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"HOW TO" Write an Introduction

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"HOW TO" Write an Introduction

One of the very top writing challenges my students, and participants in my writing seminars, express to me is their trouble “getting started.” This “how to” post will explain the ins and outs of writing that opening INTRODUCTION. It will cover three main recommendations:

  1. give readers what they need at the start,

  2. avoid starting with “background” info,

  3. use the INTRO to set up the whole document.

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Design Is Destiny: What is a “1st Draft”?

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Design Is Destiny: What is a “1st Draft”?

Not everyone loves writing or finds it easy. As a student, I struggled with what our teacher called the “first draft.” I also struggled to turn that into a different “final draft.” But what is a first draft when it comes to workplace writing? [HINT: it happens before any drafting is done.]

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WHAT CAUSES BAD WRITING AT WORK...it might be you!

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WHAT CAUSES BAD WRITING AT WORK...it might be you!

…I keep getting consulting jobs because my interventions, according to feedback I’m given, do, in fact, improve writing within these organizations. But what really changes within an organization after my writing consulting sessions? Not just individual writing skills. In concert with these individual gains, what changes after my consulting is the whole office writing culture…

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Ahhh! Everyday Writing as EYES-OPEN Meditation

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Ahhh! Everyday Writing as EYES-OPEN Meditation

Meditation—science tells us—can

  1. reduce stress,

  2. control anxiety,

  3. promote emotional health,

  4. enhance self-awareness,

  5. lengthen attention span,

  6. reduce memory loss,

  7. fight addiction,

  8. improve sleep,

  9. control pain,

  10. decrease blood pressure,

  11. improve listening, and

  12. generate kindness.

All good.

Most of us imagine meditation as a very deep, quiet, private, eyes-closed, rejuvenating experience, maybe enhanced with calming music, candles, aroma therapy, and a special place where we can melt our distress in cosmic quiddity.

Yes, eyes-closed, private meditation can seriously help us to heal.

But then, at some point, we have to open our eyes, reenter the crucible of complex existence and deal with—others.

Wasn’t it Garcin, in Sartre’s play NO EXIT, who exclaims to Inez and Estelle, “HELL—IS OTHER PEOPLE”?

In zen practice, there is sitting Zen (zazen), eyes slightly open, but there is also walking Zen (kinin), eyes more open.

How about an additional EYES-WIDE-OPEN kind of meditation we can do every day, at work?

Our everyday writing at work, which is often considered an irritating part of what we must do every day, can be that kind of satisfying, healing meditation—I prefer the word MINDFULNESS. Here’s how….

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Organization in Writing as Recipe

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Organization in Writing as Recipe

Today I’m thinking about the act of organization in writing and how it can function like a recipe from designing through drafting and review/editing.

I have developed and advocate for a radically reader-focused approach to teaching workplace writing (what’s usually called Business/Technical/Professional Writing in colleges), an approach that focuses on very specific skills for

  • generating useful information for a real reader who needs the information (not a teacher),

  • organizing the information logically and usually “deductively”—main point first,

  • using document design to make documents easy for readers to navigate, and

  • crafting a clear, concise, plain English style through management of paragraphs, sentences, word choices, and mechanics.

I call this approach the HOCs and LOCs approach: HOCs=Higher Order Concerns (CONTENT, ORGANIZATION, DOCUMENT DESIGN); LOCs=Lower Order Concerns (Paragraphs, Sentences, Word Choices, Mechanics). I think of this as a systems approach to thinking about and teaching workplace writing.

The usefulness and readability of any document is generated through these 7 HOCs & LOCs.

In this post, I’m considering the “system” of ORGANIZATION: beyond mere genre requirements (letters, memos, proposals, etc.), what underlying organizational principles should students learn, organizational principles that would apply to any kind of workplace document?

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