Back to: Writing Skills and Editing Principles
Effective writing is driven by clear messages. Sometimes it feels like an art but there is a system we can apply to structuring the messages that we want the outside world to read, hear and take notice of.
Here are some steps to planning effective messages:
Your messages will stand out when we include the following
Clear and impactful communications are driven by short, sharp messages. The trainer will give you a report. Scan read the text (for gist) and identify the following.
| Key messages | What is the overall idea of the report |
What is the big idea that forms your topic sentence for each paragraph? Your topic sentences should be short, clear and active. |
Supporting arguments
Readers remember ideas if they understand the background (context) find the ideas interesting (relevance) or learn something new (novelty). Consider these when planning your writing. You do not need to provide all three elements for everything you write – but these elements do help to make texts stand out.
| Message points | Does the report contain these elements? |
| Context: what’s the broad context that your audiences understand? | |
| Relevance: Why are these messages relevant to them? | |
| Novelty: What is new about what you are writing? |
Proof Points
Messages also need proof so that audiences have something to believe. Proof points can be in the form of data (hard proof) of anecdotes (soft proof).
| Proof points | Where is the hard and soft proof? |
| Hard proof: what data do you have that supports your key messages? | |
| Soft proof: What anecdotal evidence do you have that supports your key messages? |