses a direct question.

Example: Is that all you have to say?

Appendix54

• Use an exclamation point at the end of sentences that show a surprised reaction, a strong emotion, an urgent request, or a curse. While the exclamation point may have its place in an informal letter, memo, or e-mail, it should rarely appear in a formal report or proposal. The exclamation point is meant to add strong emphasis and to indicate emotion. Good business and technical writing should be primarily about facts and figures, not about strong emotions.

Example: How tired I was after my workout!

Internal Punctuation

Internal punctuation is used inside sentences. The most common internal punctuation marks are the apostrophe (‘), colon (:), comma (,), dash (—), hyphen (-), quotation marks (“ “), and semicolon (;). These marks are treated here in alpha- betical order to make your use of this section a bit easier.

Apostrophe

An apostrophe is used to express possession, omission, or occasionally plurality.

• When a word is shortened by the omission of one or more characters, use an apostrophe where those missing figures or letters would be.

Examples: are not aren’t has not hasn’t 2000 ‘00

The possessive form of a noun shows a special relationship, or ownership, to another noun that follows it.

• To form the possessive of a singular noun, add ‘s regard- less of its ending.

Examples: John John’s lawyer lawyer’s child child’s Ed Jones Ed Jones’s radius radius’s

Appendix 55

• To form the possessive of a regular plural noun ending in s, add only an apostrophe.

Examples: the Johnsons the Johnsons’ lawyers lawyers’ employees employees’ ladies ladies’

• To form the possessive of an irregular plural noun not ending in s, add ‘s.

Examples: women women’s children children’s radii radii’s geese geese’s mice mice’s

• When two or more people possess the same thing, use an apostrophe with the last name only.

Example: Linda and Mary’s brother is attending graduate school. (Only one brother is involved.)

• When each individual possesses a separate object, use an apostrophe with each name.

Example: Linda’s and Mary’s living rooms are always neat and tidy. (Two rooms are involved.)

• Don’t use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns (yours, ours, its, his, hers, theirs). They show posses- sion without an apostrophe. Remember, the word its is the possessive form of it; the word it’s is the contraction for it is.

• In most cases, when forming the plural of a numeral or a letter, add only an s.

Examples: Please send me four #5s and two #26s.

We ordered three new PCs for the refurbished office.

During the 1990s, production increased dramatically.

• For abbreviations with periods, single letters used as nouns, or in any other instance in which the meaning is unclear, use an ‘s.

Appendix56

Examples: They were hoping to hire three Ph.D.’s for the research department.

The g’s and q’s on her computer monitor were hard to distinguish.

Colon

The colon is a signal to the reader that the information that follows the colon will answer some expectation raised in the previous material.

Example: Our goals are simple: increased production and profitability.

• Don’t place a colon directly after a verb, including any form of the verb to be.

Incorrect: We want to achieve: increased production and profitability.

Correct: We want to achieve increased production and profitability.

• Don’t place a colon after a preposition.

Incorrect: We have been assigned field trips to: Boston and Portland.

Correct: We have been assigned field trips to Boston and Portland.

• If you wish, use a colon to link two independent ideas (sentences) when one idea develops, explains, or illus- trates the other. In general, if you can substitute the words that is in place of the colon, then the colon is acceptable. But don’t use a colon and that is together.

Example: Many writers avoid using colons for a couple of reasons: They really don’t understand how to use the colons, and the colon is a strong form of punctua- tion with limited uses.

• In business and technical writing, use colons to introduce lists or long formal quotations.

Appendix 57

Example: Our research revealed the following weak- nesses: poor workmanship, inadequate management, and low employee morale.

• Use a colon to separate the hour from the minutes when indicating a time of day.

Example: The meeting began at 9:30 A.M.

• Use a colon to indicate a ratio.

Example: 8:4 = 16:x

• Put a colon after the salutation in a business letter.

Example: Dear Ms. Jones:

• In a memo, put a colon after Date, To, From, and Subject.

