HSBCEnglishwrite.doc

汇丰银行商务写作教程

这是汇丰银行内部培训员工用的写作课程。它把写作分为五步：计划、组织、草稿、修改和编辑。分成8章讲解。讲解的时候举具体的例子做示范，对提高商务写作能力很有帮助。今天我们先来了解一下教程的体系和学习计划。

HSBC Writing Course--"Writing for Results"

Chapter 1 Plan your writing
Chapter 2 Organise your writing
Chapter 3 Draft and revise your writing to make it complete
Chapter 4 Revise your writing to make it cohesive
Chapter 5 Revise your writing to make it clear and concise
Chapter 6 Revise your writing to make it courteous
Chapter 7 Structure difficult letters
Chapter 8 Edit your writing

Introduction

Welcome to "Writing for Results", a course that can help you enhance your English writing skills.

HSBC has designed this course for its staff in the Asia Pacific region. HSBC staff study this course to improve the e-mails, memos, faxes and letters they write at work.
If you've never written business documents before, you'll find this course extremely useful. Even if you're familiar with business writing, this course can still help you.

"Writing For Results" will help you write in a modern style. By the end of this course you'll be able to write business documents that are: better organized, more complete, clearer and more concise, more courteous, more correct.

The most important feature of the Writing Process is its five stages:
plan--organize--draft--revise--edit

Good writers follow the five stages of the Writing Process to
--meet their readers' expectations
--get the results they want.

开始写作之前要有个计划，这样在写作的时候才会知道自己要写什么、写作的目的是什么，才能更好的考虑用什么样的写作方式。

Chapter 1 Plan

Objectives:

By the end of this chapter, you'll be able to plan your writing. You'll do this by deciding:
--why you are writing
--how you want your reader to respond
--what you want your reader to know

Why do you plan?

What is the value of planning? Think about this...

Have you ever sat at your desk not knowing how to begin? Very often, you may find writing difficult because you start writing right away. In other words, you overlook the importance of planning before you write. Unfortunately, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail." So you need to plan your writing ... and then write according to your plan. If you plan well, your writing is more likely to get the results you want.

How can you plan your writing?

Effective writers use 3 strategies.

WHY are you writing?
WHAT do you want the reader to do?
WHAT does the reader need to know?

These 3 questions provide a good framework for planning. Let’s look at them one by one.

Why are you writing?

The business world is full of busy people. They don't want to waste time reading meaningless letters, memos, faxes and e-mails. They don't want to guess why you're writing to them. That's why it's very important for you to state your purpose for writing very clearly at the beginning.

Look at the following letter:

20 September 200X

Mr Robert Roman
13/F 151 Gloucester Rd
Wan Chai
Hong Kong

Dear Mr Roman

HSBC CREDIT CARD 5411 8001 7633 8766

Thank you for your letter dated 18 September 200X.
We would advise that the card fee would be automatically billed to your card account annually despite your renewed card is remained uncollected. However, annual fee can be refunded provided that the card is uncollected within a certain period and is returned to the Card Centre for cancellation.
Please therefore pick up your renewed card at your earliest convenience.
We are pleased to be of service.
Yours sincerely

S TSE
Simon Tse
Customer Service Officer
Card Centre

Simon's letter is not as effective as it could be. It's actually quite difficult to identify his purpose. You may have had to guess.
Simon probably wanted to do two things:
--to ask Mr Roman to collect his credit card and
--to explain how the annual fee for credit cards is charged.
So, you need to identify your purpose for writing. Your readers need to know why you are writing to them. Therefore, you should state your purpose for writing very clearly at the beginning. You can do this by writing a sentence which begins with a set phrase followed by a verb. For example,

I’m writing to / I would like to…explain / request…

When you use this method to state your purpose, the verb you choose is very important. Why? Because it helps your reader understand why you are writing.
Here are some of the verbs you can use: announce, complain, confirm, explain, inform, notify, propose, request and suggest.

WHAT do you want the reader to do?

