Planning: Deciding What and How to Write
If you can’t envision the audience, think, “If someone had needed to give you this info 6 months ago, how should they have done it?”
Each section (and sub-section, recursively) should have its purpose.
If stuck on ordering, first write down ideas in random order, and then sort them. Sections need not be planned linearly. For example, the introduction can be last after knowing what it’ll introduce.
My notes tend to be living documents that get updated relatively frequently. Maintaining an up-to-date introduction seems tedious.
Drafting: Get It On Paper
State the main point before you give the reasoning that leads to it. Readers should be able to skim by reading the first sentence of each paragraph.
Use the clearest, simplest language that does the job. Avoid words whose exact meanings you don’t know.
This is a tricky bit. I may not know that I don’t know the exact meaning of a certain word. XKCD’s Simple Writer flags words that are not in the 1,000 most common words.
Revising: Get It On Paper Better
Change anything that can be misunderstood so that it can’t, e.g. “Students may request…” to “Students sometimes request…”.
Remove unnecessary words. Time taken to process an \(n\)-word sentence is proportional to \(n^3\).
Editing: Fix Spelling, Grammar, Typing
Don’t let a computer “correct” them, as you may not get what you intended.
is an expert in linguistics, so maybe he knows something that I don’t? My experience with Microsoft Editor and Grammarly has been pleasant. I rarely need to deviate from the suggestions provided.
Formatting: Choosing Typefaces, Layout, etc.
Keep it simple. No more than 3 typefaces, and each with a clearly defined purpose, e.g. headings, text, code snippets. Avoid meaningless variation as the reader will expect every change to mean something.
. Major characters, e.g. Morpheus and
Lucifer in the snip above, have their own font.](/img/writing/morpheus-lucifer-fonts.jpg)
References
- How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and Learn Complex Material More Easily. Michael Covington. University of Georgia. www.covingtoninnovations.com . Accessed Apr 17, 2022.
How is the purpose defined? Maybe each question should be an answer to an implicit question.