亲爱的安妮：在上次专栏中，你提到在办公室里采用“山谷女郎”式的讲话方式很不得体，对此我完全赞同。现在，我想请教一个相关的问题：如何建议他人（尤其是职场新人）在给上司撰写备忘录或向更高级别的管理人员提出提案时运用得体的英文，而不是让人读起来感觉像一条发给好友的短信呢？

    目前，我们公司新来了一群朝气蓬勃的管理见习生，他们的很多观点和建议确实非常新颖有趣。但问题是，当他们将想法通过邮件发给我时，阅读这些邮件总是让我头疼，因为里面使用了大量的缩略语，句子结构也很松散。他们都是大学毕业生，我原以为他们学过如何根据情况写出得体的文字。我不知道如何鼓励他们改掉这个毛病，当然，我可不想让自己看上去像个挑剔的“文法警察”。——32岁的守旧之人

    亲爱的O.F.：并不是只有年轻雇员才会犯这种毛病。到目前为止，读者向我反映的类似抱怨中，涉及的对象包括各个年龄段的人。正因为这种现象很普遍，才有了桑德拉•莱姆的用武之地，她长期从事写作指导工作，并于最近出版了新书——《文体写作全攻略》（How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write）。

    “短信和Twitter的流行改变了人们的写作方式，但也只是导致人们滥用缩略语和残缺句的部分原因。宏观层面科技的影响尽管极其微妙，但它才是一切事物发展的助推器，”桑德拉•莱姆如是说。

    要写好文章，她说：“不要急于动笔，在开始之前先思考要写的内容；事实上，思考过程恰恰是我们经常忽视的部分。”

    莱姆在她的新书中清楚地提出了一个简单明了的商务写作方法。首先要了解听众，考虑他们对话题究竟了解多少，哪些方面又是他们希望了解的。下一步就是撰写信息，每一条信息都要非常清楚地表达出来；如有必要，甚至可以归结为一句话来表达。

    你所针对的对象是大学毕业生，那就更好办了，因为莱姆所建议的步骤和完成一份合格的论文所要求的步骤甚为接近，因此，他们也许对这项工作并不陌生。

    简言之，一份得体的商务信函需要我们做到以下几个步骤：整合思想，使其更加符合逻辑（有必要的话，列出大纲，即使大纲只存在于脑海中也是大有裨益的）。整理所有支持自己观点的资料或相关内容，拟出草稿，然后进行修订，删除所有偏题或无关的信息。

    “这样做也许只需要几分钟，也许要一小时，”莱姆坦承。“但是对于重要的备忘录或提议，花些时间是值得的。因为这样写出的内容才更加具有说服力，这是那些草草写就的文章所做不到的。”

    “另外，熟能生巧，写作也一样。练习得越多，越能变成一种习惯，也会越快。”

    至于如何鼓励你那些朝气蓬勃的下属，让他们在自己的写作上花点儿心思，莱姆提出了两项建议。第一，“其实大部分人都知道如何将词语或句子写完整，问题是在给朋友编辑短信和给老板撰写报告两者间，他们可能仅仅是忘记了转换自己的角色。作为他们的上司，何不直接提醒他们呢？”

    第二，对下属晓以利害并没有坏处。直接向他们指出：如果想取得进步，希望自己的想法被认可，有效的沟通技巧是极为重要的工具。莱姆表示，“向他们解释清楚，无论他们的想法有多出色，如果不能采用令人信服的方式表达出来，那也无济于事，个人的事业也会因此遭遇挫折。”

    祝你成功。

    下面谈论的是一个完全不同的话题，可以说是我的一个请求：今年9月份发布的失业统计数据令人沮丧。据报告，目前兼职人员新增了444,000个，而他们更希望成为全职员工。据估计，截至到现在，包括那些被大材小用的就业者在内，美国未充分就业人员的总数已经达到近900万。

    形势很严峻。难道未充分就业问题会永远成为我们难以逾越的一个障碍吗？在今后的某专栏中，我将就此展开论述。我想听听大家的看法，尤其是那些成功摆脱兼职命运，获得全职工作的人；还有那些曾面临“被迫让位”，但成功扭转事业颓势获得更好职位的人。请把你的看法通过邮件发给我（anne.fisher@turner.com）。

    Dear Annie: I couldn't agree more with your column about the inappropriateness of "Valley Girl" speech habits in the office. I have a related question. How would you suggest that I communicate to people (especially young people who haven't been in the business world very long) that a memo to one's boss, or a proposal that may be read by people even higher up, should not be written as if it were a text message to a friend?

    We have a few very bright management trainees here who have some truly fresh, interesting ideas and suggestions. The trouble is, when they put them in an email, the abbreviations and sloppy sentence structure make me cringe. These are college graduates, so I assume they learned how to write decent English somewhere along the way, but how do I encourage them to do so without coming across as the Grammar Police? — Old Fogey at 32

    Dear O.F.: Young employees aren't the only ones dropping the ball in this regard. I've heard similar laments from readers about colleagues of all ages. So has Sandra Lamb, a longtime writing coach and author of a useful new book called How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write.

    "Texting and tweeting have affected the way people write, but it's only partly because of the habit of using abbreviations and sentence fragments," Lamb observes. "The far bigger, although more subtle, impact of technology has been the way it speeds everything up."

    In order to write well, she says, "you have to give yourself the time to stop and think about what you want to say before you say it, and it's that time for reflection that we often feel we just don't have anymore."

    In her book, Lamb spells out a straightforward approach to business writing. It starts with understanding one's audience, taking into account both what they already know about the topic at hand and what they want or need to know. The next step is to develop a message, which should be clear enough that, if necessary, it could be boiled down to one sentence.

    It's helpful that the employees whose writing you'd like to fix are college graduates, because the process Lamb prescribes is not all that different from the steps required to turn out a passable term paper -- a task with which they are probably familiar.

    In a nutshell, the steps involve the following: Organize your thoughts into a logical progression (making an outline if necessary, even if only in your head). Marshal any supporting data or other evidence for your point of view, write a draft, and then revise it, cutting out any distracting or irrelevant information.

    "It may take a few minutes or an hour to do this," Lamb acknowledges. "But for an important memo or proposal, it's worth taking the time, because it will be so much more persuasive than just dashing something off quickly.

    "Besides, the more you practice writing well, the more it becomes second nature and the faster you can do it."

    When it comes to encouraging your bright subordinates to make the extra effort, Lamb has two suggestions. First, she notes, "Most people do know how to write in complete words and sentences, but they may simply be forgetting to switch gears between texting their friends and writing a report to a boss. As their boss, why not just remind them?"

    And second, it can't hurt to appeal to your employees' self-interest. Point out that, for anyone who wants to get ahead and be recognized for his or her ideas, effective communication skills are paramount. Says Lamb, "Explain that, no matter how great your ideas are, if you don't express them in a cogent fashion, your career will suffer."

    Good luck.

    On an entirely different subject, a request: September's dreary jobless statistics included a reported increase of 444,000 in the number of people working part-time who would rather be working full-time. Some estimates put the total number of "underemployed" Americans -- including those who are doing jobs for which they are overqualified -- at about 9 million.

    It's grim, but is underemployment always a permanent setback? For a future column, I'd like to hear from anyone who has successfully turned a part-time job into a full-time one, or who has found a way to turn a "step down" into a steppingstone to a better position. Please email me at anne.fisher@turner.com.