General Pointers for Writing Your Paper
Public Communication writing is incredibly diverse, but here you can find a few general tips to help you get started. The following pointers have been generated from my own personal experiences, courses I have taken here at UVM, and the textbook Strategic Writing written by Charles Marsh, David W. Guth, and Bonnie Poovey Short.
- Get to the point as quickly as possible. The reader should know what’s up within the first few sentences. If they don’t, you’ve already lost their attention.
- Know your message.
- Start with Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The sooner you communicate this, the better. Follow immediately with the most important details, and finally the least important background information.
- Omit needless words and repetition. People don’t have the time or patience to read more words than absolutely necessary!
- Always use active voice. (“A sales slump affected our profits” rather than “Our profits were affected by a sales slump.”) You will sound more direct and in control.
- Remember your audience. Be sure that your writing is audience appropriate.
- Make it easy to read. You don’t need to overcomplicate things. Keep it simple!
- Challenge “to be” verbs. These are verbs like “be,” “will,” “were,” and “was.” These verbs convey no action, and so can make your writing seem indirect and lifeless. Be direct! Say “He will communicate well,” rather than “He will be a good communicator.”
- Challenge modifiers. Modifiers, or adjectives, are descriptive words. Avoid using boring common words, and be more expressive with your language. (She was “ecstatic” rather than “happy”)
- Challenge long sentences. Your sentences should be long enough to make your point clearly and gracefully, and no longer!
- Edit, edit, edit. Wording is everything when you have limited space and limited attention span of your audience. Make sure the wording and sentence structure is absolutely perfect-this requires many drafts.