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5 Vary your sentence length and structure all the sentences in a sentence group have the same structure, two problems arise: Monotony sets in, and (because all the sentences are basically alike) you lose the ability emphasize major points and deemphasize minor ones. You can avoid such monotony and loss of emphasis in two ways. I Vary sentence length. Longer sentences can be used to show the relationships among ideas. Shorter sentences provide emphasis in the con- text of longer In April, many amateur investors believed that another rally was about to begin. Because exports were increasing rapidly, they pre- dicted that the dollar would strengthen in global monetary markets, bringing foreign investors back to Wall Street. Also, unemployment dropped sharply, which they interpreted as an encouraging sign for the economy. They were wrong on both counts. Wall Street inter- preted rising exports to mean that goods would cost more at home, and it predicted that falling unemployment would mean a shortage of workers, hence higher prices for labor. Where amateur investors saw growth, Wall Street saw inflation.

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Avoiding Stereotypes I Avold describing people in terms of stereotypes. In your reports, sales presenta tions, policy statements, and other communications, avoid giving examples that rely upon or reinforce stereotypes. For example, don't make all the decision makers men and all the clerical workers women. - Mention a person's gender, race, or other characteristic only when it is of a minority group, ask yourself if you would make a parallel statement about relevant. To determine whether it's relevant to describe someone as a member person, don't say, "The Phoenix office is managed by Terry, a hardworking wouldn't say, "The Phoenix office is managed by Brent, a hardworking white improvement was suggested by Margaret, a person with a handicap." If you suggested by Jane, a person without any physical disability," don't say, "This member of the majority group. If you wouldn't say. " This improvement was Mexican-American. stereotyped group are present but at all times inforces the stereotype. Refrain from such humor not only when members of the Avoid humor that reles on stereotypes. Humor that relies on a stereotype re-

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Besides being essential to your career, communication expertise will enable you make valuable contributions to your campus or community. Volunteer groups, service clubs, and other organizations will welcome your ability to present their goals, proposals, and accomplishments clearly and persuasively. If you enjoy writing and learning about computers, health, engineering, or similar fields, technical communication could become your profession. Private corporations, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies the world over hire professional technical writers and editors. In the United States, technical writing has been rated as one of the top fifty jobs, based on employee satisfaction and projected number of job openings through at least 2020 (Wolgemuth, 2010).

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Consider the roles your voice creates for your readers and you When you choose the voice with which you will address your readers, you define a role for yourself. As manager of a department, for instance, you could adopt the voice of a stern taskmaster or an open-minded leader. The voice you choose also implies a role for your readers. And their response to the role given to them can significantly influence your communication's overall effectiveness. If you choose the voice of a leader who respects your readers, they will probably accept their implied role as valued colleagues. If you choose the voice of a superior, unerring authority, they may resent their implied role as error-prone inferiors-and resist the substance of your message. By changing your voice in even a single sentence, you can increase your ability to elicit the attitudes and actions you want to inspire. Consider the following statement drafted by a divisional vice president. I have scheduled an hour for you to meet with me to discuss your department's failure to meet its production targets last month. In this sentence, the vice president has chosen the voice of a powerful person who considers the reader to be someone who can be blamed and bossed around, a role the reader probably does not find agreeable. By revising the sentence, the vice president creates a much different pair of roles for herself and her readers.

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I Vary sentence structure. For example, the grammatical subject of the sentence does not have to be the sentence's first word. In fact, if it did, the English language would lose much of its power to emphasize more impor- tant information and de-emphasize less important information. One alternative to beginning a sentence with its grammatical subject is to begin with a clause that indicates a logical relationship. whether the proposed site for our new factory was once a Native After we complete our archacological survey, we will know for sure American camping ground. confident that a pneumatic drive will work best and provide the most Because we have thoroughly investigated all the alternatives, feel reliable service.

