There was apparently a shooting at a university in Virginia today. Nasty. Shooter committed suicide after killing at least four people and shooting at least seventeen. I don’t have anything clever to say about this. I wish that people who decide to lose at life would at least kill only themselves, instead of themselves and a bunch of other people, too.Turned in my edited assignment from last week. Should do OK. Apparently there was some trouble on this. We didn’t have the computer lab access expected last week, so it turned into email-correspondence assignment. Some griping about plagiarism.Professor is reading some excepts from various papers in class. That’s a good idea. Also, my draft has some sections read. That bodes well.
Next assignment is on Chapter 8. Deals with negative messages. Talking about some other stuff first, though.
Chapter Eight. Negative massages are, essentially, bad news. Things people do not wish to hear.
As the writer, when delivering bad news you want to:
- Make the reader understand and accept the news.
- Maintain the good image of yourself and the company
- Make the message clear to all parties
- Avoid creating legal liability or responsibility for yourself or the company
There are common mistakes made when delivering negative messages. “Good Guy Syndrome” is the tendency of the sender to try and leave the receiver with a good impression of himself personally, at the cost of making promises which can’t or shouldn’t be kept, or divulging company information that should be kept private.
Negative messages can be delivered directly or indirectly. Indirect delivery is probably more commonly desirable.
Indirect negative messages should generally be structured as:
- Buffer – A non-controversial statement that is either neutral or positive. “Thank you for sending us your manuscript.”
- Explanation – Should begin with the most positive points and move toward the less positive points as message proceeds. Don’t blame the company. Don’t provide reasons that are confidential, self-serving, or complicated.
- Bad News – Deemphasize. Minimize the space devoted to bad news. Possibly embed the bad news in the middle of a paragraph or a compound or complex sentence.
- Cordial closing. Do not repeat the bad news. Do not apologize. If an apology was needed, it should have happened at the beginning. Do not urge additional communication if the answer will not change and there is no room for further discussion. Do not anticipate problems, or express doubt that the person will remain a customer.
Refusals may be direct or implied. Readers are highly prone to misinterpreting negative messages, so do not be ambiguous.
When establishing tone, strive for:
- Firmness
- Fairness
- Good Will
Be respectful, not demanding. Results will be better.
Be modest, not arrogant. Be polite, not sarcastic.
Be positive and tactful, not negative and condescending.
Be sensitive about word choice.
Getting into three-person groups to work on Assignment 2. Each person needs to write a draft of the assignment. We’ll bring our drafts to class next week and work on them in the lab. Send a copy of the draft to other group members before then. Over the next week, we need to work collaboratively with our group members, without face-to-face meetings. We need to use the change-tracking in Word to make comments on each others’ papers. These suggestions will be graded.
Essentially, each group should be turning in three drafts with lots of commentary and markup on them, one for each person, and one final document for the whole group.