Rescuing Documents

While MS Word provides us with one kind of document rescue, the real rescue many of us need is clarifying the content. In business few readers will concentrate on gleaning meaning from a poorly written document. At best, they will skim and hope to get the main points.

Any document can be improved by asking two fundamental questions.

• Are all the objectives of the document and of the project clear and certain? Put the objectives at the beginning of the document and ensure they are expressed in well-understood vocabulary. Jargon is useful if all the readers are familiar with the words. Short paragraphs and sentences, and titles and lists help the reader's eye see the scope of the document - as long as this technique does not descend into choppiness.
• Is the focus sustained throughout? Review supporting detail and arguments to check that they really do support the objectives of the document. Put additional and related information in appendices, where readers can find it if they want to deepen their understanding.

Strong, clear, well-focused documents work to convey our thoughts and ideas. Our influence on others can increase as they understand and accept our perspective.