Writing with Focus, Clarity, and Precision

Preface

Chapter 1: Writing for Busy Readers

Case Study: The Writing for Real People project

• For Discussion: What does writing for real people look like?

• For Discussion: From school to workplace

Let’s get realistic: Readers often just want to be done

So how do you write for readers who just want to get the work done?

• Put important information in places readers will see it
• Minimize confusion and misinterpretation
• Maintain a positive relationship with your readers

Make your writing accessible for a range of readers

Summary

• For Discussion: From babble-speak to writing for real people

Chapter 2: Emphasizing the Bottom Line

What do we mean by “the bottom line?”

Why do so many writers fail to start off with the bottom line?

Put your bottom line in the title or subject heading

• Exercise 2.1: Put the bottom line in subject headings

Begin paragraphs with your bottom line

• Exercise 2.2: Begin paragraphs with the bottom line

Emphasize the bottom line with content-rich headings

When should you NOT put the bottom line up front?

For Discussion: Using AI to write denied requests

What if I don’t yet know my bottom line?

Summary

• Exercise 2.3: Revise for the bottom line
• For Discussion: Advantages and disadvantages of AI-generation texts

Chapter 3: Designing for the

• For Discussion: Identify and analyze document design
• Callout: Finding model texts

Break content into small chunks

• Chunk text into small paragraphs

Use bulleted and ordered lists

• Exercise 3.1: Chunk paragraphs into lists to make them easier to read

Use textual tables when appropriate

• Avoid page breaks that orphan information belonging together
• Exercise 3.2: Use if-then textual tables

Use heading styles to create an accessible outline of your structure

• Exercise 3.3: Chunk lists with headings and subheadings

Use both vertical and horizontal whitespace to show relationships

Judiciously use font style, size, and color to reinforce relationships

Use research-based strategies to improve readability

• Avoid large blocks of text with ALL-CAPS or italics font styles
• Use left-aligned text and headings; avoid blocks of centered text

Avoid full justification

Using single spacing for most professional documents

Use conventional fonts that are familiar to your readers

Make your document design accessible: writing for all readers

Use visually simple fonts

Include ample whitespace

Use styles to mark major sections of documents

Create alt text for images and tables

Make links recognizable and descriptive

Use accessibility checkers

• Exercise 3.3: Create accessible documents

Summary

• Exercise 3.4: Analyze your own writing

Chapter 4: Writing Clear and Concise Sentences

Strategy 1: Put agent and action together near the beginning of sentences

• Callout: Using first-person
• For Discussion: Revise the following sentences to place agent and action closer together

Strategy 2: Reduce stacked prepositions

• For Discussion: Reduce prepositions for clarity

Strategy 3: Avoid turning verbs and adjectives into nouns

• For Discussion: Reduce nominalizations

Strategy 4: Reduce “to be” verbs

• For Discussion: Use more impactful and precise verbs

Summary

• For Discussion: Determine an appropriate revision strategy
• Exercise 4.1: Analyze your own writing

Chapter 5: Clarifying Connections with Transitions and the Known-New Contract

The known-new contract: Begin with the familiar and end with the new

Begin sentences (and paragraphs) with known information

• Callout: Good versus bad repetition
• For Discussion: Analyze the known-new contract

Use echo links to connect to known information

• Callout: Passive voice and the known-new contract

Avoid faking known information with vague pronouns (such as this and it)

• Exercise 5.1: Use known-new contract to explicitly connect different ideas

Clarify connections with transitions

• Exercise 5.2: Choose transitions to clarify logical connections

Use known-new and transitions to build connections across paragraphs

• Callout: Will clarifying connections make my writing too easy to understand?

