We've constructed our three topic sentences and now it's time to flesh out a bodied paragraph. We'll take the first paragraph of our memo to start. The topic sentence is effective communication teaches learners how to present not just their ideas but themselves in the best possible way. In our outline we have four supporting points. Success by communicating effectively teaches business critical skills. Every document reflects this as a professional and bad documents make us look bad. I have to admit I'm not totally in love with my draft of the topic sentence. The phrase best possible way is too vague. It's not very clear, so it violates our clarity above all principal. But when I do see the outline, reminds me that we're teaching success by effective communication. Isn't that the key point of this entire specialization,, so it changes an order. I'll rewrite the first sentence, effective communication is a three-course specialization about professional success and achieving success through effective business writing, graphic design and presentation. I like this sentence much better. It's very clear about the key benefit of our course. I had to give up a little bit on best professional selves so I'm just going to move that down to the bottom of my paragraph outline to see if I need it later. And I'll get rid of this bullet point since I've hit in the first sentence. You can see from my process that writing requires consent choices about what's really important. According to my outline, after business writing design and presentation is a three course specialization about achieving professional success. I want to say something about the fact that this specialization teaches business critical skills. I could just say, this course teaches business critical skills, but that doesn't say anything about why these are business critical skills, so I'm going to try something different. Instead, I'm going to be more direct and I'm going to try every professional career hinges on the ability to write, design and present ideas effectively. I am tempted to follow this sentence was something about the fact employers are frustrated that the new employees don't have these skills. It makes sense here, right? Except that I know that it doesn't belong here. Why? Because of my topic sentence is in outlines. I know that employers frustration is the top of the next paragraph so I know to hold off and wait. You can see how a strong topic sentence in this case works as a signpost for me and a self editing tool. It keeps me focused and I know where everything belongs as I write. When I wrote my outline, I decided I wanted to make a point about how every document and presentation that we make is critical to the impression that we make in a business environment. So, I'm going to hit that point. Just like it indicates in the outline. Every time we produce a document, create a presentation or give a talk we not only deliver information, we offer ourselves for the judgement of our audience. Then, my outline calls for an example of what happens when we submit poor work. It obscures our ideas and hurts our personal brand, right? So, a disorganized report, inelegant PowerPoint, or awkward speech not only confuses the message we attempt to communicate, it invites a negative personal assessment from our audience. Now I can add something about best professional selves. In turn, a well-written document, a crisp visual, and a powerful speech communicate the vibrancy of success, and tell the world that the author is an exceptional person, someone worth getting to know further and worth keeping an eye on in the future. All right, here's our entire paragraph. Look how much room that paragraph takes on the page. How do I know my paragraph's too long? It looks too long. It's too daunting. So now I need to go back and revise and make the reading experience easier. I need to follow my principle of waste no time. I need to spend time to save my readers time. And yet, I still need to preserve my key points. So, in the next video, we'll revise and really make this paragraph sing.
