How to write readable reports and winning proposals: Part 3: save readers--and yourself--precious time: cutting information of no value to readers is smart; never writing it down in the first place is smarter.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about reports is the way they gobble up time. First, writers spend hours sketching the complex background of the project and describing results in sufficient detail in impress higher-ups with the thoroughness of the work. (If the facts aren't impressive enough, fancy wording must come to the rescue, at further cost in writing time.) Then, readers groan as they try in vain to find shortcuts through the thicket of irrelevant or baffling detail and convoluted language. Nobody is happy, important information gets lost, and a lot of time disappears into a black hole.

Some writers learn from such mistakes and scratch out most of the irrelevant and confusing things they put into their draft before they send it out. Now the writing takes even longer for them, but at least their readers are hotter off.

Is there a way to avoid all the waste of time from the stark? Yes--and it's as simple as respecting three common sense laws:

1. Don't make your readers read anything they don't want to know,

2. Don't write down things you'll end up deleting.

3. Don't make the reader read anything twice.

Reimold's Law #1: Don't Make Your Readers Read Anything They Don't Want To Know

No matter how much you'd like to get upper-management readers to appreciate the intricacies of your work, they will only resent being held up by technical details or puffy language. So save them time by including only significant information and keeping the language simple.

How do you achieve this? By preparing an outline based on an analysis of reader needs. The needs analysis takes the form of an Imaginary Dialogue with each reader group. Begin by noting the questions of the primary reader, then those of other readers. Answer the questions in bullet form, and you have an outline of significant points. Anything else you're burning to add doesn't belong in the report.

Reimold's Law #2: Don't Write Down Things You'll End Up Deleting

Many writers begin the drafting process by expanding their data tables into detailed results, expanding these further in a Discussion section, then adding some detailed background as an introduction, and finally trying some Conclusions and a Summary. At that point, they may begin in spot many irrelevant details and start the tedious cutting process.

Instead, begin the whole process with the Summary. This answers the reader's first question: "What are you trying to tell me?" (For instance: Our new half-gallon juice cartons have significantly better leak resistance than comparable competitor cartons, as measured by a two-week lab study.) Then explain or back up that main message only as much as needed for your readers. Why did you worry about leak resistance in the first place? What do your findings say about the opportunity of the product? How much confidence can management attach to the lab study results? What obstacles remain? What are the next steps for you and the readers?

When your main message is in place, you can judge easily which details serve it and which detract from it or add nothing. By contrast, when you start with the details, you're missing the yardstick for measuring relevance, and overwriting is inevitable.

Reimold's Law #3: Don't Make the Reader Read Anything Twice

Readers don't like having to reread a sentence because it is unclear, ambiguous, or deliberately constructed so as to require parsing twice (that's the drawback of words like former, latter, and respectively). Look at your style. Is it more like A below than B? Then it's time to work on clarity and simplicity!

A. From consideration of these facts, the probability presents itself that the unfavorable preservation of carbohydrates in a soda cook as opposed to an ordinary kraft cook is due to the less rapid pulping action of the former.

B. This suggests that carbohydrates are better preserved in an ordinary kraft cook than in a soda cook because pulping is faster in a kraft cook.

Cheryl and Peter Reimold have been teaching communication skills to engineers, scientists, and businesspeople for 20 years. Their firm, PERC Communications (telephone [phone], e-mail [e-mail]), offers businesses consulting and writing services, as well as customized in-house courses on writing, presentation skills, end on-the job communication skills, Visit their web site at www.allaboutcommunication.com.