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In contrast, communication is the lifeblood of an organization. It is the flow of ideas and information that delivers what you know or have found out to another person who needs your information to do his or her job. I Sarah, a recent college graduate in metallurgy, discovered the reason that the pistons in a new, lightweight, fuel-saving automobile engine broke in a test. However, her discovery has no value to her employer unless she com- municates her finding in a clear and seful way to the engineers who must redesign the pistons. - Larry, a hospital nutritionist, developed ideas for improving the efficiency of the kitchen where he works. However, the hospital will reap the benefits of his creativity only if he presents his ideas persuasively to the people with the power to implement these changes.

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Put the action in verbs Most sentences are about action. Sales rise, equipment fails, engineers design, managers approve. Clients praise or complain, and.technicians advise. Yet, many people bury the action in nouns, adjectives, and other parts of speech. Consider the following sentence. Our department accomplished the conversion to the new machinery in two months. It could be energized by putting the action (converting) into the verb. Our department converted to the new machinery in two months. Not only is the revised version briefer, but it is also more emphatic and lively. Furthermore, according to researchers E. B. Coleman (1964), when you put action in your verbs, you can make your prose up to 25 percent easier to read. copied, scanned,

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State my points concisely by How many words to use Use more words than are SHOULD I HAVE THESE CHOICES SHOULD needed trimming away all unnecessary words Use verbs to describe what Where to put the actions Write dull, lifeless sentences that people and things do, did, or in my sentences use the verb be" or put actions in nouns will do unless there's a good reason for Use verbs in the active voice, What kinds of verbs I use Use verbs in the passive voice without good reason using the passive voice Make sentences that indicate in my sentences important or emphasize what's Whether to create emphasis Make everything seem equally what's most important unimportant my sentences to maintain Vary the length and structure of my sentences sentences of the same length Length and structure of Bore my reader by relying on and structure interest and emphasis Use simpler sentence structures so my reader can more easily fluent in the language l am using my reader will have difficulty What I do if my reader is not Use complex sentence structures understanding understand then lam frustrated Ican understand this uninterested by what this communication very easily. MY READER'S RESPONSE poor writer has given me. The author is a good writer.

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The gap between what employers want and the qualifications they see in job ap- plicants means that you can prepare yourself to stand out from other applicants by developing your communication expertise. Communication Expertise Will Be Critical to Your Success Your communication abilities will continue to be important after you are hired. Writing alone will consume a major part of your time. Newly hired employees spend average of 20 percent of their time at work writing (Beer & McMurrey it doesn't include the time they spend talking in person, on the phone, or on the 2009, Sageev & Romanowski, 2001). That's one day out of every workweek! And Internet, whether person or in meetings. Writing ability will also be a major consideration when you apply for promotions, according to the U.S. National Commission on Writing (2004).

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There is every reason to believe that similar results would be obtained in other countries. In India, executives of one of the world's largest software consulting com- panies told me that when hiring new college graduates their company always ranked communication ability above computer skills. Although employers value communication skills highly, they are frustrated by the writing skills that most new college graduates bring to the job. Of the 400 employers who ranked writing and speaking effectively at the top of their list of desired skills, only 1 in 4 said that college graduates are well prepared in writing (Hart, 2015). U.S. corporations spend more than $3 billion annually on writing instruction for their employees (National Commission on Writing, 2004).

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automatically imagine Stereotypes, Voice, and Ethics What do stereotypes have to do with voice and ethics? Stereotypes are very deeply embedded in a culture. Most of us use them occasionally, especially when conversing informally. As a result, when we use more colloquial and conversational language to develop our distinctive voice for our workplace writ- ing, we may inadvertently employ stereotypes. Unfortunately, even inadvertent uses of stereotypes have serious consequences for individuals and groups. People who are viewed in terms of stereotypes lose their ability to be treated as individual human beings. Furthermore, if they belong to a group that is unfavorably stereotyped, they may find it nearly impossible to get others to take their talents, ideas, and feelings seri- ously. The range of groups disadvantaged by stereotyping is quite extensive. People are stereotyped on the basis of their race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, weight, physical handicap, and ethnicity, among other characteristics. In some work- places, manual laborers, union members, clerical workers, and others are the victims stereotyping by people in white-collar positions. The following suggestions will help you avoid stereotypes.

