Every so often, students tell me they learned early in their business career to use 5W&H (who, what, where, when, why, and how) to attain completeness in a report, email, or slide presentation. I do not object to 5W&H as a guide for capturing and organizing content, especially for journalists and corporate incident reporters, whose readers expect the whole story. Nevertheless, I would admonish business and technical writers to refrain from using this technique as their sole job aid. 5W&H is just not enough in some cases, or it may be too much in others. Think about two exceptions to such a rule.
1. 5W&H may be too much. You may not always need one or more 5 W/H elements. For example, clients may not want to reveal why they need a product or service from a supplier for at least two reasons. For one, they will use the product or service in top secret operations, such as purchasing spy cameras to surveil a suspected terrorist. For another, the why may be so obvious, such as ordering coffee for the office coffee machine. Also, staff members writing to management about a possible resolution to an ongoing problem because everyone already knows the implementation would be immediate upon approval. I could make this post run 10,000 more words if I reported every imaginable reason we might want to exclude any of the 5W&H elements. Think about it.
2. 5W&H may not be enough. Imagine writing a proposal to the executive team recommending an e-ink tablet for field investigators. You may need a sixth W, which, by including a comparative analysis of several e-ink tablets and a suggestion of which is the best for the investigators. The same goes for other 5W&H elements. In explaining a pressing problem, you may want to mention not only when (now) but since when (the past 20 business days).
Business and technical writers need to reflect on their ever-changing audience, which varies document by document. Use 5W&H only as a means for getting started.
