Improving
Readability
with Style and
Design
Chapter 6
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Chapter Overview
Principles of writing style
Completeness, conciseness, natural processing
Navigational design
Fair test, proofreading, feedback
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-2
Learning Objectives
LO6.1 Describe and apply the following principles of
writing style that improve ease of reading:
completeness, conciseness, and natural
processing
LO6.2 Explain and use navigational design to improve
ease of reading.
LO6.3 Describe and apply the components of the
reviewing stage, including a FAIR test,
proofreading, and feedback.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-3
Improving Ease of Reading
with Completeness
You can achieve completeness with three basic
strategies:
1. providing all relevant information;
2. being accurate
3. being specific
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6-4
Provide All Relevant Information
The key to providing all but only relevant
information is to plan, write, and review your
message strategically
Repeatedly asking yourself what information
is necessary for the purpose of your message
will help you accomplish this.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-5
Be Accurate
Accuracy, like specificity, strongly impacts
your readers’ perceptions of your credibility
Just one inaccurate statement can lead
readers to dismiss your entire message and
lower their trust in your future
communications as well.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-6
Being Accurate
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-7
Be Specific
The more specific you are, the more likely
your readers are to have their questions
answered
If you are not specific, your readers may
become impatient and begin scanning and
skimming for the information they want
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-8
Being Specific
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-9
Improving Ease of Reading
with Conciseness
Conciseness implies omitting needless words
so that readers can rapidly process your main
ideas
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-10
Improving Ease of Reading
with Conciseness
Control
paragraph
length
Use short
sentences
Avoid empty
phrases
Avoid
redundancy
Avoid wordy
prepositional
phrases
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-11
Control Paragraph Length
Long paragraphs can signal disorganization
and even disrespect for the reader’s time
Typically, paragraphs should contain 40 to 80
words.
For routine messages, paragraphs as short as
20 to 30 words are common and appropriate.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-12
Controlling Paragraph Length
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-13
Use Short Sentences in Most Cases
Short sentences allow your readers to
comprehend your ideas more easily
For routine messages, aim for average
sentence length of 15 or fewer words
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-14
Using Short Sentences
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-15
Comprehension Rate and
Sentence Length
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6-16
Avoiding Redundancy
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-17
Avoiding Empty Phrases
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-18
Avoid Wordy Prepositional Phrases
Eliminating extra words allows you to get your
ideas across as efficiently as possible.
You will often find that you can reduce word
count by 30 to 40 percent simply by
converting many of your prepositional phrases
into single-word verbs.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-19
Avoiding Wordy
Prepositional Phrases
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-20
Improving Ease of Reading with
Natural Style
Use Action Verbs When Possible
Use Active Voice
Use Short and Familiar Words and Phrases
Use Parallel Language
Avoid Buzzwords and Figures of Speech
Avoid It Is/There Are
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-21
Use Action Verbs When Possible
First, find nouns that you can convert to
action verbs
Second, find forms of the verb to be (e.g., be
verbs such as is , are , am ) and convert them
into action verbs
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-22
Using Action Verbs
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-23
Use Active Voice
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-24
Use Active Voice
The doer-action-object allows for faster
processing because most people’s natural
thinking occurs in this way
It also emphasizes the business orientation of
action
Most important, it specifies the doer
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-25
Using Active Voice Appropriately
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-26
Using Passive Voice Appropriately
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6-27
Use Short and Familiar
Words and Phrases
Whenever possible, choose short, conversational,
and familiar words
Using longer, less common ones slows processing
and can distract from your message.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-28
Use Parallel Language
Using parallel language means that you apply
a consistent grammatical pattern across a
sentence or paragraph.
Parallelism is most important when you use
series or lists.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-29
Using Parallel Language
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-30
Avoid Buzzwords and
Figures of Speech
Don’t distract your readers with overused or
out-of-place words or phrases.
Buzzwords
Workplace terms that become trite because of
overuse
Can stir negative feelings among some readers
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6-31
The Most Annoying Buzzwords
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6-32
Avoid It Is/There Are
Readers naturally want to know precisely who
or what the subject of a sentence is,
particularly in business writing, where
specificity is so important.
Most sentences that begin with it is or there
are fail to provide a specific subject and
generally contain more words than necessary
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-33
Avoiding It Is and There Is
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6-34
Improving Ease of Reading with
Navigational Design
Your primary goal for
document design is
making your message
easy to navigate
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-35
Use Headings
In information-rich and complex messages,
headings can help your readers identify key
ideas and navigate the document to areas of
interest.
As you create headings and subheadings, be
consistent in font style and formatting
throughout your document.
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-36
Highlight Key Words
and Phrases
When you want to highlight ideas or phrases,
consider using bold , italics , or underlining to
draw and keep your readers’ attention
If you use too much special formatting, your
main ideas will not stand out
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6-37
Applying Formatting to Key Words
and Phrases
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6-38
Using Bulleted and Numbered Lists
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6-39
Reviewing Your Message
Conduct a
FAIR Test
Proofread
Get
Feedback
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6-40
Conduct a FAIR Test
Facts
Are you confident in your facts? Are your
assumptions clear?
Access
Have you granted enough access to message
recipients about decision making and
information? Have you granted enough access to
the message recipients to provide input?
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6-41
Conduct a FAIR Test
Impacts
Have you thought about how the message will
impact various stakeholders?
Respect
Have you demonstrated respect for the inherent
worth of others: their aspirations, thoughts,
feelings, and well-being?
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-42
Chapter Takeaways
Principles of writing style
Completeness, conciseness, natural processing
Navigational design
Fair test, proofreading, feedback
© 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
6-43