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purposes, such as helping your employer improve a product or increase efficiency. Your readers will be supervisors, coworkers, customers, other individuals who need information and ideas from you in order to pursue their own practical goals. You may already have prepared this type of communication for instructors who asked you to write to real or imagined readers, people who need your information in order to make a decision or take an action. Most of your school writing-term papers, essay exams, and similar school as- signments-has a much different purpose. It is intended to help you learn and to demonstrate your mastery of course material. Although your instructors will read what you write in order to assess your knowledge and decide what grade to assign, they rarely, if ever, need information and ideas from you in order guide their deci- sions and actions as they pursue their own goals.

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rom the perspective of your professional career, communication is one of the most valuable subjects you will study in college. Surprised? First, consider what employers will be looking for when reading your application for an internship, co-op, or full-time position. At one time, many employ- ers may have focused primarily on the specialized skills you learned in your major. But the world has changed. In a survey that asked 225 U.S. employers to identify the top qualifications they seek in new employees, the highest number (98%) identified communication skills (Schawbel, 2012). When 400 employers were asked in another survey to identify the most important outcomes of a college education, they listed communicating effectively in writing and communicating effectively orally as two of the top three (Hart, 2015). The third? Working effectively with others in teams, an ability that also depends heav- ily on communication skills.

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short words, and colloquial words and phrasing. A formal style sounds more like a lecture or speech, with longer sentences, formal phrasing, and no contractions. I How subjective or objective do your readers believe your writing should be? In a subjective style, you would introduce yourself into your writing by saying such things as "I believe..." and "I observed...." In an objective style, you would mask your presence by stating your beliefs as facts ("It is true that...") and by reporting about your own actions in the third person ("The researcher observed...") or the passive voice ("It was observed that..."). How much "distance" do your readers expect you to establish between them and you? In a personal style, you appear very close to your readers because you do such things as use personal pronouns (I, we) and address your readers directly. In an impersonal style, you distance your- self from your readers-for instance by avoiding personal pronouns and by talking about yourself and your readers in the third person ("The company agrees to deliver a fully operable model to the customer by October Here are some major factors that may influence your readers' expectations about style. - Your professional relationship with your readers (customers? supervisors? subordinates?)

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someone else, perhaps a supervisor on another shift, is responsible. Although the passive voice generally reduces readability, it has some good uses. One occurs when you don't want to identify the actor. The following sentence is from memorandum in which the writer urges all employees to work harder at saving en- ergy but avoids causing embarrassment and resentment by naming the guilty parties. The lights on the third floor have been left on all night for the past week, despite the efforts of most employees to help us reduce our energy bills. Another good reason for using the passive voice is discussed in Chapter 7, ("Smooth the flow of thought from sentence sentence," page 126). GUIDELINE Emphasize what's most important Another way to write clear, forceful sentences is to direct your readers' attention to important information you are conveying.

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The same thing happens in the workplace. Consequently, this book won't tell you what your values ought to be. Instead, it seeks to help you act in accordance with val- ues you have. Toward that end, it seeks to enhance your sensitivity to often subtle and difficult-to-detect ethical implications so that you don't inadvertently end up preparing a communication that affects people in ways you wish it hadn't. This book also presents some ways of looking at the ethical aspects of various writing decisions-such as the way you use colors in graphs-that you may not have considered before. Ultimately, however, the book's goals are to help you communicate in ways that, after careful consideration, you believe to be ethical and to enable you to build the communication expertise needed to influence others when you want to raise ethical questions. How to Get Lasting Value from This Book and Your Course As explained at the beginning of this chapter, new college graduates have difficulty using what they've learned about writing in college once they are on the job. For some, it's almost as if they have to start learning to write all over again. Your instructor and this book share the goal of helping you carry forward the power and value of what you learn about writing in this course. Based on recent re- search on the transfer of knowledge and skills from one context to another (Bransford et al., 2000; Yancey et al., 2015), we will help you learn a strategy with two simple parts: reflection and a framework to guide your reflecting.

