Investigating Necessary Information

When writing long, formal reports, you'll need to conduct formal research to locate and analyze all the information relevant to your purpose and your audience. Formal techniques for finding, evaluating, and processing information are discussed in Chapter 10 (Planning Business Reports and Proposals). However, many other kinds of business messages require much less formal information-gathering techniques.

Whether you're preparing for an informational interview with your supervisor, writing an e-mail message to a close colleague, or gathering opinions for an article to appear in your organization's monthly newsletter, you can collect information informally by

•	Considering others' viewpoints. You might put yourself in someone else's position to consider what others might be thinking, feeling, or planning.

•	Browsing through company files. Your own filing cabinet may be a rich source of the information you need for a particular memo or e-mail message.

•	Chatting with supervisors or colleagues. Fellow workers may have information you need, or they may know what your audience will be interested in.

•	Asking your audience for input. If you're unsure of what audience members need from your message, ask them—whether through casual conversation (face-to-face or over the phone), informal surveys, or unofficial interviews.

The key to effective communication is determining your reader's informational needs and then responding to them. A good message answers all audience questions. But if you don't know what audience members want to know, you're likely to serve them fruit punch and peanut butter when they're expecting champagne and caviar.

In many cases your audience's information needs are readily apparent; for example, a consumer may send you a letter asking a specific question. In other cases, your audience may not be particularly good at telling you what's needed. When your audience makes a vague request, try restating the request in more specific terms. If your boss says, "Find out everything you can about Polaroid," you might respond, "You want me to track down its market position by product line and get sales and profit figures by division for the past five years, right?" Another way to handle a vague request is to get a fix on its priority. You might ask, "Should I drop everything else and devote myself to this for the next week?" Asking a question or two forces the person to think through the request and define more precisely what is required.

Also, try to think of information needs that your audience may not even be aware of. Suppose your company has just hired a new employee from out of town, and you've been assigned to coordinate this person's relocation. At a minimum, you would write a welcoming letter describing your company's procedures for relocating employees. With a little extra thought, however, you might include some information about the city: perhaps a guide to residential areas, a map or two, brochures about cultural activities, or information on schools and transportation facilities. In some cases, you may be able to tell your audience something they consider important but wouldn't have thought to ask. Although adding information of this sort lengthens your message, doing so creates goodwill.

Once you've defined your audience's information needs, be sure you satisfy those needs completely. One good way to test the thoroughness of your message is to use the journalistic approach: Check to see whether your message answers who, what, when, where, why, and how. Many messages fail to pass the test—such as this letter requesting information from a large hotel:

The letter fails to tell Hill everything she needs to know. The what could be improved by a detailed description of the missing shoes (size, brand, distinguishable style or trim). Hill doesn't know when the writer stayed at the Hawaii Sands, where (in what room) the writer stayed, or how to return the shoes. Hill will have to write or call the writer to get the missing details, and the inconvenience may be just enough to prevent her from complying with the request.

There's no point in answering all your audience's questions if the answers are wrong. Your organization is legally bound by any promises you make, so be sure your company is able to follow through. Whether you're promising delivery by a given date or agreeing to purchase an item, if you have any doubt about the organization's ability or willingness to back up your promises, check with the appropriate people before you make the commitment.

You can minimize mistakes by double-checking everything you write or say. If you are using outside sources, ask yourself whether they are current and reliable. If your sources are international, remember that various cultures can view accuracy differently. A German bank may insist on balancing the books to the last penny, whereas an Italian bank may be more lenient.⁵ Be sure to review any mathematical or financial calculations. Check all dates and schedules, and examine your own assumptions and conclusions to be certain they are valid.

Honest mistakes are certainly possible. You may sincerely believe that you have answered someone's questions correctly and then later realize that your information was incorrect. If that happens, the most ethical thing for you to do is to contact the person immediately and correct the error. Most people will respect you for your honesty.

Messages can be unethical simply because information is omitted. Of course, as a business professional, you may have legal or other sound business reasons not to include every detail about every matter. So just how much detail should you include? Even though most people don't want to be buried in an avalanche of paperwork, include enough detail to avoid misleading your audience. If you're unsure about how much information your audience needs, offer as much as you believe best fits your definition of complete, and then offer to provide more upon request.

Remember that some information will be of greater interest and importance to your audience. If you're summarizing a recent conversation you had with one of your company's oldest and best customers, the emphasis you give each point of the conversation will depend on your audience's concerns. The head of engineering might be most interested in the customer's reaction to your product's new design features. The shipping manager might be most concerned about the customer's comments on recent delivery schedules. In other words, you must choose and emphasize the points that will have the most impact on your audience.

If you don't know your audience, or if you're communicating with a large group of people, use your common sense to identify points of particular interest. Audience factors such as age, job, location, income, or education can give you a clue. If you're trying to sell memberships in the Book-of-the-Month Club, you would adjust your message for college students, suburban homemakers, retired people, traveling sales representatives, and auto mechanics. All these people would need to know the same facts about membership, but each group would be more interested in some facts than in others. Economy might be important to college students or retired people, and convenience might attract sales reps or homemakers. Remember that your main goal is to tell audience members what they need to know. As President of Scotty's Home Market, Scott DeGraeve knows his audience is made up of busy people who prefer to spend their time doing something other than pushing a grocery cart down supermarket aisles (see Figure 4–3).

Figure 4–3	In-Depth Critique: An Audience-Centered Letter