WebNotes banner 










A web page devoted to news and views on WordTask training courses and on good writing practices in general.



November, 1999


FEEDBACK |  PREVIOUS ISSUE | HOME PAGE 

INDEX OF ARTICLES | LIST OF WEBNOTES ISSUES
















Reminder--
We're here to help!










WordTask  Service-Link gives HR and training primes the support they need to run our courses effectively in-house. With this distinctive consultation service, we can help you advertise our courses to your organization, tailor the material to meet specific needs, and follow up after the course.


For our expert assistance, contact our Training Coordinator.



NEWS BRIEF





New course for marketing documentation now available 


In response to requests from our customers in the high-technology sector, we've added a specialized course for writing promotional materials of a technical nature: Writing Effective Technical Marketing Materials






Based on our popular Effective Writing for Technical Specialists, the new course addresses the needs of those writers who must distill dense technical source information into tight, clear promotional information.


A good deal of so-called marketing literature isn't all that effective in transcending the technical detail to provide a succinct promotional message. Part of the problem is that the source material can be very murky stuff. The challenge for the marketing writer is to do the necessary pruning of the detail and still convey the true sense of the technical benefits of the product or service.


And that's just what the new WordTask course does. Participants learn to derive a promotional strategy before wading into the technical details. The course teaches the marketing writer to subordinate technical information to that strategy, providing just the right amount of detail to show the product or service in the best light.


This newest addition to the WordTask curriculum is available as a public session in Ottawa, Canada, in April,  2000.







TIPS 'n TECHNIQUES



Executive summaries: 

Make them true summaries





It's all too easy to make an executive summary into something it should not be--an introduction, a statement of intent, the repository of information the reader never sees again!


Here are some tips that will help you stay on track with your executive summary:

    

  • Regardless of the length of the rest of the document, keep the executive summary to two pages or less. This means that you may have to be selective; not every point needs mentioning.
    

  • Don't cut and paste passages from the body of the document into the executive summary. Text repeated verbatim gives your reader that deja vu feeling all over again! Summarize by paraphrasing, taking the time to condense with key words the main ideas that you discuss later in detail.
    

  • Don't confuse the executive summary with a statement of intent. The latter is something like this: "This report explains the drop in revenues." By contrast, an authentic summary would read, "Revenues have dropped because of changing customer spending habits."
    

  • Short reports of a couple of pages too, even those sent as emails, benefit from a single-paragraph executive summary. If the term "executive" seems out of place for these more informal documents, use the term "summary" alone. It may be only a paragraph, but it will sharpen your writing considerably.
    

  • Place the executive summary at the beginning of the document. If the document has a table of contents, the executive summary goes right after. But don't hide this important section behind an introduction or other front matter.






COURSE NOTES



For workplace writing,

time is of the essence




A hidden defect in a lot of workplace writing is that it simply takes longer than it should. Our tendency to equate hours with quality can be misguided.






Participants coming into our courses don't always notice that their current writing process is taking longer than it needs to. But in the vast majority of cases, this is indeed true. If you spend most of your time composing paragraphs and sentences to fill the empty screen, you're probably working at less than top efficiency. Drafting in this way gives the impression of progress perhaps, but usually the revision time required is substantial. It may be never be enough either.


Our courses stress writing process, that is, the practice of devoting more time prior to the drafting or composing phase than anywhere else. The benefits of this approach are clear. When surveyed through our Post-Course Evaluation, most respondents report time savings of 10 to 20% in their writing projects, at the same time as producing documents that are easier to read, more focused, and more suitable to the reader's needs.
 

[More information]






FEEDBACK |  PREVIOUS ISSUE | TOP OF PAGE | HOME PAGE | INDEX OF ARTICLES | LIST OF WEBNOTES ISSUES

© 1999 WordTask Information Strategies