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perceived poor by employers? Researchers found that the answer is quite simple. The writing done on the job differs in substantial ways from the writing learned in school-and the transition from one type to the other can be difficult. What's valued most highly in school is not what is required of writers at work. In addition, workplace writing involves many new skills not usually taught in college. Your instructor and this book share the goal of giving you an enormous head start making that transition. To begin, let's look at what makes writing at work so different from writing at school. First, we need to acknowledge that it won't be completely different. Good grammar and correct spelling still matter. So do many other communication skills you already know. But you will have to adapt much of what you know, for instance how to use social media, in order to use it in what many employers call a "profes- sional" way. And, of course, there are some completely new things for you to learn, such as how to write types of communications you've never written before. The following sections describe seven important ways workplace writing differs from most college writing-starting with the most crucial of them all. It serves practical purposes. . It must satisfy a wide variety of readers, sometimes in a single communication. - It uses distinctive types of communication. It is shaped by context. It must adhere to organizational expectations. . It is frequently created collaboratively. uses social media for practical purposes. Serves

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. Your purpose (requesting something? apologizing? advising? ordering?) 1 Your subject (routine matter? urgent problem?) Type of communication (email? letter? text? formal report?) 1 Your personality 1 Your readers' personalities I Customs in your employer's organization 1 Customs in your field, profession, or discipline To learn what style your readers expect, follow the advice in Chapter 3: Ask people who know (including even your readers) and look for communications similar to the one you are writing. What If the Expected Style Is Ineffective? Note that sometimes the expected style may be less effective than another style you could use. For example, in some organizations the customary and expected style is a widely (and justly) condemned style called bureaucratese. Bureaucratese is charac- terized by wordiness that buries significant ideas and information, weak verbs that disguise action, and abstract vocabulary that detaches meaning from the practical world of people, activities, and objects. Often, such writing features an inflated vo- cabulary and a general pomposity that slows or completely blocks comprehension. Here's an example. According to optimal quality-control practices in manufacturing any product, it is important that every component part that is constituent of the product be examined and checked individually after being received from its supplier or other source but before the final, finished product is assembled. (45 words) The writer simply means this: Effective quality control requires that every component be checked individu- ally before the final product is assembled, (16 words) Here is another pair of examples. Over the most recent monthly period, there has been a large increase in the number of complaints that customers have made about service that has been slow. (27 words) Last month, many more customers complained about slow service. (9 words) Bureaucratese is such a serious barrier to understanding that many states in the United States have passed laws requiring "Plain English" in government publications and other documents such as insurance policies. This chapter's guidelines will help you avoid bureaucratese. However, some managers and organizations want employees to use that puffed-up style, thinking it sounds straightforward style is more effective, perhaps sharing this book. If you fail to impressive. If you are asked to write in bureaucratese, try to explain why a persuade, be prudent. Use the style that is required. Even within the confines of a generally bureaucratic style, you can probably make improvements. For instance, if your employer expects wordy, abstract style, you may still be able to use a less inflated vocabulary.

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1. Eliminate unnecessary words. Look for places where you can convey your meaning more directly. Consider this sentence: I The physical size of the workroom is too small to accommodate this equipment. With unnecessary words removed in two places, the sentence is just as clear and more emphatic: I The workroom is too small for this equipment. 2. Avold wordy phrases. Unnecessary words can also be found in many common phrases. "Due to the fact that" can be shortened to "Because." Similarly, "They do not pay attention to our complaints" can be abbreviated to "They ignore our com- plaints." "At this point in time" is "Now." 3. Place modifiers next to the words they modify. Short-term memory relies on word order to indicate meaning. If you don't keep related words together, your sentence may say something different from what you mean. Mandy found many undeposited checks in the file cabinets, which were worth over $41,000. Technically, this sentence says that the file cabinets were worth over $41,000. Of course, readers would probably figure out that the writer meant the checks were worth that amount. But readers arrive at the correct meaning only after performing work they would have been saved if the writer had kept related words together by putting which were worth over $41,000 after checks rather than file cabinets. 4. Combine short sentences. Often, combining two or more short sentences makes reading easier by reducing the total number of words and helping readers see the relationships among the points presented. Water quality in Hawk River declined in March. This decline occurred because of Separate the heavy rainfall that month. All the extra water overloaded Tomlin County's water treatment plant. Water quality in Hawk River declined in March because heavy rainfalls overloaded Tomlin County's water treatment plant. verbs Most sentences are about action. Sales rise, equipment fails, engineers design, managers approve. Clients praise or complain, and technicians advise. Yet, many people bury the action in nouns, adjectives, and other parts of speech. Consider the following sentence. Our department accomplished the conversion to the new machinery in two months. could be energized by putting the action (converting) into the verb. Our department converted to the new machinery in two months. Not only is the revised version briefer, but it is also more emphatic and lively. Furthermore, according to researchers E. B. Coleman when you put action'in your verbs, you can make your prose up to 25 percent easier to read.