After you decide why you are writing, you need to determine your reader's response.
Your readers need to know exactly what you want them to do. Therefore, you should be very specific when determining your reader's response. Compare the following two sentences:

1. Please therefore pick up your renewed card at your earliest convenience.
2. Please pick up your new card at our Central branch by 31 May.

Sentence 2 is more specific than sentence 1.

Remember: when you decide what you want your reader to do, you need to be as specific as possible.

WHAT does the reader need to know?

So far, you've learned how to determine your purpose for writing and your reader's response. But how can you determine what your reader needs to know? The answer depends on:
--why you are writing and
--what you want the reader to do.

Look at the letter again:

20 September 200X

Mr Robert Roman
13/F 151 Gloucester Rd
Wan Chai
Hong Kong

Dear Mr Roman

HSBC CREDIT CARD 5411 8001 7633 8766

Thank you for your letter dated 18 September 200X.
We would advise that the card fee would be automatically billed to your card account annually despite your renewed card is remained uncollected. However, annual fee can be refunded provided that the card is uncollected within a certain period and is returned to the Card Centre for cancellation.
Please therefore pick up your renewed card at your earliest convenience.
We are pleased to be of service.
Yours sincerely

S TSE
Simon Tse
Customer Service Officer
Card Centre

IF Simon
--wants to explain the charges (writer's purpose)
--expects Mr Roman to understand the charges (reader's response)

THEN Mr Roman needs to know (reader's information)
--WHAT the charges are
--WHY the charges are applied
--WHO to talk to if he has questions

IF Simon
--wants to ask Mr Roman to collect his credit card (writer's purpose)
--expects Mr Roman to collect his credit card (reader's response)

THEN Mr Roman needs to know (reader's information)
--HOW to collect his credit card
--WHERE to collect his credit card
--WHEN to collect his credit card

He needs to know WHO? WHAT? WHY? WHERE? WHEN? and HOW? Some professional writers call these the five W's and the one H. You can use the "5WIH" questions when you plan the reader's information. If you do this, you will ensure that your reader has all the necessary information.

Summary

In this chapter, you've learned the three strategies used in planning. Planning is a key to success in writing. "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

Before you start to write, you have to plan what to write. You then write according to your plan. When you plan, you need to consider the following:

--the writer's purpose
--the reader's response
--the reader's information.

In other words, you can help your reader by stating very clearly why you are writing and how you expect your reader to respond. The 5W1H questions (who, what, why, where, when and how) help to ensure you have included all the necessary information.
Then, you can provide the information your reader needs to know.

Welcome to Chapter 2.

In Chapter 1 you learned how to plan a business letter.

In this chapter, you're going to look at the second stage of the Writing Process:

Plan　to Organise.

Organise

This course is based on the Writing Process, a step-by-step procedure for producing effective correspondence. Therefore, HSBC recommends that you study each chapter of this course in order, beginning with the introductory chapter "Getting Started".

Objectives

By the end of this chapter you'll be able to organise your writing.

You'll do this by
preparing a clear outline
arranging the contents to fit the outline.
Planning: A Quick Review

In Chapter 1, you learned about the planning stage of the Writing Process.

Before you can organise your writing, it's important that you have planned. Do you remember the three things you need to plan before beginning to write?

Strategies Description
Writer's purpose Why you are writing
Reader's response How you want the reader to respond
Reader's information What you want the reader to know

Organising: Why Do It
A well-organised letter, memo, fax or e-mail is easy to read and understand.
If you organise the contents of your correspondence well, you are more likely to get the results you want.
So, organising is just as important as planning.
In fact, the second stage of the Writing Process is closely related to the first.
In the organising stage, you arrange what you've planned to write. In other words, you make an outline.

Organising: How To Do It
How do you organise what you have planned?
Do you need to use a different outline for every letter, memo, fax and e-mail that you write?
Not at all! For some special situations, you'll need special outlines. You'll look at those in Chapter 7. However, for most of your written correspondence, you can follow a standard outline. You'll learn that outline in this chapter.

But before you learn how to organise the contents of your correspondence, you should look at the various types of correspondence you may have to write.

