Writing Skills

Getting Your Written Message Across Clearly

Structure

Your document should be as "reader friendly" as possible. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbering whenever possible to break up the text.

After all, what's easier to read – a page full of long paragraphs, or a page that's broken up into short paragraphs, with section headings and bullet points? A document that's easy to scan will get read more often than a document with long, dense paragraphs of text.

Headers should grab the reader's attention. Using questions is often a good idea, especially in advertising copy or reports, because questions help keep the reader engaged and curious.

In emails and proposals, use short, factual headings and subheadings, like the ones in this article.

Adding graphs and charts is also a smart way to break up your text. These visual aids not only keep the reader's eye engaged, but they can communicate important information much more quickly than text.

Grammatical Errors

You probably don't need us to tell you that errors in your document will make you look unprofessional. It's essential to learn grammar properly, and to avoid common mistakes that your spell checker won't find.

Here are some examples of commonly misused words:

• Affect/effect
  
  • "Affect" is a verb meaning to influence. (Example: The economic forecast will affect our projected income.)
  • "Effect" is a noun meaning the result or outcome. (Example: What is the effect of the proposal?)
• Then/than
  
  • "Then" is typically an adverb indicating a sequence in time. (Example: We went to dinner, then we saw a movie.)
  • "Than" is a conjunction used for comparison. (Example: The dinner was more expensive than the movie.)
• Your/you're
  
  • "Your" is a possessive. (Example: Is that your file?)
  • "You're" is a contraction of "you are." (Example: You're the new manager.)
  • Note: Also watch out for other common homophones (words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings) – such as their/they're/there, to/too/two, and so on.
• Its/it's
  
  • "Its" is a possessive. (Example: Is that its motor?)
  • "It's" is a contraction of "It is." (Example: It's often that heavy.) (Yes, it is this way around!)
• Company's/companies (and other possessives versus plurals)
  
  • "Company's" indicates possession. (Example: The company's trucks hadn't been maintained properly.)
  • "Companies" is plural. (Example: The companies in this industry are suffering.)

To learn more about commonly misused words, misused apostrophes, and other grammatical errors, take our Bite-Sized Training session on Written Communication.

Tip: 
Some of your readers – arguably an increasing number – won't be perfect at spelling and grammar. They may not notice if you make these errors. But don't use this as an excuse: there will usually be people, senior managers in particular, who WILL notice!

Because of this, everything you write should be of a quality that every reader will find acceptable.

Proofing

The enemy of good proofreading is speed. Many people rush through their documents, but this is how you miss mistakes. Follow these guidelines to check what you've written:

• Proof your headers and subheaders – People often skip these and focus on the text alone. Just because headers are big and bold doesn't mean they're error free!
• Read the document out loud – This forces you to go more slowly, so that you're more likely to catch mistakes.
• Use your finger to follow text as you read – This is another trick that helps you slow down.
• Start at the end of your document – Proofread one sentence at a time, working your way from the end to the beginning. This helps you focus on errors, not on content.

Key Points

More than ever, it's important to know how to communicate your point quickly and professionally. Many people spend a lot of time writing and reading, so the better you are at this form of communication, the more successful you're likely to be.

Identify your audience before you start creating your document. And if you feel that there's too much information to include, create an outline to help organize your thoughts. Learning grammatical and stylistic techniques will also help you write more clearly; and be sure to proof the final document. Like most things, the more you write, the better you're going to be!