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1. Place the key information at the end of the sentence. As linguists Joseph Williams and Joseph Bizup (2013) point out, you can demonstrate to yourself that the end of the sentence is a place of emphasis by listening to yourself speak. Read the following sentences aloud: | Her powers of concentration are extraordinary. Last month, he topped his sales quota even though he was sick for an entire week. As you read these sentences aloud, notice how you naturally stress the final words extraordinary and entire week. To position the key information at the end of a sentence, you may sometimes need to rearrange your first draft. The department's performance has been superb all areas. all areas, the department's performance has been superb.

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Developing an Effective, Professional Style ou need to use a more professional style, not write like a college student." This is the first response many college students and new graduates hear I in their internships or first professional jobs. This advice, always meant to be helpful, can be mystifying. Unless you have been immersed in the workplace, it's not obvious what a professional style is. Furthermore a surprisingly large number of factors shape what counts as a professional writing style in any particular workplace, though not more than you can handle if you know what they are. Overall, these factors fall into three major groups: the personality or "voice" you project in your writing, the way you construct your sentences, and the words you choose. This chapter provides practical advice about each one. special challenge we all face when developing our writing style is that readers don't always interpret our writing in the way we think they will. We might think that we've chosen just the right word; our readers think it is too vague or stuffy. We might think we are sounding formal and smart; they might think we are being long-winded and tedious. For this reason, as you are developing your own professional writing style, pay special attention to your instructor's feedback. He or she can help you learn how your writing is likely to sound to workplace readers. Create an Effective, Professional Voice

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Different purposes profoundly affect the kind of communication you need to produce. For an essay exam or term paper, your purpose is to show how much you as much as you can about your subject. At work, where know. You succeed by saying your purpose is to help your readers make a decision or perform a task, you succeed by telling your readers only what they need, no matter how much more you know. Sarah doesn't need to tell the design engineers everything she learned about the broken pistons. In fact, she shouldn't. She should communicate only the information that will help the engineers make better ones. Extra information will only clog their paths to what they require in order to do their work. Learning what your readers need and determining the most helpful way to present this information are the most critical skills in workplace writing, though they are not relevant for most writing assigned at school. This book and your instructor will help you learn to make this critical transition from school writing to workplace writing.

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Ethics Guideline: Avoid stereotypes Let's begin with a story. A man and a boy are riding together in a car. As they ap- proach a railroad crossing, the boy shouts, "Father, watch out!" But it is too late. The car is hit by train. The man dies, and the boy is rushed to a hospital. When the boy is wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon looks down at the child and says, "I can't operate on him. He's my son." When asked to explain why the boy would call the deceased driver "Father" and why the living surgeon would say, "He's my son," people offer many guesses. Perhaps the driver is a priest or the boy's stepfather or someone who kidnapped the boy as baby. Few guess that the surgeon must be the boy's mother. Why? Our culture's ste- reotypes about the roles men and women play are strong that when people think of a surgeon, many automatically imagine a man.

