Accounting communication chapter summary and concepts

¶ … G.S. (2012). Effective Writing: A Handbook for Accountants. 9th

Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall: New York.

The chapter draws a comparison between accounting and writing in the overall process required to produce the desired result. In both cases, it is necessary to identify the purpose of the project first, to think critically about the issues, and then analyze the intended audience for the work. The next phases involve gathering and organizing the ideas to be presented, and then producing an initial draft, a working draft, and finally, revising the draft into a final product.

Major Concepts

Getting Started -- Identifying Purpose

The first step in producing effective writing is narrowing down the purpose of the work. Different purposes will require different formats and different content: a legal document meant to define relationships and respective obligations will differ from a project presentation and both with differ substantially from a piece of writing intended to present an argument or advocate for a particular position or to announce or justify a decision.

Thinking Critically about the Issues and Analyzing the Readers

The next step consists of thinking critically about the issues because before one can reduce any analysis or argument to the written form, it is necessary to frame the underling concepts and ideas in a manner conducive to understanding them for the purpose of clearly expressing them. Part of that process involves thinking about the intended audience of the writing, because the audience will substantially dictate many aspects of the piece of writing, from its organization, structure, intellectual complexity, existing beliefs of frames of mind, and level of communication employed.

Getting Your Ideas Together

The next step consists of identifying the specific ideas intended to be expressed and organizing those ideas into possible combinations or groups, or into possible orders of presentation. Many writers consider this to be the outline stage and they will endeavor to produce a skeleton type of outline or a bullet list that will then be used to frame the first draft.

Writing the Draft, Revising the Draft, and the Final Draft

Once an outline or bulleted idea list is prepared, the writer will attempt to compose a first draft by writing the sentences that correspond to each of those ideas or bullets. The next stage usually consists of reading the first draft, making revisions and changes to it, including reorganizing it, if necessary. The initial draft will usually continue developing into a working draft, with successive improvements and refinements suggested by subsequent readings. Eventually, that process will result in a final draft that should be very close to the polished product that will be submitted, filed, published, or distributed.

Writer's Block, Pressure, and Help from Colleagues

The final part of the chapter addresses the common problems of "writer's block," pressure to complete the project, and benefitting from the assistance from colleagues. The principal suggested solution to writer's block is breaking the project into smaller component tasks. The main suggestion for dealing with pressure is to stick to the other elements of the plan. The main suggestion about benefitting from the assistance of colleagues is to allow them to function as critical readers who might have suggestions from a fresh point-of-view.