Page 395 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

Model Question Papers | 383

Next, good written communication requires thorough research. While speaking, we
can get away with a casual approach to the issue but when we put it in black and white,
the lack of sincere research shows, and very glaringly.
Often, hence, it is argued that for good writing, a six-point programme is necessary:
i. Brain storming to arrive at a precise definition and a statement of the theme to be
dealt with. It helps to map out points on loose sheets of paper.
ii. Collecting data through research.

iii. Planning the actual document, its lay out, and final shape.
iv. Putting pen to paper.
v. Editing your draft for grammar, punctuation, spelling and consistency.
vi. Revising, it necessary.

Good communicators use every draft as a stage in the process of writing, and not
as a final, finished product. It indeed helps to determine in advance the length of
your written communication because you can arrange and organize and explain your
points accordingly.
Basically, good written communication requires a unity of effect. We can achieve it if
our writing has a clear progression of the beginning–middle–end variety.
It has been observed that an effective beginning, made attractive through a quote/an
anecdote/a proverb provides the ‘get set, go’ effect. A crisp start, in brief, is the need of
good communication.
The middle part of the communication should contain all the solid data that is coher-
ently stated through cohesive devices such as ‘therefore’ ‘so,’ ‘here’, ‘as a result’ (to indi-
cate cause-effect relationship), ‘moreover’, ‘in addition’ (to show adding of supplementary
details), ‘or’, ‘on the contrary’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘nevertheless’, (to show contrast) and ‘on
the whole’, ‘in brief (to sum up) etc.
Your conclusion should summarize the writing and indicate future possibilities, if any.
Please remember that you can start your argument in medias res, that is, in the middle. In
other words, you need not always begin at the beginning.
You may want to state a case history, for example, analyze it in detail and then come to
your theme statement that you would have otherwise stated in the beginning.
In other words, good writing shuttles back and forth through analysis on the basis of
its certain premises. You can write deductively or inductively, in other words. Deductive
writing would indicate analysis of facts, data, and case histories to arrive at a conclusion
while inductive writing means you state an axiom and exemplify it in the rest of your
argument. Use either of these styles. You can even blend them for effect.
Please remember that your argument should be structured in paragraphs, a reader can
manage comfortably. Solid chunks of information, bound together into a monolith, ter-
rorize more than an atom bomb. Every paragraph should have a theme statement and its
relationship with the theme statements of other paragraphs should feed into the overall
argument of the entire piece of writing.

Bhatnagar_Model Question Paper.indd 383 2011-06-24 3:12:38 PM