Writing That Works, 3e_ How to Communicate Effectively in Business - Kenneth Roman [60]
Warning e-mail can be addictive and create problems of its own. Newcomers on-line are so giddy with their discovery they want to broadcast it to everyone. Garrulous bores find a large unwilling audience. Managers with a natural tendency to hide barricade themselves behind walls of e-mail, sending notes to people four desks away. More
13 Making It Easy to Read
If what you’ve written looks formidable or messy, your reader braces for an ordeal before reading a word. “This will be heavy going” is the message you deliver, in a glance.
If what you’ve written looks easy to take in and get through, you’re off to a good start. That was always true with printed documents, now even more so with e-mail. When a message runs more than a few lines, formatting becomes an issue. Full-screen paragraphs are almost impossible to read and show little consideration of the reader (as well as lack of organized thinking by the sender).
Most word processing programs allow you to preview the appearance of entire pages. This gives you a better sense of how your document looks than partial pages on a screen, and can help you decide what improvements may be called for. And the word processor’s virtuosity in formatting makes it easy to put those improvements into effect.
Here are some ways to make everything you write look professional — inviting to read, easy to understand, and simple to refer to.
1. Start with a heading
Put it top center in capital letters. This orients your reader at once.
OFFICE CLOSES FRIDAY NOON WE WON THE BUSINESS
2. Keep paragraphs short
Wherever you see a long paragraph, break it into two or more short ones. This is particularly helpful with e-mail.
3. Use typographic devices for clarity and emphasis
Most readable magazines and newspapers prefer italics to underlining for emphasis.
To stress key ideas, put them into indented paragraphs. This emphasizes them by setting them apart. Italics can add even greater emphasis.
When you do use underlining — in headings, for instance, or lead-ins — use a single continuous underline rather than a choppy-looking underline, one word at a time, which slows reading.
While color and special fonts on your PC add emphasis, they don’t come across as businesslike in documents. A judicious use of color can be effective in decks and other visual presentations (if not overdone).
4. Numbered, lettered, or bulleted points help your reader follow your thinking
These devices look best a couple of spaces to the left of the text margin, like the a. and b. that follow.
Word processors put tools into your hands that used to be available only to printers. Boldface type, for example, can make it easy for your reader to scan your main points. (We use it for that purpose throughout this book.)
“Hanging” your letters and numbers in the margin makes your divisions and subdivisions easier to follow.
5. Use uppercase and lowercase.
All-capital words and phrases should be used with restraint, except for headings. Printing text in all capitals, characterized in the e-world as SHOUTING, works against readership. There is a place for their sparing, occasional use — for a blast of emphasis, as Bill Gates used them in a note to his colleagues at Microsoft:
“I am hard-core about NOT supporting” [the latest version of Java from Sun Microsystems.]
6. Break up large masses of type
Use subheads, like the numbered points throughout this book. Type them in capitals and lowercase, underline them or put them in boldface, and leave plenty of space above and below.
It often helps to send long e-mail messages as attachments. If that’s the case, say so immediately: “Here’s an attachment.” And make the attachment easy to transmit and easy to read. It’s irritating to receive presentations via e-mail with wild colors for text and background. They’re hard to read, sometimes impossible, and take forever to download.
7. Use space to separate paragraphs
It looks neater than indents.
Use