아래 글은 본인의 창작물이 아닌 관계로 문제가 있을 경우 삭제할 예정입니다.
1. Writing for
yourself rather than for the reader
·
Know who your reader is
Do you know who will be reading your report?
What do they want to know from us?
What do they already know about the subject?
Most of our readers are busy, overloaded
with information, knowledgeable about their organisation and their industry.
-
So don’t waste their time.
·
Write your report from the
reader’s point of view
Most readers are interested in your key
findings and conclusions – put those first.
The opening section is the most important –
it should be compelling and interesting for the reader.
-
Try starting
with The key issues rather than Background and scope.
The main document should only contain
substantive issues, conclusions and back-up for your conclusions. Working
papers, interview notes, copies of scope, terms of reference etc can all go in
appendices.
If the document has more than one reader,
structure it into relevant sections and make sure they are clearly titled so
each reader can find the bit they are most interested in; eg:
2. Including too
much detail
·
Be quite clear about your topic
and purpose
What are you writing about and why?
What do you hope the reader will do after
reading your document?
If you have clear answers to these two
questions, it will help keep your writing focused and to the point.
·
Include only information that is directly relevant to this topic and
purpose
Do not include history, background or “nice
to know” facts unless you are sure they are relevant to or important for the
topic/purpose.
3. Writing as you
think (doing a “brain-dump”)
Often people don’t know where to start, so
they start by writing the easiest part – the reason for the assignment or what
they did.
·
Do an outline before you start
writing
The best documents present a logical “story”
to the reader which is easy to follow. This can only be
achieved by planning the outline of your “story” before you start writing.
·
Include key messages, not just
chapter or topic headings
An effective way of doing this is to write
down all your chapter and section headings and then include
a sentence after each one stating the main conclusion or principal message of
that section.
4. Making the
reader do all the work
A good report is one which conveys its
message quickly and accurately to the reader. If any reader says “Yes, but what
are you trying to say?”, you will know you have written a poor document.
·
Make sure each section passes
the “So what?” test
You can do this by always including a
conclusion or the implication of your findings.
Never leave it to the reader to draw
conclusions from what you have written:
a) they might draw the wrong conclusion!
b) they are paying you for advice and guidance,
not just facts.
5. Using more
words than you need
One of the characteristics of good writing
is clarity; however, in the attempt to be clear, we often repeat ourselves or
add more words than are required.
·
Edit your work for superfluous
words or phrases
Unnecessary adjectives and adverbs:
Phrases of 4 or 5 words where one word will
do:
Saying the same thing twice:
“Warm-ups”:
·
Check that you haven’t repeated
yourself
If you can, put the document aside for a
time so that you can read it again with fresh eyes; or ask someone else to read
it for you (they will be more detached).
6. Producing
cluttered, unattractive pages
Page layout and design has an important
effect on how easily we read and understand the message.
Remember the following rules:
·
Type:
for maximum
legibility, use 11 or 12 pt in body text (you can use 10 pt in graphics)
·
Line length:
lines of text
should be 8-12 words long; if they are any longer the reader has to make a
physical effort to read, dragging their eyes across the page
·
White space:
use plenty of
“white space”; it makes the page appear less cluttered and allows you to
highlight important information
-
wide margins
-
more space before headings than
after
-
space between headers/footers
and text
-
space around graphics inserted
into body text
·
Reading pattern:
we read from top
left to bottom right, so landscape pages should be designed with this in mind
5 tips for effective writing.pdf
