The writing process consists of five steps, planning, drafting, revising,
editing, and proofreading.
The frustrating part of writing is that these five steps are not linear.
That is, at any step, you'll need to go back and rethink all five steps.
Remember to, that many of the documents you produce will never truly be finished.
Planning which can take more than a third of th
total time spent on the writing project.
It's critically important for
every document from an email message to book like manual.
Start by thinking about your audience, because you need to understand whom you're
writing to before you can figure out you need to say about the subject.
If you're lucky, you can talk with the audience before and
during your work on the document.
These conversations can help you learn what your reader has already know,
what they want to know and how they would like the information to be presented.
You can test out drafts making changes as you go everything.
If you cannot consult your audience while writing your document,
you still need to learn everything you can about your readers, so
that you can determine the best scope of organization and style for your document.
Then for
each of your most important readers try to answer the following three questions.
Who is the reader?
Consider such factors, education, job experience, their responsibilities,
skilled in reading English, cultural characteristics and personal preferences.
What are your readers attitudes and expectations?
Consider the reader's attitudes toward the topic in your message, as well as
the reader's expectations about the kind of documents you will be presenting.
Why and how would reader use your document?.
Think about what readers will do with the document.
List some quotes in their physical environment in which they will use it.
The techniques they will use it in reading it, and
the tasks they will carry out after they finish reading it.
You cannot start to write until you again state the purpose or
purposes of the document.
Ask yourself these two questions.
After my readers have read the document, what do I want them to know or do?
What beliefs or attitudes do I want them to hold?
A statement of purpose might be as simple as this, the purpose of this report
is to recommend whether the company should adopt a health-promotion program.