People read fast. How soon after beginning a magazine article do you check to see how long it is? Most readers want their information in brief form—and this is especially true at work. People at work read fast. Why? Most of us know we will be interrupted. Most of us have overlapping projects. None of us gets extra time to read, either. So, my biggest writing tip is to keep your writing as well-organized and tight as possible. If you want to be sure your message gets read, brevity is critical. Now, here’s a step-by-step set of suggestions to get you through a short letter report, brief email message, or progress report.
State your main point immediately, and explain the contents of the document in the order that the parts appear.
For the background information, only give the material the reader must know up front. You can always add an addendum or a great table with the details at the end.
Limit your key words—avoid calling one thing by two or three names—so that the reader follows your point.
Make sure the word “this” is only used in connection with a noun. Here’s an example: Say “this market driven event” rather than “this” because the reader may look back to the wrong idea.
Think about the organization of your ideas. Will your organization make perfect sense to the reader?
Make sure you treat one idea in each paragraph. If a paragraph is getting long and rambly, you may have a second idea that is taking over. It is better to start a new paragraph.
After you divide your document into sections and title the sections, proofread your headings. My heart bleeds for the people who put their headings in bold and hit send, only later to find out that their worst typos were in the headings.
For some reason, people without much human sympathy find all of your misspellings. And then they are very quick to remind you of them again and again. I would rather spend the extra hour checking over my document than to give one of these people something to caw about.