Summary

• Exercise 5.3: Analyze your own writing

Chapter 6: Communicating with Precision

Strategy 1: How many? How much? Specify exact quantities

• For Discussion: Identify imprecise language

Strategy 2: Specify what you are comparing to

• For Discussion: Improve faulty comparisons

Strategy 3: Convey a precise level of certainty

• Exercise 6.1: Identifying and modifying hedges

Avoid inappropriate intensifying language

Avoid inappropriate hedging language

• Exercise 6.2: Analyze hedges and intensifiers

Strategy 4: Correctly position modifying information

• Exercise 6.3: Shift location of modifiers
• Exercise 6.4: Analyze and revise modifiers

Strategy 5: Use consistent (parallel) structure

For Discussion: Ensure headings and subheadings are parallel

• Exercise 6.5: Maintain parallel structure

Summary

• Exercise 6.6: Make sentences more precise
• Exercise 6.7: Analyze your own writing

Chapter 7: Tone and the Impression You Make

Tone is uniquely challenging

Maintain a polite tone when making requests

• Acknowledge choice with softening phrases
• Express gratitude for the reader’s time

Provide context and justification

A revised request

• For Discussion: Analyze tone
• Example 7.1: Use a less demanding tone

Establish the right level of formality

Determine when to use an informal versus formal tone

• For Discussion: Compare and assess tone
• Exercise 7.2: Analyze level of formality

Project a positive (vs. a negative) tone

Focus on the future you would like to see

Eliminate negative words and replace them with positive ones

• Use a dependent clause to de-emphasize the negative
• When a negative tone is appropriate
• Exercise 7.3: Use a positive tone

Avoid an egotistical or self-absorbed tone

Replace evaluative language with specific detail

Depersonalize and broaden the scope

• For Discussion: Utilize depersonalized language
• Callout: Experiment with different tones

Demonstrate cultural sensitivity

Use gender-neutral terms when possible

Emphasize individuals rather than disabilities or divergences

Listen to and use the terms individuals prefer when describing their own identity groups

Summary

• Exercise 7.4: Analyze tone in your own writing

Chapter 8: The Right Stress: Ordering Sentences to Stress the Right Information

Use the ends of sentences to direct readers’ focus

Put information you want to stress at the end of sentences

• Exercise 8.1: Rearrange to adjust emphasis
• Exercise 8.2: Place new information in the stress position

• Callout: Reduce distance between agents and actions
• For Discussion: End sentences with technical information

Introduce one technical term per sentence

Use concessive clauses to de-emphasize information

• Exercise 8.3: Revise to alter emphasis

Use passive voice to de-emphasize people

• For Discussion: Evaluation shifts in voice

Ethically present bad news

Summary

• Exercise 8.4: Analyze and revise your writing

Chapter 9: Treating Punctuation as Information Management

Distinguish primary and secondary information

Four basic guidelines for commas as information management

1: Use commas to signal where the primary (essential) content begins

2: Use commas to separate secondary (nonessential) content from the primary sentence

3: Use commas to signal a change in direction

4: Use commas to separate two complete statements connected by a coordinating conjunction

Comma guidelines are not rules: their usage is not always clear-cut right or wrong

• Exercise 9.1: Determine effective comma placement

Advanced information management: dashes, colons, and semicolons

• Em dashes (—) function as high-visibility commas
• Colons (:) signal elaboration
• Semicolons (;) replace periods or separate complex items in a list
• Exercise 9.2: Revise to eliminate punctuation mistakes

Bulleted and numbered lists as punctuation

Maintain consistent grammatical structure

Maintain consistent punctuation and capitalization

Use numbered lists when the order is important

Summary

• Exercise 9.3: Analyze your own writing

Chapter 10: Proofreading and Editing Strategies

Edit for clarity

• Use known-new to identify missing links and logical gaps
• Search for “it” and “this”
• Edit for stacked prepositions
• Ask an AI program such as ChatGPT for suggestions

Proofread for language errors: Select strategies that work for you

• Use grammar, spelling, and style checkers
• Change your reading pattern: Read aloud or backward
• Use AI to find the right word or phrase

Proofread for design errors

• Check tables and figures
• Check for parallelism and consistency
• Check for page layout issues

Use an accessibility checker

Seek feedback

Summary

• Exercise 10.1: Analyze your own writing