SMART WRITING AT WORK
Performance audit reports, which are always issue-driven (think risk), are declarations built through a series of logical steps, which include identifying appropriate criteria as standards for making judgements, describing condition (what has actually happened), comparing criteria to that condition, and, where there is a gap, stating the effects (consequences) of the gaps, ascertaining the causes of the gaps and, from these causes, presenting recommendations that will resolve the issue.
To kick off this blog that I hope will be of service to those who write audit reports, I wanted to begin with an appreciation. In 1987, I began working with auditors--now called "analysts"--at GAO, and I've come to admire the good thinking they do, the hard work they put in to get a report out the door, and their usual good humor. I've worked with auditors throughout the country and throughout the world by now. But this brief appreciation really focuses on my admiration for the function all auditors perform.
If you don't know him, he's written some great books, which are generally classified as "business books," but they're much more than that...each is different.
I've said before that we teach students WRITING FOR TEACHERS in school, but when they get on a job where they need to write, some of those WRITING-FOR-TEACHERS writing habits betray them. Therefore, I think it's crucial...is there a stronger phrase? (screamingly, clamorously imperative)...that students in a so-called "business/technical writing" course practice writing to a REAL READER who actually cares about the issue the student is writing about--cares in a way that the information the student provides is actually USEFUL, practical, essential information the reader can use to make a decision of some kind. And, if at all possible, THAT reader should "grade" the writing.
My youngest son, who is beginning his second year in law school, was, over the summer, a “summer associate” in a big NYC law firm. It wasn’t his first brush with the business/corporate world, but he made an observation to me about writing on the job recently that I thought was interesting and worth passing along.
I’ve taught business/technical writing to grad and undergrad students for 35 years. Since 1984, I’ve also regularly consulted with writers in the workplace at NASA, KPMG, Catholic Charities, Whiting Turner Contracting, the State Department, the Justice Department, and many, many other places. I’m disenthralled with the giant textbooks used in most college business-writing classes—they’re WAY too expensive and don’t focus well on the simple, common-sense, matter-of-fact critical-thinking and workplace-writing skills students need for the rest of their working lives
The reader is everything. That is the simplest truth about business writing. Writers must serve the needs of their readers. Business writers should work hard so their readers don’t have to. Documents must be, above all, useful to the reader and highly readable.
