Tips for Making Professional Presentations
Tips for Writing Professional Documents
Every career area requires some kind of writing task. The ability to write well has the potential to significantly advance your career. Whether it is a memo, letter, report, email, or other professional document, it is important to learn and use basic writing mechanics as well as the accepted formats and styles used in your workplace and industry.
Here are some tips for writing professional documents.
← Practice! Practice! Practice! As with the technical skills required for your job, writing well takes practice. Seek out writing opportunities and get feedback from those who do write well.
← Make a plan for improvement. Explore your current writing skill. Ask an instructor, friend, or colleague who writes well to review your writing and to provide feedback. Make a list of the areas in which you should improve and then develop an action plan to make the required improvements. Consider categories such as punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, paragraph structure, or document organization. Itemize specific areas within each category and develop a plan to improve that area.
← Make sure you focus on the purpose for the document. Before you begin to create a professional document, think carefully about why you are creating it. What is the purpose? What goals are you trying to accomplish? Do you need to inform or explain? Do you need to clarify another communication? Do you need to ask a question or request an action? A clear purpose helps you to determine the type of document, the needed background information, the length the document should be, and other important factors.
← Understand your audience. Along with the purpose of your document, you should thoroughly understand your audience. What do they know about the topic? What do they need to know? Are they technical people in your field or are they untrained customers for whom the information will be complex and difficult? Are they hostile about the situation or are they eager to hear what you will be telling them?
← Organize your document for understanding. As with any basic message, start with an introduction and end with a conclusion. In the middle should be the body. Within the body should be sufficient documentation, statistics or numbers, bullets, images, graphics (charts and diagrams), tables, or whatever you need to clearly convey your message. In some communications, you will need to provide background information. You will also need to clearly state the purpose of the document. Within the conclusion, state again the behavior, action, decision, or viewpoint that you want to accomplish with your reader. Reread the information from the perspective of your readers (or have someone else read your document) and look for missing pieces of information, miscommunications, areas that are not clear, and the like.
← Ensure a professional appearance. As with face-to-face interactions with individuals, a written communication makes a first impression. Factors that contribute to this first impression include the format, the visual organization, the type and size of the font, how well the document conforms to business standards, how attractive the document is, and so forth. Check the business standards associated with the type of document you are producing and follow these carefully. Also, take a step back and look at your document with an objective eye. What is your first impression?
← Ensure perfect punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Nothing destroys credibility more than simple typos and mistakes in punctuation, grammar, and spelling. First, learn to write well. Then, read and reread your final document looking for mistakes. Do not rely on your spell check or grammar editor in your word processing software. It will not pick up everything. Read your document thoroughly for yourself. Use a dictionary. Check each sentence carefully to ensure that it is constructed correctly.
← Watch your tone. Tone is the attitude that comes out as a reader reads your document. Your tone can be positive or negative, hostile or agreeable, friendly or adversarial, supportive or angry, encouraging or condescending. Tone is created first by the attitude with which you write your document and second by your word choice and sentence structure. The tone impacts the reader and will significantly influence the response. If you need the reader to take action and the tone of the letter is negative, the likelihood of the desired action actually happening is low. If the tone is supportive, positive, and encouraging, the likelihood of the desired action is higher.
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