Write It Well

An author sent us a great description this week of our editorial team’s services:

“My book was half-finished. I knew what topics I wanted my readers to grasp, but I’d lost perspective on how I should organize my chapters and finish the introduction and last section. I felt completely bogged down in my current draft.

“Write It Well’s editorial team helped me reverse that paralysis. They read my draft, listened carefully to my ideas, and asked intelligent questions. Then they strategized with me about several ways they could help me map out my book and fill in the unfinished parts.

“My book is back on track now. Hearing a fresh perspective on all my content made it feel exciting and focused again. It’s a huge help to have a writing and editing partner who’ll help my readers feel excited about my message!”

— An anonymous author whom the Write It Well editorial team worked with

Planning a long business document can feel difficult, boring, confusing, and even frightening. WIW can help you make the process interesting and easy again.

If you’re still figuring out what your message is, we’ll listen and help you articulate it. If you’re not sure how to organize all your ideas, we’ll read your current draft, listen to your goals, and suggest clear plans for your document’s sections or chapters. A call with a WIW editor can help you see how readers can grasp your main message and supporting points.

We can also help you write the final draft — turning short bullet points into solid paragraphs and sections that are easy to follow. The result will be a solid writing plan, a fresh grasp on your message, and a writing process that’s back on track!

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Click here for a full overview of our writing and editing services. We can help you complete an unfinished document, polish a final document so you feel confident sending it out, and help everyone at your organization send out professional-caliber documents.

We can help your messages be more clear and concise and help your language be correct and engaging. Just let us know how we can help you use your writing to project a more professional image.

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Write It Well’s June business writing newsletter is all about writing performance objectives the SMART way is up on our site.  Here is a preview:

Determining performance objectives is the same challenge as setting clear expectations. If your objectives are clear, then your evaluation process will also be clear.

To be useful, most performance objectives should meet the five following SMART criteria by being …

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

Here are some performance objectives that fail to meet the SMART criteria:

• Become familiar with the Department’s Internet Usage Policy.
• Learn the records management system.
• Be able to balance client accounts.
• Be able to prepare audit reports.

And here are some before-and-after examples of ways you could rewrite those four problematic objectives to meet the SMART criteria:

• Become familiar with the Department’s Internet Usage Policy.
• Read the Department’s Internet Usage Policy by May 17th. Be able to answer 10 out of 10 questions correctly when tested.

• Learn the records management system.
• Attend a records management class and practice using the records management system with the assistance of an experienced coworker. Given a set of records two weeks after the class, be able to store them appropriately without assistance and with no more than three errors.

• Be able to balance client accounts.
• With little or no supervision or coworker assistance, be able to balance client accounts within the time specified by your supervisor.

• Be able to prepare audit reports.
• Prepare audit reports that meet the guidelines in the Audit Report Manual. Complete assigned reports without error by 4 p.m. every first and third Thursday.

A friend of mine works for a multinational high-tech corporation.  He was in Singapore on business last week and said that he’d developed a presentation that explained —very clearly and concisely — the  project he was working on.

“Everyone read it and understood it right away,” he said. “The problem, though, was that since it made perfect sense — in plain English — after the very first read, my colleagues thought that it needed ‘more.’  They all went to work adding chunks of worthless information. By the end,” my friend said, “it was full of unnecessary information and dead wood.”  It was a “hundred-ton brick of nothing.”

The next time you read something and understand it on the first read, tip your hat to the author. He or she worked hard to eliminate unnecessary information. As we say at Write It Well, “Impress people by communicating clearly and concisely, not by using unnecessary information or big words.”

As my friend said, “The bottom line is that understandable is OK.”

In fact, “understandable” is exactly what you want, every time.