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Here are some additional examples. The Korean ore was purchased by us. We purchased the Korean ore. Research shows that readers comprehend active sentences more rapidly than passive ones (Young, 2010). Also, the active voice eliminates the vagueness and ambiguity that often characterize the passive voice. In the passive voice, a sentence can describe an action without telling who did it. For example, "The ball was hit" is grammatically correct sentence but doesn't tell who or what hit the ball. With the active voice, the writer identifies the actor: "Linda hit the ball." The following sentence illustrates the importance of ensuring that readers understand who the actor is. The operating temperatures must be checked daily to protect the motor from damage. Will the supervisor of the third shift know that he is the person responsible for check- ing temperatures? In the passive voice, this sentence certainly allows him to imagine that someone else, perhaps a supervisor on another shift, is responsible.

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How to Construct Sentences Your Reader Will Find Easy to Understand, Easy to Remember, and Interesting choices you make, the way you build your sentences, can have a significant impact Without realizing it, you make many choices with each sentence you write. The six guidelines, which are summarized in Figure 10.2, suggest ways to make your six well as how well your communications will hold your reader's interest. The following on how easy your sentences will be for your reader to understand and remember, as most important choices. GUIDELINE 1 Simplify your sentences must figure out how the words in each meaning. Fewer words mean less work. In addition, research shows that when sentence fit together to create a specific work. Psychologists say that much of the work is done by short-term memory. It The easiest way to increase usefulness is to simplify your sentences. Reading is you express your message concisely, you make it more forceful, memorable, and persuasive (Smith, 2004).

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I Conventions of workplace writing-the factors that shape your reader's expectations about your communication, such as the tone that is appropri- ate for it and the conventional features of the superstructure you are using. The second group includes the writing skills and knowledge you will use to create your communication. Writing skills and strategies you already have that you can use. These include skills involved at all levels of writing, from overall content and organization to grammar and punctuation, as well as your skill at using or adapting workplace writing conventions. I Writing skills and strategies you already know but must adapt to this specific reader and situation. I Writing skills and strategies you need to develop to create a communica- tion your reader will find useful and persuasive. In addition, the example framework includes your alertness and response to any ethical issues that may arise as you plan, write, and revise your communication. In reality, the writing process rarely proceeds in such a straightforward manner as shown in Figure 1.6. Especially for longer communications, there's always back and forth among the activities. Of course, the more writing knowledge and skills you develop now, the more you can use and adapt in the future. All chapters in this book and all the guidance and assignments your instructor provides will help you extend what you already know about writing. Developing the Habit of Reflecting No matter how well you have developed your personal framework or theory of writ- ing by the end of this course, it will be of little value to you unless you use it to reflect after you begin your career. This book is designed to help you develop the habit of reflecting on the framework's four components so that you store away the most

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valuable lessons from this class for use on the job, and so that you continue to build your knowledge and expertise as you encounter new writing experiences after gradu- ation. Most chapters include reflection exercises. Your instructor may also choose to assign some of the reflection exercises in Appendix B that will help you focus on what you already know as you begin an assignment and on what you have learned when you have completed it. Also, this book gives (reader-centered) reasons for each piece of advice that it provides. The advice is always presented as guidelines, not rules, leaving it up to your judgment whether it applies, applies with modification, or should be ignored in any particular situation. In addition, your instructor will give what a book simply cannot: feedback on your writing and reflections that are so important to your learning to write in a new way. In your effort to learn to write effectively in your career, I wish you good luck and great success. EXERCISE YOUR EXPERTISE thirty-seven incorrect 1. Interview someone who holds the kind of job vou might the like to have. Ask about the types of communications expect the personnel manager the person writes, the readers he or she addresses, email from Patrick in the first the writing process and technology the person uses, that the person spends writing. fectively and the amount of time Supplement these questions with any others that will help you understand how writing fits into this person's leave work. According to your instructor's directions, bring either notes or a one-page report to class. Find a communication written by someone who has the-job communication, the kind of job you want, perhaps by asking a friend, will family member, or your own employer. Explain the communication's purposes from the point of view of both the writer and readers. Describe some of the writing strategies the writer has used to achieve these purposes. EXPLORE ONLINE Explore websites created by two organizations in the same business (airlines, computers, museums, etc.) or two em- ployers for whom you might like to work. Compare the strategies used to make the sites useful and persuasive. Note ways their usefulness and persuasiveness might be increased. Send COLLABORATE WITH YOUR CLASSMATES writing Working with another student, rewrite the email mes- you What sage by Patrick (see page 14) so that it will be more likely to persuade the personnel manager to follow Patrick's recommendation. Assume Patrick knows the manager's are miscopying because examined the time

