Business Writing
Chapter 6
TOPIC: There are three general business structures. RESTRICTION: The three are functional, divisional, and matrix. ILLUSTRATION: First, the functional structure is stacked and ordered in group functions. For example, at the top is the CEO or president, following them is the vice presidents. Each vice president looks over a certain group of employees. Next is the divisional structure. This structure is typically used in larger companies that operate in a wide geographic area or that have separate smaller organizations within the umbrella group to cover different types of products or market areas. Last, there is the matrix structure. This is basically a combination of both the functional and divisional structures. Scott says that this store has a functional structure. This means that authority is determined by the relationships between group functions and activities. At the very top of the structure is the ownership group. After that, the general manager is the next highest up. The general manager runs the store and reports to the owners. Next up are the assistant managers who report to the general manager. Scott is an assistant manager and a production manager. There are two other assistant managers. Those three assistant managers and the general managers supervise the approximated 50 employees when they are working. ANALYSIS: Altogether, this store is pretty small. It makes sense for this store to have a functional structure because that gives each manager a group to look over. There are three assistant managers which means each manager will supervise a main job whether it be production or customer service. CONCLUSION: Once again these three business structures are the “big” three and each individual employee has an important role in every structure.
This piece is from a project in my Business Management class. We had a semester long project that had to be at least twelve pages. The project was to find a local store and interview a manager. We were instructed to focus the questions by the order of the chapter. I feel as though this chapter showcases some of the things that I learned from this English class. One of my favorite writing tools that I learned was the TRIAC formula. I enjoy this formula because it not only helps narrow my writing but it gives each paragraph structure. One of my biggest issues in english was creating an outline. I would often just start writing and I realized that it is much harder to think of new things to write while you are writing. Making that outline and knowing ahead what you are going to write about really makes it easier for you to organize your essay and fill information in before you start writing. The TRIAC is a paragraph outline which I used a lot after I learned about it. In my example above, I started with the Topic of the paragraph. The main topic of the paragraph was business structures. I then went into detail about business structures and how there are three main ones. By going into more detail about the topic it narrows the scope of the paragraph and this extra detail is called the Restriction. With this summary of an interview, a lot of the writing is going to be Illustration because it is mainly my interviewee answering questions. A big part of my Illustration is connecting what I learned from the man I interviewed to what I learned from the book. Next we have the Analysis. This is where I explained why the evidence I chose supports the topic. I discussed how this business structure applies to the store I interviewed and why they chose that structure. Lastly, I used the Conclusion portion of TRIAC by restating my topic and then tying this paragraph to the one that will follow. A big part of this business project was researching. I had to spend time and actually interview a manager at this store. Steven Pinker, writer of “Why Academics Stink at Writing”, talks about “fluff” words. He says that students use these words to hide areas that the student did not care enough to actually research. When I first started writing this essay, I was also reading Pinker’s writing. After reading Pinker it kind of made me feel accomplished because for this business project I actually went out and learned a lot of information so when I was writing I didn’t have to use these “fluff” words.
