A lot of policy documents tend to be very factual and descriptive. This comes from a respect for procedure that is commonplace in institutions and governments. It is also understandable that policy officers do not want to load their texts with public relations ‘spin’. However, we can lift our writing and give emphasis in a way that is appropriate to the policy context.
Every report, memo, briefing or email you send is competing for the attention of your readers. However, your documents are often written in a very technical, analytical and detailed manner – and this is hardly attention grabbing.
Your documents should be more than a record of meetings, analysis and reports. They are all written to persuade, affect and change the readers, their perceptions and get other people to take action and make decisions.
Think of these four aspects:
Attention: How do you grab the readers’ attention?
Interest: What is relevant to our readers? Why should they care?
Desire: How do your messages become accepted? What is new?
Action: What do you expect our readers to do?
We, at Formative Communications, specialise in training people to write for the policy world. We work with trade associations, networks, NGOs and international organisations.
Contact us at info@formativecoms.com or call us +32 473 39 18 90.
