Flow charts are not used to present figures, but rather to show the flow of work or activ- ity diagrammatically. As always, the aim is to make it easier for your audience to understand what you are saying, and very often a flow chart does this better than a verbal description. Below is a simple flow chart for an office dealing with customer enquiries and using standard letters. As you can see, by following the arrows and instructions it is easy to see what needs to be done at each stage.
Sales 250
159 232
Distribution A&S
EXERCISE 10
Which type of visual display would you use to illustrate the following:
1. the contribution each of a number of product lines has made to a company’s overall increase in profits over a period of three years
2. how a local authority’s revenue is divided between different services
3. how the turnover of three different branches of a business compare, and how the relative figures have changed over four years
4. how the turnover of a company has risen over five years, in comparison with the number of people it employs
Is it covered by a standard
letter?
Is it an enquiry?
Is it an order?
Look at letter
Pass to order processing
Send relevant standard letter
YES YES
Can you deal with it?
Pass to Department Manager NO NO NO
NO
YES
Draft reply for approval YES
Conventions in Using Flow Charts
G The flow should always go from top to bottom and from left to right.
G You should clearly label each activity or decision.
G Use different kinds of box to indicate decisions and actions. In the example shown, actions are represented by rectangles and decisions by lozenges.
G Each step should be shown in its logical order in the process.
G Use arrows to indicate the direction of ‘flow’.
Constructing sentences and paragraphs
In any document, it is important to get your construction right. When you are planning an oral report or presentation, the actual sentence and paragraph construction may not be as important, but even then the overall shape needs some thought, because that is what dictates the structure of what you are going to say: where you are going to pause, how you are going to divide your subject into easily absorbed segments, etc. No matter how interesting you try to make your subject, no matter how logical your argument is, people will find it difficult to follow if it is not well put together.
The basic building blocks of your communication are the words you use; these are built up to form sentences, which in turn are built up to make paragraphs. Here we are con- cerned with the way you put words together – the sentences you use and how you put them together to form paragraphs.
What Is a Sentence?
We all think we know what a sentence is – after all, we use them thousands of times a day. But are we quite sure that the sentences we use are real sentences?
A sentence is defined as ‘a set of words complete in itself, containing a subject and a pred- icate’. There are two terms here that need a bit of explaining. The subject is the person or thing the sentence is about; it must be a noun, a pronoun or a noun clause, but not a rela- tive pronoun. (If you do not understand these parts of speech, see Chapter 7.) So you cannot say, ‘I have received your letter. Which points out an error in your account.’ The second part of the passage is not a sentence, because there is no subject. The word
‘which’ is a relative pronoun, which introduces a description of the letter. The passage should read, ‘I have received your letter, which points out an error in your account.’
The predicate tells you something about the subject, and must contain a verb. The predi- cate can describe the subject or say what it did or was, or what was done to it. Here are a few examples.
G I apologise for the delay. Here the subject is ‘I’ (that is who the sentence is about). The predicate is ‘apologise for the delay’ (that tells us something about the subject – what I am doing.
G The cheque is in the post. Here the subject is ‘The cheque’ and the predicate is ‘is in the post’ (it describes the cheque).
A common grammatical mistake in business communication is to write ‘non-sentences’ – passages that are used as sentences but do not contain both a subject and a predicate. This is not necessarily crucial when you are speaking, as the rules do not have to be applied quite so rigorously, but in correspondence it looks sloppy. So you should not say, ‘Hoping this meets with your approval.’ This is not a sentence; it has no subject. Who is hoping?
You should say, ‘I hope this meets with your approval.’ Now there is a subject – ‘I’. It is also wrong to say, ‘There is only one problem. The cost.’ ‘The cost’ is not a sentence, as it has no predicate. This passage should read, ‘There is only one problem: the cost.’
There are two instances when it is permissible to use what look like ‘non-sentences’: the expression ‘thank you’, which is short for ‘I thank you’; and requests, invitations or demands, like ‘Please let me know if I can help you.’
A sentence should normally convey a single idea. It can sometimes contain two ideas which are closely connected, but there should never be more than that. If it does contain two ideas, then they must be joined by a conjunction or a relative pronoun (if you do not know what these are, see Chapter 7), or by a semicolon (see Chapter 8). A very common mistake is to write something like this: ‘I enclose your latest statement, I would like to point out that there is an amount of £270 outstanding.’ This sentence contains two ideas:
the statement and the amount outstanding. They are probably close enough to be included in the same sentence, but they are not joined by a conjunction, a relative pro- noun or a semicolon. The comma does not provide enough of a pause between the two ideas, and the sentence looks wrong (and would probably sound wrong if read). It should be one of the following:
Types of Sentence
There are four types of sentence, distinguished by their complexity.
G Asimple sentencehas only one predicate, although it can have more than one subject. It is usually short. For example:
– I have received your letter.
– You and I must meet next week.
G Acompound sentenceconsists of two or more simple sentences joined by a conjunction. For example:
– I have received your letter and I agree with what you say.
– You and I must meet next week, but I am out of the office on Tuesday and I am involved in meetings all day on Wednesday.
G Acomplex sentenceconsists of a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses (for an explanation of clauses, see Chapter 7). For example:
– I have received your letter, which sets out your views very clearly.
– You and I must meet next week, because we need to make arrangements for the Sales Clerk interviews.
G Acompound complex sentencehas two or more main clauses as well as subordinate ones.
For example:
– I have received your letter, which sets out your views very clearly, and the Manager, to whom I showed it, agrees with what you say.
– You and I must meet next week, because we need to make arrangements for the Sales Clerk interviews, but I am out of the office on Tuesday, which could be a problem.
G I enclose your latest statement, and would like to point out that there is an amount of
£270 outstanding.
G I enclose you latest statement, which I would like to point out shows an amount of
£270 outstanding.
G I enclose your latest statement; I would like to point out that there is an amount of
£270 outstanding.