In this segment, you will prepare the initial draft of our write-up. To help us with the same, Rakesh will walk you through certain frameworks which makes structuring the initial draft clear and concise.

So, what is a framework? A framework is nothing but a mental model that helps us organise our thoughts around the end-objective that we wish to deliver to our audience. Any piece of writing, whether emails or oral messages, leads to an outcome or an anticipated action. Frameworks help us structure our pieces of writing while maintaining the six elements of writing, which we discussed previously.

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The first framework covered is summarised below:

Audience: A simple way to identify your audience is to ask yourself “Who is going to read this email/message?”, and then identify how you can adapt your writing to best suit their needs and understanding.
Objective: Here, the purpose is to convey your point of view with an argument. Objectives should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.
Message: Message refers to the core matter of your written material. You need to decide on the outcome that you want to achieve before crafting your message.

As Rakesh suggested, this framework can be applied to other forms of non-written communication as well.

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Think of the last movie that you loved watching. Why did you love it? What kept you intrigued throughout the experience? Why did you not stop watching the movie midway? Was it because you loved how the writers wrote the opening scene, or how they left you wanting for more in the climax?

There is a very simple framework that helps ensure this. In this next video, we will be learning more about the same from Rakesh:

Writing a compelling message is the same as narrating a powerful story. In the previous video, you learnt about the various aspects of writing good messages, which are as follows:

Opening: This is used for greetings, introductions and to set the right context for the reader. They need to be hooked right from the beginning.
Body: Writing the body of your message is the same as taking the audience through the plot of a movie. It contains details and brief peeks into the problems and solutions of the conversation at hand.
Conclusion: In the end, summarise key takeaways and any action you expect from the reader here.

Rakesh refers to these three points as ‘scaffolds’, a structure that helps you build the entire write-up.

In the upcoming video, Rakesh will cover four simple tools that you can use to flesh out your message, and populate your draft:

Let's quickly summarise the key takeaways from this video:

Minto’s Pyramid: This is a tree-based matrix that can help you break down your main idea into three subideas, which can be further divided into three more subideas, thereby creating a decision tree.
Mind Maps: This is a tool that can help you think visually. The core of the map contains the topic at hand, which branches out further. This aids in structuring all your thoughts as a core concept.

Two additional frameworks briefly mentioned in the video are:

Spider Diagrams: This is an alternative way of visualising mind map. It includes breaking down a central idea into subbranches until you reach the end of your content break-up.

Fishbone Diagrams: Fishbone diagrams are useful when you are writing a piece that revolves around the elements of a cause, its effects and possible solutions. This link will give you detailed information about Fishbone diagram. Also, you will learn about it more with the problem-solving course.

Polishing your Prose:

Now, we move on to a few tips that will help you polish your prose. A few tips to keep in mind while sculpting your write-up and removing certain small errors are:

Words such as ‘very’, ‘basically’, and ‘actually’ should be avoided because they add an unnecessary exaggeration to the written material. These are most commonly used in informal oral communication while talking to peers and making a speech at an event.
Another important tip is to write short sentences. You should use a full stop and commas to pause so that the audience does not get bored while listening to your speech.
You should make it a practice to rewrite your sentences twice or maybe thrice to achieve minimalism in your content. Less is considered more when it comes to business writing.
After writing the first draft, sleep over it or go for a walk. And then, return to the draft and remove the words that are not important.

In the next segment, Rakesh will share some quick tips on what goes into taking your draft to the publishing-ready stage.