writing long documents

There’s no denying it: big, complex writing projects such as reports, white papers or even student essays can be scary. 

When faced with writing such documents, the temptation to jump in head first is often overwhelming, but rushing is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. You’ll end up spending much longer on the project, and you run the risk of producing a document that doesn’t actually say what you want.

The key to success with writing long documents is simple: break the task down. Follow these manageable steps and there’s no need to be afraid.

Click on each step to find out more.

Firstly, take stock of the work ahead of you. Identify what you want to achieve; what do you want your readers to take away from your report?

Next, think about who is going be reading your report. What are their job titles? What’s their level of understanding of what you’re writing about? Will they want to read your writing or will they need to be persuaded?

If you’re a list person, create one, or if you like spider diagrams, use them. Whatever it takes, get all your ideas down on paper.

Group the items in your list or spider diagram into sections so you can see what works together, where there is repetition and where there are holes in your argument or missing information.

Get all your information into a document – if it isn’t there already – and using your objectives, consider the logical order of the information.

Treat each of the sections you need to write as a separate writing task and set yourself deadlines. This turns one big job into a series of smaller – and less scary – ones.

Just as you probably have a word count for the overall document, you need to set one for each section. The number of words you allocate to a particular chunk will depend on how central it is to your argument and how complicated it is to explain. The more complex the section, the greater the need to divide it into smaller subsections.

When you’ve written a first draft of your document, you’ll probably find that some of your sections are too long and might need some tweaking to help them flow. Also think carefully about subheadings, making sure they are clear and non-cryptic to help with the navigation of the report.

If your report needs an executive summary, the time to write it is after you’ve written your document. We call them ‘executive propositions’ – it’s your chance to communicate your message directly to your audience, rather than simply summarising the report.

There’s no getting away from it: proofreading can take a while, and it can be very dull. The fact is though that nothing spoils the impact of your hard work more than having a silly spelling mistake or typo – so always make sure you make the time to proofread.

Read more about breaking down a document and improving productivity:

Improving productivity: more haste, less speed

writing long documents

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