Reading and Writing Answers

Improving your business writing allows you to communicate more effectively and efficiently. It also allows you to create a better impression of yourself when people read what you have written.

A Memorandum is a formal, internal communication tool which allows companies to communicate with their employees. It is generally used to deliver announcements or problems. Memos are quickly becoming replaced by e-mail because it is more complicated and expensive to deliver a memo. A Business Letter is a formal communication tool which is best utilized for communicating with customers. Writing and formatting a business letter generally takes more time than composing a memo or e-mail. E-mail is quick, easy and cheap, and allows you to send messages instantly to any number of people. E-mail has many unwritten rules of etiquette and can be too informal for many business purposes.

Skimming involves the reader going through the body text quickly reading first sentences in written works. This allows them to quickly learn much about the text without investing much time. Skimming works best for articles and other long pieces, like newspaper stories and reports. Previewing involves the reader looking over the features of the text, like titles, headings, and key terms, to get a general idea of what the work is about. The table of contents, index or chapter and section headings of a work are the most effective places to practice this skill.