PR WRITING: Chapter 10 Response

Chapter ten deals with the topic of business correspondence. I chose to focus my takeaways on the tools I felt would be most useful and applicable.

Takeaway 1: Memoranda: While the term memo is an everyday term I never really knew exactly what it was. The book clarified that it is a message that is sent in an organization internally. Typically, a brief few paragraphs to either inform, confirm, or provide information to people within the company. These days they are typically electronic.

Takeaway 2: E-mail: I think my generation has grown up using e-mail. Even in high school it was common to e-mail teachers and classmates. The necessity to know when and how to compose an e-mail was something that was discussed as well. This topic is important because although it is a commonly used tool it can easily get informal. Informality is not appropriate for email, while it is essential to be brief and get to the point, good grammar and spelling are still important.

Takeaway 3: Voice Mail: I have never thought about voice mail as something that would be used professionally. However, if there is an office phone or if you need a call back from someone it is definitely necessary. I personally never leave voice mails and know many people my age do not as well but I wonder if that is a habit that will be harmful in the professional setting. While I don’t leave voice mails I do listen to mine when they come in. I would say the book is absolutely correct in that the message needs to be brief and only include the most important details. Long voice mails are likely to not be listened to entirely and risk the recipient missing some important information because the message was to long.

This chapter made me think about the fast paced communication of this profession. Really in any profession it is essential to have these communication tools and to understand how to use them appropriately. The section on memoranda was most applicable to my current writing because it was the tool that I knew the least about. All of these writing tools will be applicable and useful in my professional goals because employers expect employees to know how to communicate in an effective professional manner.