Comma

A comma tells your reader to take a slight pause. Of all punctuation marks, the comma has the greatest number of uses. It can link, separate, enclose, or show omission.

• When a coordinating conjunction like and, but, for, or, so, nor, or yet joins two complete sentences, insert a comma before the conjunction. Note: If the sentences are short and very closely related, you may omit the comma.

Examples: Computers can perform hundreds of jobs in a few minutes, but a human must tell the computer what to do.

Janice played the piano and Carolyn danced.

• Use a comma to separate introductory modifiers of more than three or four words. This includes prepositional phrases, participial phrases, and phrases beginning with subordinate conjunctions.

Examples: On Independence Day, we always have a family picnic.

Standing near the front door, I could see the rain growing heavier.

After we complete our preliminary research, we will be better prepared to make a decision.

Appendix58

• If a prepositional phrase, a participial phrase, or a phrase beginning with a subordinate conjunction comes at the end or in the middle of a sentence, you usually don’t have to separate them from the main idea. Use a comma only if the sentence would be confusing without it or if the modifier is only loosely related to the main idea.

Examples: The fishing will improve when the tide comes in.

We will be better prepared to make a decision after we complete our preliminary research.

The supervisor decided to grant the employee’s request, although he knew it might cause problems with other workers.

• Use a comma to separate items in a series.

Example: The new contract called for salary increases, longer lunch hours, and two additional holidays.

• Use a comma between two adjectives that modify the same noun, if you can insert the word and between the adjectives without changing the meaning.

Example: The plant thrives in a hot, dry climate. (The plant thrives in a hot and dry climate.)

• Never separate an adjective from the noun it modifies.

Incorrect: We recommend the Acme component for its strong, durable, qualities.

Correct: We recommend the Acme component for its strong, durable qualities.

• Put a comma after names used in a direct address.

Example: Mr. Tarbul, will you please introduce the speaker?

• Put a comma after introductory words like indeed, yes, no, moreover, consequently, and furthermore.

Examples: Yes, I will be glad to send you a brochure.

Furthermore, we cannot continue to pay workers for unscheduled breaks.

Appendix 59

• Use commas to enclose material that interrupts the flow of thought within a sentence. Most material of this type is extra. It doesn’t affect the basic meaning of the sentence, but only defines, explains, or clarifies it.

Examples: The Q-40 model, on the other hand, will meet all our needs.

My partner thinks, and I disagree with this, that the Gibson project isn’t feasible.

Marlena Anderson, my partner, thinks we should purchase the Apperson Drive property.

• Use commas around phrases beginning with who, whom, which, or that, only when the sentence can stand alone without the phrase. In other words, if the phrase is necessary to the meaning of the sentence, don’t use commas; if it’s extra information, set it off with commas.

Examples: The president, who is a graduate of Yale University, was honored for his years of service. (The commas are needed because the phrase isn’t neces- sary to the meaning of the sentence. It simply adds information.)

A resistor, which opposes all frequencies, causes a voltage drop. (Leaving out the phrase wouldn’t affect the meaning of the sentence.)

A component that opposes all frequencies causes a voltage drop. (Leaving out the phrase that opposes all frequencies would make the sentence unclear.)

• Use a comma to show that a repeated word or words have been left out of a sentence.

Example: This month productivity increased 3%; last month, 2%. (The comma in the second sentence indi- cates that the words productivity increased have been left out of the sentence.)

Appendix60

Dash

You may use dashes in many of the same ways that you would use commas or colons. However, you should use them mainly to mark a strong emphasis or to show a shift in your message.

• Use a dash to emphasize a pause, shift, or repetition.

Examples: We will implement all—or should I say most—of the suggested improvements. (This pair of dashes indicates a longer, more emphatic pause than a set of commas would indicate.)

The proposal—we had worked nights to finish it—was rejected. (These dashes indicate a shift in thought.)

The lack of safety precautions—poor lighting, faulty machines, and limited safety apparel—presents a hazard our company cannot afford. (These dashes indicate a list of the safety precautions.)

