- 1). Understand the purpose of the document. The purpose of a document may be to inform, to convince or persuade, to criticize, to summarize or to sell. Whatever the reason, it must first be clear in your mind before you begin writing. Knowing your purpose will help you plan your approach and select your words. If you are trying to persuade your audience, you might make it a point to present examples of the benefits of your idea.
- 2). Understand your target audience, the people who will be reading the document. Decide whether you are you writing to peers, to superiors, to novices, to educated people, to children or to another group. The audience, their level of education and their familiarity with the subject matter will determine sentence length and word choice and will influence any graphics you might include. For instance, if are writing a legal explanation to a group of teachers, you would try to avoid "legalese" (legal jargon). If you had to include a legal term, you would give its definition.
- 3). Make an outline, noting all important points you want to include in the document. It does not have to be a formal outline with A's, b's, and Roman numerals. Bulleted lists will be fine. Define all your main points and supports under each main point so that you won't forget any of them.
- 4). Start early and write your first draft. It is best to compose the document on a computer so that it will be easier to add, subtract and modify information. This process should be a stream-of-consciousness expression of your document. Just write; don't stop to edit or try to find an exact word you are seeking. If you cannot think of the exact word, either mark the word in question with boldface or put it in parentheses so you can come back later and use the thesaurus for help.
- 5). Allow the first draft to sit for a day. Go back the next day with fresh eyes and review it. Usually more ideas will come to you during the night, so now is the time to add them. Rework words and sentences so that they are clear. Remove any extraneous words and phrases. Check for spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors.
- 6). Have a colleague review your edited document if possible. (This is not considered "cheating" and is done all the time in the world of business.) Your co-worker may have some good suggestions you can incorporate into the document if you so desire.
- 7). Review the document again. Another check for spelling and other errors is a good idea before running your final print. One good way to spot spelling errors is to read each line from right to left. Spell-check does not find them all, so don't trust it! There is no replacement for a good editor!
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