Organising: Types of Correspondence
How many types of correspondence do you need to write?
Basically, two:
internal correspondence (the messages you write to colleagues)
external correspondence (the messages you write to customers).
However, when you write to colleagues or customers, you can use a variety of documents.
Do you know which types of documents you can use when you write to colleagues? And which types you can send to customers?
For internal correspondence, you can use e-mail, fax and memo. For external correspondence, you can use e-mail, fax and letter.
The way you organise the content of most e-mails, faxes, letters and memos is similar. However, the format - or layout - of these documents is different.
Can you recognise the formats of the documents you write?
Below, you will see samples of four documents.

                             Memo

                                Fax

                              Letter

                              E-mail
The way you organise the contents of most documents is similar.
Try to discover the basic outline you can use in most of your correspondence.
Read through the memo below and try to identify what type of content each of the four paragraphs contains.
The HSBC Group
MEMO

To: All Staff
Date: 20 July 200X
From: General Manager
Reference
Subject: Dress Code

As you know, we have always enforced a strict dress code. We have now revised this code.
I would like to inform you of the changes.
The code for branch staff and office staff is different. As I'm sure you will appreciate, there are no changes for branch staff. All branch staff must wear the correct uniform at all times. On the other hand, if you work in the office, you may wear 'smart-casual' wear. However, on any day that you do meet people from outside the company, please ensure you are dressed in a business-like manner.
Please adopt the new dress code from 1 September. If you have any questions, please call Annie Wong on 2344 7765.
Answers:
Paragraph1: background
Paragraph2: writer’s purpose
Paragraph3: reader’s information
Paragraph4: reader’s response
Now read through the letter below. Identify the type of content in each of the five paragraphs in the spaces provided.

29 May 200X
34D Scenic Lane
Discovery Bay
Lantau Island
Dear Ms Hui
Classic Visa Card: Annual Fee
Thank you for your letter of 5 November. In the letter, you mentioned that you had sent a cheque to settle your Visa Card Annual Fee.
I would like to explain the situation.
We have checked our records carefully. Unfortunately, we have not yet received the cheque, although we are normally very efficient when dealing with incoming remittances.
Therefore, to help us prepare your new Visa Card, we would be grateful if you could settle the payment immediately.
We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely

Lily Tam
Customer Service Manager.
Answers:
Paragraph1: background
Paragraph2: writer’s purpose
Paragraph3: reader’s information
Paragraph4: reader’s response
Paragraph5: closing marks
As you can see, there is only a small difference in the outlines you use when writing to colleagues and customers.
When you write to customers, you include a salutation (Dear...) and a complimentary close (Yours sincerely / faithfully).
When writing to customers, you always add a polite closing remark. You can also add this remark when writing to colleagues.
By now, you should be familiar with
the types of correspondence you write
the types of documents you can use
the basic outline you can usually follow.
To learn how to organise a letter to a customer, go to the next screen.
Organising: SOFAR Strategy
So far, so good?
Actually, if you remember that expression - SOFAR -- it'll help you remember how to organise external correspondence.
Salutation
Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss...
Opening
Background + Purpose
Facts
Reader's Information
Action
Reader's Response
Remarks
Polite Closing
You can also use this outline for memos and internal e-mails. Just leave out the salutation.
SALUTATION
The Salutation begins with 'Dear'.
The Salutation should include the reader's name (eg, Dear Mr Chan, Dear Ms Lewis). You can use the reader's first name (eg, Dear John) if you know them well.
If you do not know the reader's name, use "Dear Sir" or "Dear Madam".
If you do not know if the reader is a man or a woman, use "Dear Sir or Madam".
OPENING (BACKGROUND)
The Opening includes two parts (and usually two paragraphs):
the background (referring to previous contact with the reader or introducing a situation)
the writer's purpose

These provide a logical introduction to your correspondence and help the reader focus on the subject.
The background "sets the scene" by referring to a previous contact (memo, letter, phone call etc). If you've had no previous contact with the reader, you should briefly describe the situation that you are writing about.
EXAMPLES:
Previous contact: Thank you for your call this morning.
A situation: Our annual staff party is coming soon!
An attention-grabbing statement or question: Have you heard
about...? Our Department Open Day is coming soon!
Some opening sentences are bette