• Use dashes to enclose material when you want to achieve a strong effect.

Example: My partner thinks—and I disagree with this—that the Gibson project is not feasible.

• When commas appear within material that interrupts the flow of the sentence, use dashes to set off the inter- rupting words.

Example: The three department heads—Arnold Baxter, Pat Dennis, and I—expect to come to an agreement this week.

Hyphen

When do you hyphenate a compound word? When do you decide whether a compound should be spelled as one word, two separate words, or as a hyphenated word?

Consider the following correctly written compound nouns:

highway guideline breakthrough labor union high school pressure cooker step-down wrap-up drive-in

To type a dash, hit the hyphen key twice (—). Some word- processing programs automatically turn a double hyphen into a smooth dash (—).

To type a dash on your computer, you can press the Num Lock key. Then, as you hold the Alt key, type 0150. Release the Alt key and a dash will appear.

Appendix 61

The best way to determine if a term should be one word, two words, or a hyphenated word is to look in the dictionary. When you look for a word in the dictionary, be sure that you look for the correct part of speech for your situation. For example, suppose you look up the term drop-in (or drop in). The dictionary shows a hyphenated word (drop-in) when the word is used as a noun and two words (drop in) when it’s used as a verb.

As you can see, a primary determinant of whether a com- pound word is hyphenated or not is usage. The use of hyphenation usually changes depending on whether the compound is used as a noun, a verb, or an adjective:

Examples: Decision making is difficult. (noun)

The decision-making process is difficult. (adjective)

After his initial report, he published a follow-up. (noun)

He will follow up his presentation with a discussion session. (verb)

Here are some guidelines for hyphenating compounds according to the most commonly accepted usage.

• In technical writing, hyphenate any compound number from twenty-one to ninety-nine when it begins a sen- tence. Remember to use numerals for these same numbers within sentences.

Examples: Forty-five engineers were hired last Friday.

Management hired 45 engineers last Friday.

• Use hyphens with fractions when they modify something else in the sentence. When fractions are not used as a modifier, omit the hyphen.

Examples: A two-thirds majority is needed to pass the amendment.

For the amendment to pass, two thirds of the representatives must approve it.

• Use hyphens when two or more words are used as one word or as one unit of meaning when describing some- thing. However, use the hyphen only when the words appear before the term they describe.

Appendix62

Examples: The step-by-step process made the job easier.

The process was step by step.

The sales figures showed much-improved growth during the past year.

According to sales figures, growth was much improved over the past year.

• Do not hyphenate descriptive compound words when the first one ends in –ly.

Examples: The vaguely worded instructions offered us little assistance.

Highly regarded office workers make few enemies.

• Use a hyphen in compound words that begin with self, half, and all.

Examples: self-examination, self-study half-hearted, half-baked all-inclusive, all-purpose

• Use a hyphen between a prefix and a base word if the term could be mistaken for its homonym. For example, if you use the term re-cover in instructing someone to place a cover back on a baking pan, you wouldn’t want to write, “Next, recover the pan.” Here are some other examples of potential homonyms.

Examples: re-create (versus recreate), pre-judicial (versus prejudicial), and re-collect (versus recollect)

• Use a hyphen when a prefix precedes a word that starts with a capital letter:

Examples: pro-American, pre-Civil War, non-Catholics, anti-Semitic

• When the last letter of a prefix and the first letter of the word are the same (or when both are vowels) consult a dictionary or style manual for proper hyphenation.

• Use a hyphen to eliminate ambiguity.

Unclear: The police officer stopped the fast moving van. (What is being described—a van that’s moving fast or a moving van that’s fast?)

Appendix 63

Clearer: The police officer stopped the fast-moving van.

Unclear: There were 300 odd people at the conference. (Really? That many in one place?)

Clearer: There were 300-odd people at the conference.

• Avoid using compound terms, hyphenated or not, that are long and awkward. Rewrite such terms to make them more readable.

Awkward: The breakdown occurred in the 21/4-inch- diameter-transformer tube.