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writing Must Satisfy a Wide Variety of Readers, Sometimes in a Single Communication As a student, you usually write to a single reader, your you will often prepare communications that address two or more people who differ instructor. In contrast, at work, familiarity with your specialty, the from one another in important ways, such as their ways they will use your information, and their professional and personal concerns. For example, in his report recommending changes to the hospital kitchen, Larry's readers may include his operations in her area would have to change if Larry's supervisor, who will want to learn how recommendations were adopted, Larry's cost estimates, the director of personnel, who will want the vice president for finance, who will want to analyze to know how job descriptions would need to who will want assurances that the new work assignments will treat employees fairly change, and members of the labor union,

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| The workroom is too small for this equipment. 2. Avold wordy phrases. Unnecessary words can also be found in many common phrases. "Due to the fact that" can be shortened to "Because." Similarly, "They do not pay attention to our complaints" can be abbreviated to "They ignore our com- plaints." "At this point in time" is "Now." 3. Place modifiers next to the words they modify. Short-term memory relies on word order to indicate meaning. If you don't keep related words together, your sentence may say something different from what you mean. Mandy found many undeposited checks in the file cabinets, which were worth over $41,000. Technically, this sentence says that the file cabinets were worth over $41,000. Of course, readers would probably figure out that the writer meant the checks were worth that amount. But readers arrive at the correct meaning only after performing work they would have been saved if the writer had kept related words together by putting which were worth over $41,000 after checks rather than file cabinets. 4. Combine short sentences. Often, combining two or more short sentences makes reading easier by reducing the total number of words and helping readers see the relationships among the points presented. Water quality in Hawk River declined in March. This decline occurred because of Separate the heavy rainfall that month. All the extra water overloaded Tomlin County's water treatment plant. Water quality in Hawk River declined in March because heavy rainfalls overloaded Tomlin County's water treatment plant.

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2. Place the key information in the main clause. If your sentence has more than one clause, use the main clause for the information you want to emphasize. Compare the following versions of the same statement. | Although our productivity was down, our profits were up. | Although our profits were up, our productivity was down. In the first version, the emphasis is on profits because profits is the subject of the main clause. The second version emphasizes productivity because productivity is the subject of the main clause. (Notice that in each of these sentences, the emphasized information is not only in the main clause but also at the end of the sentence.) 3. Emphasize key information typographically. Use boldface and italics. Be careful, however, to use typographical highlighting sparingly. When many things are emphasized, none stand out. Tell readers explicitly what the key information is. You can also emphasize key information by announcing its importance to your readers. Economists pointed to three causes of the stock market's decline: uncertainty about the outcome of last month's election, a rise in inventories of durable goods, and-most important-signs of rising inflation.

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Consider, for instance, the difficulties that may arise if employees in the United States and in Japan write to one another without considering the expectations about voice that are most common in each culture. In the United States and Europe, emplovees often use an informal voice and address their readers by their first names. In Japan, writers commonly use a formal style and address their readers by their titles and last names. If a U.S. writer used a familiar, informal voice in a communication to Japanese readers, these readers might feel that the writer has not properly respected them. On the other hand, Japanese writers may seem distant and difficult to relate to if they use the formality that is common in their own culture when writing to U.S. readers. Directness is another aspect of voice. The Japanese write in a more personal voice than do people from the United States, whose direct, blunt style the Japanese find abrupt (De Mente & Botting, 2015). When writing to people in other cultures, try to learn and use the voice that is customary there. Library and Internet research provide helpful information about many cultures. You can also learn about the voice used in your readers' culture by studying communications they have written. If possible, ask for advice from people who are from your readers' culture or who are knowledgeable about it.

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