Effective Writing – What’s the point?

This article provides you insight into the most important part of writing your business document to get the action you desire. If you have been following the “effective writing” threads you know that you are writing a business document to guide the reader into taking action. You are writing the document to their viewpoint and you are including only enough information to support the reader’s decision to take action. The next step is crafting a single statement that tells the reader exactly what to expect from your document.

Purpose

Your document must serve a purpose and that purpose needs to be communicated clearly and succinctly. As an example I began this blog with a purpose statement which states for your action (writing a business document) I will give you (reader) a tool to be more effective (my objective).

This is the most important step in wiring and is the key step to link your thought process to your writing process. The purpose statement is the very first sentence in your business document. It communicates the message to the reader that you are certain about the action this document is meant to influence. It communicates to the reader that you are empathetic to their viewpoint. It communicates that you are not going to waste their time. In the very first sentence you can build credibility and improve the likelihood the reader will read the entire document. The purpose statement tells them why it is important.

Imagine something simple like an email – the first sentence in your email to a colleague is crafted as a purpose statement. “The email contains the new business proposal for your review and comment by Thursday at noon so that we can submit this to production on Monday.” What does this do for me? It tells me that my opinion and critique is important, it has a timeline and production is dependant on my review. It tells me I need to open up the attachment and do my part of the job. This example is not fancy, not complicated and that is the best part. Written communication borders on information overload most days so how do you stand out? Write an effective purpose statement for all your business documents. People will notice and appreciate you taking the time to understand their point of view and as a result more people will take the time to read what you have written and hopefully take the action you expect.