1. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS by John Ostrowski Basic report writing Government vs. business Your homework assignment

2. Session Learning Objectives: Written Communications Understand the elements of good writing Know the difference between government and business writing Learn some tools to help you write better reports

3. BASIC REPORT WRITING History –Pen & ink –Typewriter & secretary –Word processors –Decentralized word processing –E-mail

4. BASIC REPORT WRITING What are you trying to accomplish? –Inform –Sell a proposal Know your audience –8th grade rule Speak to your audience Jargon & Acronyms Emotional Words

5. BASIC REPORT WRITING Write like you talk Anticipate questions Keep your report appropriately short –1 or 2 pages for council or management –Longer for a technical report

6. BASIC REPORT WRITING MODEL SSituation PProposal RReason for accepting proposal AAction Summarize the situation at hand Describe your proposal to address the situation Describe why the reader should accept your proposal What action do you want the reader to take?

7. Situation: Citizens expect a quick response when they report a pothole in the street. Our current response time is 10 days, which does not meet the expectations of our citizens.

8. Proposal We propose to respond to citizen pothole reports within 24 hours by: Establishing a phone hotline and e-mail link to make it easier for citizens to report potholes Scheduling crews to respond within 24 hours Mailing a response card to the citizen to report on our action Cost of the proposal is $5,000

9. Reason for Accepting Proposal Our citizen advisory committee endorses the program. The one-time installation cost of $5,000 is in our approved technology budget. We can provide faster pothole patching response at no additional cost through better crew scheduling.

10. Action We recommend approval of the pothole response program, including expenditure of $5,000 for installation of phone and email tools.

11. GOVERNMENT vs. BUSINESS Involvement oriented Policy driven Passive voice Action oriented Profit driven Active voice