Friday, January 18, 2008

Countering Reader Indifference

In Mindmapping: Your Personal Guide to Exploring Creativity and Problem-Solving, author Joyce Wycoff explores the value of mindmapping as a creative tool in many endeavors, especially project management, meeting management, presentation planning, note taking, and writing.

Wycoff explains that since no one wants to read or will remember most business writing, writers of memos, reports, and proposals should develop a sound composing strategy, which includes:
1. determining whether the message should be written at all
2. using headlines (e.g., “Company Benefits,” “Action Plan”) for maximum impact
3. inserting visuals wherever helpful to the reader
4. preferring the short document, the short paragraph, the short sentence, and the short word


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