A Blank Page: Facing the Void

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Do curso por University of Colorado Boulder

Business Writing

560 ratings

University of Colorado Boulder

Business Writing

560 ratings

Curso 1 de 4 em Specialization Effective Communication: Writing, Design, and Presentation

Writing well is one of the most important skills you can learn for success in the business world. Knowing how to write well allows you to deliver your ideas with the power they deserve. Good writing also conveys a sense of your professional excellence to the world around you. In this course, you'll master the simple, effective skills that drive all successful business writing. You'll create impactful documents that not only showcase your ideas, but showcase your own professionalism to your audience. The principles you learn in this course enable you to become a great business writer. They also provide the foundation for moving into Graphic Design and Successful Presentation, so that you can unleash your best professional self whenever--and however--you present your ideas in the workplace.

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The Formula for Writing Success

Did you know that the most important element of good writing isn't good writing? It's good organization. If you haven't organized your documents for maximum effectiveness, you've wasted an opportunity to present your ideas--and yourself--with power. This module teaches you the universal organizational formula that allows you to optimize your business writing. You'll understand how the principles you learned in Module One build to this formula, and you'll see how a scaffold gets created and applied to a real business document. By the end of this module, you'll be able to wield your organizational knowledge in service of your ideas and personal brand, and you'll have built the foundation that allows you to generate powerful sentences in Module Three.

A Blank Page: Facing the Void6:31

Say it: The Body Paragraphs6:10

Building Out the Scaffold4:45

The Conclusion Concludes1:19

Conheça os instrutores

Dr. Quentin McAndrew
Instructor
Department of English, University of Colorado Boulder

Okay, here I am with a blank screen staring me in the face and William and

Dave waiting to see what I come up with.

No pressure.

The American writer Ernest Hemingway famously coined the definition of courage

as grace under pressure.

Hemingway was also famous for death-defying outdoor escapades and

war adventures and his over the top machismo.

When an interviewer ask Hemingway what scared him most about all of this

life experiences, he said a blank sheet paper.

Sometimes getting started is the hardest part of all.

>> It's really true.

I know that beginning designers are actually paralyzed by that blank screen.

They sit there and they look and they wait for

great ideas to come in and great ideas are really, really fickle.

It's helpful to know that there's actually a process so that you can sit down and

go write to work as a designer, just as you were saying here, you can set down and

go to work using a process for good writing.

>> For writers we can consider what that's means to make

it easier by starting with your purpose.

>> [SOUND] >> No matter what you're writing about,

you want to start with your purpose and tell your reader exactly what that is.

And then that purpose informs everything that comes after it in your document.

Let's use our course memo as an example.

The purpose of the memo is to persuade Coursera

that they should publish a specialization on effective communication.

So I need to start with that purpose right up front.

That's what I do to get my outline started.

In fact, I draft that sentence and

it becomes the guiding light for everything that follows.

That statement of purpose also becomes a beacon for

everything else that comes after.

Everything in my final document has to work towards the goal stated in my

first sentence.

It's the lighthouse that we write towards.

So with that in mind, I'll begin with,

many business professionals find that they need better writing, design, and

presentation skills to showcase their ideas and advance their careers.

At the moment, I like that.

It's enough to get me started and start to fill up that terrifying blank page.

I think I'll build on it.

Employers agree that many employees lack these critical skills for

business success.

Coming right along.

This is easy.

Now I'm going to write, the time is right for

specialization that addresses these areas.

Okay, so here is my opening paragraph so far.

Actually this is failed opening.

Many of you have probably already noticed,

that I didn't follow my own rule I didn't start with my purpose.

>> [SOUND] >> And

I didn't describe what I'm writing about.

I certainly didn't do it in my first sentence.

Does many business professionals find that they need better writing,

design, and presentation skills to showcase their ideas and

advance their career, say anything about pitching a specialization to Coursera?

No, it doesn't.

I haven't started with my purpose.

When I say to start with your purpose and

describe what your writing about right away.

>> [SOUND] >> I mean start with your purpose and

describe what your writing about in your first sentences.

Many writer face the same temptations that I face here and succumb to them.

What did I do wrong?

I fell into the trap of justifying my purpose before I ever get there.

You don't need to do that.

You need to start with your purpose and

then you can build your justifications later in your document.

But I've wasted my reader's time with three unnecessary sentences.

So for instance, this very non-distinct point.

The time is right for a specialization that addresses these areas.

I hint at a new specialization, but I don't say it directly.

And I have two lines of vague text before I even get to my purpose.

The path of my writing looks like this, when I want it to look like this.

I want my readers to get from point A to point B

with the least amount of effort possible.

You don't want to fall into what I think of as the introduction trap.

Which is the compulsion that we all feel to ease into our topic.

If I'm going to follow the rules that I'm teaching you, then I have to be willing to

cut anything that doesn't start right away with our purpose.

This can be hard to do,

especially when we might like the sentences that we've written.

But you have to be willing to cut the things that don't fit our scaffold and

don't address your purpose.

And you have to be willing to do it mercilessly.

So I'm going to get started doing that right now.

Let's start again by opening the memo by getting directly to the point.

I'm going to leave my first version on the top of the screen so

that you can compare my process.

A good tool to use when you begin is to start with the words,

the purpose of this memo.

That forces you to stick to the point and jump right in.

Now is this maybe clunky?

Sure.

But remember, this is just a first draft.

I can go back and revise my first sentence after I've gotten started.

So here I go.

The purpose of this memo, remember, I might revise this later.

But the purpose if this memo is to propose a new specialization to Coursera on

communicating effectively with business writing, design, and presentation.

Boom, my audience knows exactly what they're going to be reading about as soon

as they start reading.

They'll also know exactly why I'm writing.

Compare these two openings.

You see how the second one gets right to the point?

I haven't wasted any time.

As we work through the process of outlining and

writing you'll also notice that I'm revising as I go.

In fact, you should always be revising.

It's a critical part of good writing that we'll talk about in depth

later in this course.

You also have to be willing to mercilessly cut anything that's not working.

So there goes my first attempt.

Off the page.

Always keep in mind that your reader's busy.

They have a really short attention span and you have to cater to it.

So you alway jump right in with your purpose and

you cut anything that doesn't feed it.

In just a little bit, we'll come back to the introduction and

we'll list the main ideas of our argument.

But first, we have some work to do.

We have to decide what the main points of our argument are and

we have to work on our topic sentences.

We're going to do that next, and then we're going to come back and

fill in our introduction with those points.

So, I'll see you in the next video!

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