Unit 26: Choosing an Organizational Pattern

Introduction

The shape of your message depends on the purpose. As discussed previously, business communications can have three purposes: to inform, to persuade, or promote goodwill. Without a clear plan to achieve the intended purpose, readers can get lost and confused. That is why business writing has standard patterns of organization to structure thoughts and messages to make them understandable to the receiver.

Most business messages follow a three-part structure that accommodates the three-part division of our attention spans and memory:

Attention-grabbing opening: The opening hooks the reader in to keep reading by capturing their attention. In longer messages, the opening includes an introduction that establishes the framework in which the reader can understand everything that follows.

Detail-packed body: The message body supports the opening with further detail supporting the main point. Depending on the type of message and organizational structure that suits it best, the body may involve:

• • Evidence in support of the main point/idea
  • Background for better understanding
  • Detailed explanations or instructions
  • Convincing rationale in a persuasive message

This information is crucial to the audience’s understanding of and commitment to the message.  Our memory typically blurs these details, however, so having them written down for future reference is important. The message body is a collection of important subpoints in support of the main point, as well as transitional elements that keep the message coherent and plot a course towards its completion.

Wrap-up and closing: The closing completes the coverage of the topic and may also point to what’s next, such as cues to what action should follow the message (e.g., what the reader is supposed to do in response to a letter, such as a reply by a certain date).  Depending on the size, type, and organizational structure of the message, the closing may also offer a concluding summary of the major subpoints made in the body to ensure that the purpose of the message has been achieved. In a persuasive message, for instance, this summary helps prove the opening thesis by confirming that the body of evidence and argument supported it convincingly.

The effective writer loads the message with important points both at the opening and closing of a document because the reader will focus on and remember what they read first and last.

Organizing Patterns

Business communications use two main message patterns: Direct Messages,  Indirect Messages,  while bearing in mind to follow the general three-part structure discussed above. Learning these patterns is valuable to reduce confusing and disorganized messages.   Anyone can become a clearer and more coherent thinker by learning to organize messages consistently according to well-established patterns.

Direct Messages

The direct approach frontloads the main point, which means getting right to the point in the first or second sentence of the opening paragraph. The direct approach is used when you expect the audience to be pleased, mildly interested, or have a neutral response to the message.  Positive, day-to-day, and routine messages use the direct organizing pattern.  The explanation and details follow in the body paragraph.  Getting to the main idea saves the reader time by immediately clarifying the purpose of communication and thus reduces receive frustration.

Since most business messages have a positive or neutral effect, business writers should become very familiar with this organizing pattern.  Frontloading a message accommodates the reader’s capacity for remembering what they see first, as well as respects their time in achieving the goal of communication, which is understanding the writer’s point.

Indirect Messages

While the direct approach leads with the main point, the indirect approach strategically moves the main idea deeper in the message. The indirect approach is used for delivering bad, unwanted, or sensitive news.  When you expect the reader will be resistant, displeased, upset, shocked, or even hostile towards the message, the direct approach would come off as overly blunt, tactless, and even cruel.

The goal of indirect messages is to use the opening paragraph and some of the body area to ease the reader towards an unwanted or upsetting message.  Thus, the indirect approach will first provide an explanation or justification, before delivering the main idea.  This organizing pattern allows the reader to become interested enough to read the whole message. This organizational pattern is ideal for two main types of messages: those delivering bad news or addressing a sensitive subject, and those requiring persuasion such as marketing messages pitching a product, service, or even an idea.

Persuasive Messages: All persuasive message follows the so-called AIDA approach:

1. Attention-grabbing opener
2. Interest-generating follow-up
3. Desire-building details
4. Action cue

Nearly every commercials follow this general structure, which is designed to keep you interested while enticing you towards a certain action such as buying a product or service. Marketing relies on this structure because it effectively accommodates our attention spans’ need to be hooked in with a strong first impression and told what to do at the end so that we remember those details best, while working on our desires—even subconsciously—in the body paragraphs.

Negative Messages: Likewise, a bad-news message starts by presenting the bad news after an explanation or justification of the bad news is presented.  The typical organization of a bad-news message is:

1. Buffer offering some good news, positives, goodwill, or any other reason to keep reading
2. Reasons for the bad news about to come
3. Bad news buried and quickly deflected towards further positives or alternatives
4. Action cue

Delaying the bad news softens the blow by surrounding it with positive or agreeable information that keeps the audience reading so that they miss neither the bad news nor the rest of the information they need to understand it. If a doctor opened by saying “You’ve got cancer and probably have six months to live,” the patient would probably be reeling so much in hopelessness from the death-sentence blow that they wouldn’t be in the proper frame of mind to hear important follow-up information about life-extending treatment options. If an explanation of those options preceded the bad news, however, the patient would probably walk away with a more hopeful feeling of being able to beat the cancer and survive. Framing is everything when delivering bad news.

Consider these two concise statements of the same information taking both the direct and indirect approach:

Table 26.1.: Comparison of Direct and Indirect MessagesHere we can see at first glance that the indirect message is longer because it takes more care to frame and justify the bad news, starting with an opening that attempts to win over the reader’s agreement by appealing to their sense of reason. In the direct approach, the bad news is delivered concisely in blunt words such as “cutting” and “shutting,” which get the point across economically but suggest cruel aggression with violent imagery. The indirect approach, however, makes the bad news sound quite good—at least to shareholders—with positive words like “improve,” “streamlining,” and “strengthening.” The good news that frames the bad news makes the action sound more like an angelic act of mercy than an aggressive attack. The combination of careful word choices and the order in which the message unfolds determines how well it is received, understood, and remembered as we shall see when we consider further examples of persuasive and bad-news messages later in the textbook.

Organizing Principles

Several message patterns are available to suit your purposes for writing both direct and indirect-approach messages, so choosing one before writing is essential for staying on track. Their formulaic structures make the job of writing as easy and routine as filling out a form.  By using such organizing principles as chronology (a linear narrative from past to present to future), comparison-contrast, or problem-solution, you arrange your content in a logical order that makes it easy for the reader to follow your message.

These organizing principles are identified, explained, and exemplified in Table 26.2 below. Checking out a variety of websites to see how they use these principles effectively will provide a helpful guide for how to write them. These basic structures can provide readers with a recognizable form that will enable them to find the information they need.

Table 26.2: Ten Common Organizing Principles

Though shorter documents may contain only one such organizing principle, longer ones typically involve a mix of different organizational patterns used as necessary to support the document’s overall purpose.