I have completed my round of evaluations for Unit Three and have some notes for you to follow as you self-edit your final draft of your report and your Web folio.
Errors in expression that are caused by neglecting to follow these editing tips will jump right off the page at me as I evaluate.
To be as clear as clear can be:
- your report is for your reader – not for the professor.
- A Letter of transmission needs to be included – see my example on the Instructor’s blog.
- A name, title, and contact information need to be on the front page of the report.
- No need to tell your reader who the intended audience is, that was part of the proposal does not belong in the report.
- Too many drafts have information straight from their proposals. The problem here is that the proposal was written for the professor, a different audience.
- Please do not give the president or the manager of the company you are writing the report for – background information or history that they will surely already know.
- All background information should be strictly relevant to the investigation of the problem and the solution.
PRESENT TENSE is preferred:
You have done a good job organizing your thoughts and providing information to your reader as required of the assignment. The way you bolded the key points further elaborated each point made the message you were trying to get across very clear.
REWRITE IN PRESENT TENSE:
This is a well-organized memo providing good information. The bolded key points elaborate your points and increase clarity.
I hope you can see how much clearer and concise writing becomes when following this most basic of tips: prefer the present tense. In order to rewrite the sentence above in the present tense I needed to edit out ‘the people’ (your thoughts/ your reader/ the way you bolded) and in turn the edited sentence is concise.
Here is a list of the most common comments I have made on first drafts:
- Do no use sexist language: ex: A man’s world
- Do not begin a formal report with a cliché
- Address your reader’s concerns – and only your reader’s concerns
- Emphasize benefits to your reader
- If you must for the sake of context repeat a fact or information that your reader knows, then do so with a phrase like “as you are no doubt aware, or, “as you know”
- Do not begin a sentence with a number – always spell it out
- Introductions need a conclusion that indicates the recommendations to come
- Use more subheadings to organize your content; keep passages to the point: brief and clear
- This report is missing YOU attitude: the recommendations must indicate benefits for the reader
- Absolutely no imperative verbs in your recommendations.
That’s it – I hope you enjoy drafting your final draft of your reports, I know I am looking forward to my read.
Thank you.
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