I spent a day recently doing some coaching for one of my favourite clients. I had appointments with eight people. It was a diverse group–from finance to IT, and from junior to senior.  Some write reports to the executive team, and some write brief emails to each other. Some are technical writers, some write letters. Every person I met brought in a sample of their writing, and even though their writing was so different, I found myself saying the same things to each one of them: “Consider your reader—what information will they need? How will they want to see it presented? Why does your reader need this information? How can you present your message in a way that makes it easy for them to take their next step?”

Examples of what I saw at the follow-up session, and how these questions affected their revisions:

An email to a consultant asking a series of questions about a technical process. The first draft was a casual, rambling stream of consciousness, in which the writer asked a question, then adds a couple more that come to mind while he is writing. The fix: revise the opening of the message to explain you have 3 questions about the ABC process, number the questions clearly, and then update the subject line (maybe “Three questions about ABC”) to let the reader know what to expect. The reader then can easily embed the answers into the original message. It takes only a few minutes for the writer to revise, and saves the reader time and frustration.

An email to a supplier about coordinating an event. The email contains three small questions, and confirms another piece of information. Instead of one email to the reader containing everything, write four separate emails. Why? If you separate the different questions, requests and information into separate emails, the reader can respond quickly where possible. If you don’t have ready answers to every question in a multi-issue email, it’s easy to sit on it until you have everything you need. Better to answer what you can quickly. It’s also easier to file and retrieve information that is clearly labeled and not buried in an email with a useless subject line, like “Information” or “Follow up.”

A technical report recommending a change of software to manage a vital business process. The original document is well organized with all the key information a decision maker would need in the Executive Summary. The only problem is it’s very technical and studded with acronyms. The decision makers are the Board Members, who are unfamiliar with your jargon. The solution: assume your readers are ignorant, but not stupid. Avoid using technical language they might not understand, especially acronyms. Using acronyms might save you a few keystrokes and buy you credibility with your colleagues, but they frustrate readers who aren’t familiar with them. The solution: use the acronyms in your draft, then use the Find/Replace function in MS Word to spell them out. Even better, instead of an acronym, use a descriptive term, like the Agreement, or the Enterprise System.

A letter to a lawyer describing your analysis of a problem and the next steps you will take. This writer (a charming guy) had abandoned his earlier legalese style (yay!) but had rebounded to extremely spare prose, thinking the opposite of a legalese style is one that was condensed to the point where it felt dehydrated. The solution: relax, use a conversational style and tell the reader a story—what you did, what you found, and what you have done as a result. Unpack it, expand it, be conversational. The letter is a record, part of a file, and needs to tell its chapter of the story clearly.

Documentation of a change to proprietary software. The changes were listed on the page in separate paragraphs. What was missing was any context—the document needed a title and an introduction, so a reader who picks it up now or in the future knows why and when the changes were made. It also would help to number the changes themselves so they could be scanned quickly and referenced easily.

What impressed me about the day was how different each of the documents I reviewed was from each other. The revisions were different too. What was the same was the thinking process and questions that helped my learners see ways to improve their writing.

Take a look at something you wrote recently. Now put yourself in the place of your reader. Consider for a moment what their prior knowledge is, why they need to read your message, what they will do with it, and how you can best present it to make their job easier. What changes would you make?