Improved: The breakdown occurred in the transformer tube that’s 21/4 inches in diameter.

Unfortunately, the standards for hyphenation are always changing. When in doubt, make sure that you use hyphens to make your meaning clear.

Quotation Marks

• Use quotation marks around any words you take directly from someone else’s speech or writing. Don’t use quota- tion marks around indirect quotations or paraphrases of someone else’s words.

Examples: Maxwell said, “Our marketing plan will work if our market tests hold up.” (direct quote)

Maxwell said that our marketing plan will work if our market tests hold up. (indirect quote)

• Use single quotation marks (‘ ‘) around any quoted material that falls within another quote.

Examples: Our instructor told us, “Please try to avoid the use of ‘access’ as a verb.”

Harold Brandt said, “You must refer to Hawkin’s article ‘Consumer Patterns in the Global Economy’ if your report is to be complete.”

• Use quotation marks to set off words taken out of con- text to achieve a special purpose or words that define something.

Appendix64

Examples: I have little faith in so-called “gentlemen’s agreements”; I believe in a signature on a dotted line.

The word “family” comes from the Latin familus, meaning “servant.”

• Always put commas and periods inside closing quotation marks.

Example: “Advertising,” Jim said, “will continue to claim a substantial share of corporate budgets into the foreseeable future.”

• Place semicolons and colons outside closing quotations.

Example: In Latin, “verb” means “word”; “noun” means “name.”

• Put other forms of punctuation either inside or outside closing quotation marks, depending on the meaning of the sentence. If the punctuation is part of the quoted material, put it inside the quotation mark. If the punctu- ation is not part of the quoted material, put it outside the quotation mark.

Examples: “You must be joking!” she said. (Only the quotation is an exclamation.)

Did he say, “Everyone can go home early”? (The entire sentence is a question. The quote itself is a statement.)

• When a sentence ends with a quotation mark, use only one form of end punctuation.

Incorrect: Did you say, “Take the day off.”?

Correct: Did you say, “Take the day off”?

Semicolon

• Use a semicolon to separate two closely related sentences that are equal in structure and importance. If the relation- ship between the two sentences isn’t evident, punctuate them as two sentences.

Appendix 65

Examples: We had to delay the roofing job for a week; it rained most of the time.

We had to delay the roofing job for a week. We worked inside instead.

• Use a semicolon before words like consequently, further- more, however, indeed, in fact, moreover, therefore—when the words connect independent ideas. Use a comma after any of these words.

Example: Our study shows that Plant #3 needs substantial repairs; in fact, it may be more cost effective to rebuild.

• Use a semicolon to separate a series of related thoughts when these parts have internal punctuation, usually commas.

Examples: You must bring red, white, and blue thread; 10 yards of white ribbon; and scissors, pins, and other sewing aids.

The only sensible ends of literature are first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one’s family and friends; and, lastly, the solid cash.

(Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer)

• Don’t use a semicolon as a substitute for a colon; the two punctuation marks aren’t interchangeable.

Incorrect: Two things are asked of us; accuracy and efficiency.

Correct: Two things are asked of us: accuracy and efficiency.

Other Punctuation Marks

Parentheses. Beyond the punctuation marks discussed so far, parentheses are the ones you are most likely to use. Material within parentheses can define, explain, or add sup- plementary information for your reader. Information within parentheses should always be placed directly after the word or phrase to which it applies. Put punctuation outside the closing parenthesis unless the material within the parentheses is an independent idea.

Appendix66

Examples: As required by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), the premises will be inspected periodically.

Most shops post NO SMOKING signs as a safety precaution. (Such signs are of little value, however, if some employees ignore them.)

Use parentheses sparingly. Very often, material you would include in parentheses can be enclosed with commas. In other cases, restructuring the sentence may eliminate the need for parentheses. In short, an excessive use of paren- theses may suggest writing that suffers from poor planning, poor organization, or careless revision.

Brackets. Brackets may be used to set off material inside a quote or, more rarely, to set off material within parentheses.

