Practice with the Process
Now it’s time for you to practice the planning process, from the first rough idea, through the dialogue with the reader, and finally to drafting an e-mail message.
Scenario: The administrative officer has asked you to send her an e-mail outlining the training you think you need in the next fiscal year. As you walk to work, you find yourself imagining a conversation with the administrative officer about your training needs — perhaps when you meet her in the elevator.
Before thinking about the writing process, imagine the spoken conversation you might have. Your side of the conversation is provided: predict the questions the administrative officer will ask.
| You say: | I wanted to talk to you about something. |
| Administrator's first question: | What did you want to talk to me about? |
| Your response: | It’s about the memo you sent, concerning training needs for the upcoming year. |
| Administrator's main question: | What are your training needs for the coming year? |
| Your response: (Main Message) |
I need training in French and in Excel. |
| Administrator's next question: | Why French? |
| Your response: | It has become more important in our unit. I speak it, but I don’t write very well. We are working more and more with counterparts who speak only French. Even more important, some of our meetings are being conducted in French, and my supervisor would like me to be able to take minutes. |
| Administrator's next question: | And Excel? |
| Your response: | We’re using Excel to keep track of the details of Project Y. There are many tricks in Excel that I don’t know, so I am not as efficient at keeping my part up-to-date as I could be. We have agreed that Excel is the best program for the task. |
| Administrator's response: | Thanks for telling me all this! I’ll get back to you later with more questions about costs and so on. |