The Writing of Business Information Overload Exercise

The following examples overtax readers' short-term memory because they use left-branching and mid-branching sentence structures. Revise these sentences to eliminate cognitive overload and make them easier to comprehend.

1. The production supervisor, having located the sources of contamination, arranged decontamination procedures that will ameliorate any health concerns, and overseen the disinfecting process itself, scheduled a meeting with the board so that she could report on the procedures and answer board members' questions.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. The Board commits all personnel of Chisago County, the County Executive Board, all department heads, all managers and supervisors, all employees and the Civil Service Commission and its staff, to give frequent and serious thought to the ways in which our goals of equal opportunity employment can be achieved more quickly.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Because they have not studied the historical precedents of the current crisis and are repeating the mistakes of those who have in the past attempted to correct the problem, the project team will be unable to stabilize the situation.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. The web team, basing their design on standard marketing research including surveys, interviews, and focus group meetings with representatives of the target market, will propose a design and specific goals for the new corporate web site.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Part of the appeal of a microworld, or "a representation of the simplest model of a domain that can be recognized by an expert and, most importantly, which also matches the user's abilities, interests, and experiences" (Rieber, 1992), is how they represent the model being learned by using techniques commonly found in a computer simulation, such as animated graphics and the opportunity for exploratory learning.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Designed to offer as much protection as possible and to be light and flexible enough to be worn ten or more hours per day in 90-degree heat, vests are worn by all police officers to reduce risks to life and limb to officers in the line of duty.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. As a result of the bank reconciliation performed on June 30, 1998, which determined the actual cash in the bank was $425,000 less than what was recorded in the general ledger, the district recorded an adjustment to decrease the workers' compensation cash account balance by $425,000.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. If an employee makes, either orally or in writing, a complaint with the department head, formal departmental discrimination counselor, or Chief of Special Employment and Affirmative Action, a formal investigation will be conducted.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. Midwest Plains Growers, a fruit and vegetable processing and marketing company which provides a vast array of processed food products to customers worldwide and is based in Kansas City, is listed as a Fortune 500 company.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   If employees aren't happy with performance evaluations, which are conducted semiannually by department managers who discuss the evaluations with the employees before forwarding them to senior management for review and approval, they may discuss the reviews with human resource counselors.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

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   For questions and suggestions, please e-mail us at kilbornj@stcloudstate.edu or rinkster@stcloudstate.edu.

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   The print version of the Instructor's Manual for The Writing of Business
   was written by Robert P. Inkster and Judith M. Kilborn for Allyn and Bacon.
   This web version of the manual was coded by Judith M. Kilborn.

   © 1999 Allyn & Bacon
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