Examples: The interviewee responded, “I haven’t had many problems with the car since I bought it [1997], but I haven’t used it much, either.”

We can, possibly, attribute the plant’s decline in production to a decline in worker retention (assuming we ignore the fall in demand [since 1998] for vacation apparel).

Asterisk. The asterisk (*) may be used to designate a note at the bottom of a page or to refer to an elaboration in a table, such as the source of the data. It might also be used as a bullet to set off items in a list:

Example: Our findings confirm

* A decline in worker morale

* High absenteeism

* A decline in supplier efficiency

Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material

General Instructions

Purpose

This examination will give you practical experience in writing a business letter and doing prewriting for an informal report.

Preparation

Review the instruction on business letters in Writing Effective Communications, particularly the content for an information- gathering letter (“Neutral letter”). Also carefully review pages 1–17 in this study unit. You’ll be building on the prewriting you prepared for the exam in Writing Effective Communications, so make sure you’ve completed that exam. Review your work for that exam, as well as the scenario information provided below.

Background

Phoenix Advertising, with its main headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, serves clients that include banks, insurance companies, and retail chains.

You’re the vice president of human resources management at Phoenix. You report directly to Gregory S. Forest, the com- pany president. Mr. Forest advises you that in the last month, four clients have complained about the advertising work produced by the Roanoke, Virginia branch of the agency. He reminds you that the clients served from the Roanoke branch are vital to the overall success of Phoenix Advertising.

Mr. Forest also explains the little he has been able to learn about the situation at the branch: In the last three months, two of the top management people—an art director and an

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account executive—have left the agency. Three of the graphic designers and four of the copywriters are threatening to quit because they feel their creative efforts are being rejected or revised without consultation. They want to be part of a collabo- rative team, not to simply produce work that the art directors and account executives can alter arbitrarily.

In an attempt to increase revenues, the branch is accepting new clients without evaluating the effects of the new accounts on the current project workload. As a result, without notice or compensation for the additional hours, all salaried employees are required to work long hours several days each week. Employee morale and productivity are declining day by day.

Mr. Forest directs you to conduct a field investigation at the branch itself to explore the nature of the problems that have arisen there. Your investigative goals are to

• Identify and describe specifically the causes (root issues) underlying each problem

• Show the impact of each problem on the business and on employee morale

• Provide specific recommendations for resolving the problems in order to restore the Roanoke branch to full productivity

Process

Step 1: Prewriting Prepare yourself for your visit by creating personnel information for the employees at the Roanoke branch. Brainstorm and freewrite about the number of people working in each depart- ment and the names and experience of each key executive (including the two who left). Also review the information provided by the staff person and the executive team members regarding agency and branch policies. Use the following questions to jumpstart your prewriting, but expand on them with your own questions and ideas.

• Why wouldn’t employees be paid or compensated for extensive overtime? Is the branch following employee contractual agreements and agency/branch policies? Is the Roanoke branch operating under different salary scales/schedules than others Phoenix offices?

Examination 69

• Is the business experiencing financial problems?

• Who at Roanoke oversees the account review process? What are the procedures for accepting a new client account and for closing completed accounts? Are these procedures being followed?

• Why are some, but not all, of the graphic designers and writers complaining? Are their complaints legitimate? Have they always complained or is this a recent devel- opment? If recent, what has changed to cause the complaints? What have the art directors already tried to do to handle their concerns? How does their negative attitude affect productivity?

• Why did one of the top executives leave recently? In what ways has the absence affected the branch productivity and employees?

• Has the loss of some management people caused the regular procedure of collaborative review to be over- looked or are the complainers not doing their jobs appropriately?

• What’s the nature of the complaints filed by the four clients with Mr. Forest? What does each request to resolve the situation?

