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Writing to Inform Good, informational writing is clear, simple, and orderly. In business writing, it's important to get right to the point. No one has time to spend reading your warm-ups, the words you write while you're trying to get to the point. The best communications state the point directly and present the information clearly. However, sometimes getting started is difficult. Asking yourself a few key questions will help you clarify your thoughts and get to the point. 1. Summarize the main idea of your communication in a single sentence. If you can do this, the rest of the writing will come more easily. State it as simply and clearly as possible. If your communication presents a list of information, facts, or statistics, try summarizing the purpose of the information. The sentence should answer the question: Why am I writing this? 2. Next, think about your audience. Who will be reading your writing? What is your relationship with the audience: superior, colleague, customer? Thinking about the audience helps you to use an appropriate tone or attitude. 3. Brainstorm all the information that must be included in the communication. This can be in the form of a list or a piece of paper with words and pictures connected by lines; use whatever works best for you. Get all the information down on paper where you can look at it. 4. Once the information is all assembled, think about the most efficient way to organize it. Think about your message as a train of thought, one in which all the parts are connected. How can you organize the information in such a way that connections seem easy and natural? Consider these organizational patterns: Spatial order: the order in which items are arranged in relationship to each other Chronological order: time order Logical order: begin with the most basic premise, follow with what can be derived from the premise General to specific: begin with a general statement, arrive at a specific fact Specific to general: arrive at a generalization from a series of specific facts 5. Now it's time to start writing. Begin with a sentence or short paragraph that states the purpose of the communication, revising what you came up with in Step 1 now that you know what your main points are. 6. Develop each of the ideas you identified in Steps 3 and 4 in a single paragraph. If the supporting ideas can be presented as effectively in list form as they can in sentence form, use a bulleted list similar to the one above that outlines organizational patterns. Stick to one idea in each paragraph and keep the paragraphs as short and concise as possible. If you're writing for business, use numbered and bulleted lists like the ones on this page. Strive for a clear, logical presentation, one that is well organized and free of excess words that say nothing. Here's a map of one writer's organizational process in responding to a request: the planning, the organization, the main idea, the audience, and the completed memo. |
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