Once you’ve created answers to these and other questions you’ve asked yourself, determine how you’ll approach the investigation to accomplish your goals and find the facts underlying each situation. These methods might include one-to-one interviews with employees, observation of the work environment, surveys of the clients, and a review of various business reports, policies, and procedures. Use a variety of methods—don’t rely on only one, such as employee interviews, because what people feel or say may not repre- sent the reality of the situation. Create further details as necessary to craft a clear picture of

• The branch, the employees, and the clients (both satisfied and dissatisfied)

• Particular cause or source of each problem (usually more than one cause)

• The impact of each cause on business and morale

Examination70

Assignment: Methods In a Word document, type the heading “Step 1.” Below it type a list of your methods and summarize what you want to accomplish with each. For example, if your method is to interview each department as a group, what kind of informa- tion related to the problems should you be able to uncover through that method?

Step 2: Gathering Information Set aside your prewriting for a few days until you can revisit it with fresh eyes. Reread the scenario information and add ideas to your prewriting as you review it.

Suppose you decide to create two questionnaires, one for all the employees at Roanoke and one for all the clients Roanoke has serviced in the last 12 months. Your purpose is to deter- mine when the problems began, how they’re defined by those involved, what caused them, and how the employees think they could be solved. Write several possible questions and jot down any facts you hope to establish with each question.

Assignment A: Employee and Client Surveys Continue with the Word document begun for Step 1. Type the heading “Step 2A: Surveys.” Below it type “Employees” and list in correct sentence form the top three employee questions from your brainstorming. Choose words and phrases appropriate for the intended purpose and audience. Under each question, write one or two sentences describing the information you hope to establish through the use of that question.

Type “Clients” and list the top three client questions from your brainstorming. Under each one, write one or two sentences describing the information you hope to establish through the use of that question. Use language appropriate for the intended purpose and audience. Assignment B: Letter to CEO of Roanoke Branch Continue from Step 2A in the same Word document, but begin a new page. Write a full-block style, neutral letter to the CEO of the Roanoke branch in which you explain the reason you’re coming and the preparations he or she must complete before your visit. Use the ABC approach to developing each paragraph. Use correct sentence structure and word choice appropriate for the intended purpose and audience.

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Based on your prewriting, detail what reports and client accounts you’ll review during that visit, the meetings and interviews you want to conduct, any branch policies on which you need further information, employee performance reviews, procedural manuals, and so on. Be sure to end in a positive tone showing appreciation for the CEO’s assistance. Include a representation of your signature above your typed name (such as typing it in italics or script font).

Step 3: Organizing Now imagine that you’ve visited Roanoke, met with the people, conducted the interviews, and reviewed the surveys and other information. You’ve returned to Charlotte and are sorting the information gathered from your investigation according to the primary problem.

Review all your prewriting and freewrite on any problem not yet clearly defined in terms of causes, the impact on employee morale and/or productivity, and possible solutions.

Assignment: Problems and Illustration Start a new page in the same Word document after the Step 2B assignment for this section. For the “Problems” portion, you may use words and phrases in bulleted or numbered form to represent your thoughts instead of complete sentences. For the “Illustrations” portion, you must use complete sentences. Begin with the following labels for the Problems section.

Problems: Facts and Causes: Impact and Effects: Solutions:

Under “Problems,” list four or five of the primary problems you discovered in your investigation. Although President Forest categorized the problems into three areas, you will have found that one or two need to be broken down fur- ther, and/or you will have discovered other problems unknown to Forest.

Choose one of the problems you listed. Under “Facts and Causes,” list those you identified—not only what people said or felt, but also the proof or facts you’ve uncovered that identify the causes and underlying issues of the problem. Remember, a major problem is the result of several factors working together.

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For the chosen problem, describe under “Impact and Effects” the impact on the business and on the employees for each of the underlying issues you identified in “Facts and Causes.” In your discussion, include numbers such as percentages to show changes in productivity, employee work time, and so on. For issues involving employee morale, be sure to explain the impact on the business as well.

Finally, under “Solutions,” list ideas for each cause that will end the negative impact as well as improve the situation, making sure the solutions actually address the issue. For example, suggesting an award for employee of the month may be a morale booster in some situations, but probably not at Roanoke, since the low morale is the result of serious problems. If you create a solution you want to use but haven’t laid the foundation for it in the causes and impact sections, then return to those sections and create the necessary information to support your solution.

After providing the above information, type “Illustration” and below it identify a specific type of illustration (table, bar graph, pie chart, etc.) you might use to represent numbers related to causes or impacts. Then write two or three sentences explaining why your choice is the best way to convey the information to the executive team of Phoenix Advertising.

Revising

Referring to the above instructions and the evaluation criteria for the exam, revise your work carefully. For the survey questions and letter (Step 2A and B), revise for directness, emphasis, sentence variety, coherence, and appropriate word choice for the audience and purpose. Carefully edit grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Read through your work backwards, first word by word, then sentence by sentence, and then paragraph by paragraph.

Word by word. In this way you can locate spelling errors. Be alert—you may see the word here in your essay, a correctly spelled word. But also check the words on either side. Did you mean here in terms of location or did you mean the sense of hearing?

Sentence by sentence. By looking at each group of words separately from the context, you can more easily locate run-on

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sentences or fragments. Compare the length and structure of each sentence for variety. Also check the connections between sentences—are they coherent?

Paragraph by paragraph. Locate the controlling idea of each paragraph and compare them with your primary focus for the memo and e-mail. Does the paragraph help to develop that focus in some specific way? Compare it with the controlling ideas of the paragraphs before and after it. Do they follow in logical order?

Evaluation Criteria

Your instructor will use the following criteria to evaluate your exam:

• Methods (10 points) How varied were your methods? How applicable and clear was your analysis of each?

• Surveys (10 points) Did you provide three different questions for employ- ees and three for clients, each obtaining desired info related to specific part of scenario?

• Letter (15 points) Did you clearly and logically specify your purpose and detail your expectations for your purpose using ABC? Did you format it with appropriate, complete addresses, salutation, and closing-signature?

• Problems (5 points) Did you identify four specific problems related to the scenario?

• Cause and impact (15 points) Did you give specific facts showing underlying causes of one problem and describe the impact and effects of those issues on the company and morale?

• Solutions (10 points) Did you identify specific actions the branch should take to solve the underlying issues identified in Cause and Impact or address only the symptoms?

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• Illustration (5 points) How appropriate was your choice of illustration related to analysis and scenario?

• Audience, tone, and word choice (10 points) Did you maintain a professional tone as part of a com- pany team and develop information logically?

• Grammar, sentence structure, and mechanics (10 points) How well did you edit and proofread your document to ensure correct application of standard written conven- tions for American English?

• General Format (10 points) Did you use correct labels for sections, font, justifica- tion, and header info?

Submitting Your Exam

Include the following information at the top of each page of your document. The best way to ensure the information is on each page is to enter everything using the Header option (usually located on the View or Insert menu).

Name and Student Number Exam number Page X of Y Your Mailing Address Your E-mail Address

If you don’t include the above information at the top of each page of your document, we can’t guarantee that your exam will be processed for grading. If your exam is processed with- out the information, you’ll lose at least 10 points from your overall exam grade for neglecting to include this information.

Note: Keep a copy of your work, since you’ll need it for your work in the next study unit.

You may submit this exam for evaluation by the school in one of two ways:

By mail: Make sure your typed final draft is on 8½ x 11-inch white paper. Send your work in the envelope provided or use your own envelope and mail it to

Writing Instructor Penn Foster Schools 925 Oak Street Scranton, PA 18515

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Be sure to include in the upper-left corner of the envelope your name, mailing address, student number, and exam number.

Online: You may submit your exam online.Please save your document in Rich Text Format (.rtf).

To submit exams online, use the online “Take an Exam” feature. When you enter the full exam number, an e-mail format will appear and allow you to attach your text docu- ment to submit the essay online (both memo and e-mail at the same time in one word document). You’ll receive an auto- reply confirmation e-mail within 24 hours that your exam has entered the school system. Be sure to set your e-mail browser to accept auto-replies.

Allow 7 to 10 business days for your exam to be evaluated. In the meantime, begin your next study unit.

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