Here is some folk wisdom for writers and speakers: First I tells ‘em what I,m going to tell ‘ em, then I tells ‘em, then I tells ‘em what I’ve tellt ‘em.

For much everyday writing, that serves as an excellent motto. In particular, it harks back to the golden rule: Remember the reader. Every time the poor reader opens a letter or report written by you, he feels as though he is entering a strange town for the first time, with no idea how to find his way about. What he needs is some bold signposts.

Common Types of Signpost

Here are some typical forms of signpost for use in everyday writing. They help to keep the reader continually conscious of his whereabouts.

The heading. This is the basic welcome to the reader. He knows at once, very roughly, where he is.

In a business letter, the heading is less conspicuous than in a report: it comes after the salutation (preferably not prefaced by the stilted word re):

Dear Mrs Braithwaite,

Your claim for a refund on

Your Zadok pressure cooker

Thank you for your letter of 19 October 1990, in which you . . .

Reference or identification. This might take the form of an account number (if dealing with a bank), for example, or a date (of a letter to which you are now replying), or a commission number: Market Research report no. 167.

Table of contents. In a longish report, research paper, academic thesis, or the like, a table of contents provides the reader with a panoramic survey. His reading should be faster, better focused, and more efficient now, as a result of knowing what lies ahead.

Subheadings and sub-subheadings. Like street names, these serve as constant reminders to the reader of his whereabouts. This very page (with its three distinct levels of heading) illustrates the point.

Advance warnings. These are the small ‘traffic signs’ within the running text – letting the reader know in good time what he is about to encounter. Suppose you are listing three reasons in favour of a particular course of action. Preface them, as a help to the reader, with the simple traffic sign: ‘There are three reasons for this suggested course of action.’ If you have to digress from your main line of argument, let the reader know – ‘A brief digression here, to explain the background to the scheme’ – or else he will think he is still on the main road, only to realise suddenly that he is lost.

Milestones. These small cues complement the advance warnings within the text. They inform the reader how far he has progressed along a certain road or line of thought. Suppose that each of the three reasons that you have to list is very long and detailed. You might intersperse reminders every so often just to reassure the reader of his bearing: ‘That is the primary reason for the course of action I propose. A second reason is as follows’ or ‘The last of the three reasons is this . . .’ Similarly, when you come to the end of a digression, inform the reader so that he knows his whereabouts again: ‘So much for the background to the scheme. To return now to the details of its budget and schedule . . .’

Summaries. In lengthy documents, don’t limit yourself to a single summary at the very end. Pause to take stock – to summarise or repeat – whenever the weight of information risks overloading the reader’s powers of concentration or memory.

One of the most important places for a full summary is the very beginning of the document – an ‘executive summary’ or ‘abstract’, it is sometimes called.

Lazy or hurried readers, if they read nothing else, can at least get the gist of your report in that way.

Another old rule of friendly report-writing: Don’t wait till the conclusion before stating your conclusions.

You can state them – or at least hint at them – very near the start.

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Here is a notice that appeared on various London buses in early 1988. The information it tries to convey will not go into a single, simple message. It has many aspects and complexities, which obviously  overwhelmed the person writing it.

Try to restructure the notice and present it in a way that passenger can understand rather more easily.

Two possible solutions are suggested below, but do write a version of your own before looking at them.

BUS FARES FROM JANUARY 10 1988

Buses 216, 237, and 290 in Surrey

Return fares will be introduced for

journeys outside Greater London

on Bus 290, and these tickets will be

inter-available for return journeys

on route 216 between Staines and

Sunbury.

Some single fares will be increased

by up to 20p, but on Route 237 only

fares for journeys crossing the

Greater London boundry will be

Increased, and local fares within

Surrey will be unchanged.

Here now are the two possible versions of a more readable notice.

Buses 216, 237, and 290 in Surrey

NEW FARES: Single fares will rise by up

to 20p. On the 237 route, the fare

increase applies only to journeys into

or out of Greater London; fares within

Surrey remain the same.

NEW TICKETS: Buses 216 and 290 will

both sell return tickets which can be

used on either route. The tickets will

be available only for journeys outside

Greater London.

YOUR LOCAL SURREY BUS

Starting  soon . . .

Bus  216 X. local Surrey fares unchanged

X. other fares rising by up to 20p

X. return tickets available if

Purchased on bus 290

Bus  237 X. Fares into and out of

Greater London rising

by up to 20p

X . other fares unchanged

Bus  290 X. local Surrey fares unchanged

X. other fares rising by up to 20p

X. return fares available outside

Greater London – these can also

be used on route  216 between

Staines and Sunbury

Effective from 10 January 1988

LOCAL  FARES  UNCHANGED

Note how the two versions structure the material differently, using a  distinctive basic division of the material  differently, using a distinctive basic division of the material in each case.

The first version divides the subject into two main sections, New Tickets. In fact, the headings could just as well be Single Fares and Return Fares.

The second version uses a three-part classification, taking each of the three buses in turn.

The main difficulty seems to be this: there is just too much complex information  to make a single snappy, eye-catching notice. The bus company should have complied three different notice, one for each route.(After all, the passengers on bus 237 do not really need the details of route  216.) The second version above would make a good basis: simply break up the information into three parts, and incorporate each part into a separate notice.

Remember, a good notice needs more than just good wording . Its needs a thoughtful layout too, and an eye-catching design – here perhaps including a witty slogan with a brightly coloured picture or appropriate diagram.

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Some writers lose patience with methodical planning. Either they cannot generate enough ideas in the first place, or else they simply cannot find any pattern among the ideas they have, and so cannot draw up a structural outline.

Either way, they find that the breakthrough comes only when they actually begin writing the text. Or rather, writing a draft version of the text: the final version will probably differ unrecognisably from this preliminary effort.

It does not matter where you begin. Just pick on any promising ideas, and take it for a walk, so to speak.

The act of writing itself focuses the mind: one idea sparks off another, connections begin to form, and eventually an all-embracing structure might suggest itself. Quite what the psychological mechanism is remain unclear, but the trick is well-established in folk-wisdom: ‘How do I know what I think till I hear what I say?’ the legendary chatterbox replies when accused of aimless prattling.

The technique of ‘written prattling’ works best if conducted according to a few basic rules:

X . Write as quickly as you can. Don’t worry about a polished style, or even about finishing a sentence or paragraph. If a new idea occurs to you as a good follow-up, start writing it up directly even if the previous idea remains only half-written. The point is to develop a structure, not to develop a tidy text.

X . Keep jotting down new ideas – or new patterns of ideas – on a separate sheet of paper as they occur to you. In this way you might discover surprisingly quickly that  you can stop writing your rough draft, since enough material has emerged to form the basis of a satisfactory outline plan after all.

X . Once you have nothing more to write, put the draft to one side and try drawing up an outline plan from scratch. Perhaps the intense act of writing has churned up and fermented your ideas in a very productive way, enabling you to discern their proper pattern at last. Only if you still fail to see a clear structure should you return to your draft and read it through for clues. And if nothing satisfactory comes of that either, try the whole exercise all over again, using a different starting-point this time.

X . Above all, remain uncommitted. Your draft version is not meant to be the basis for your final version. Take it for what it is: a catalyst, or a form of therapy – a means to jolt you into the correct reaction or perception, but not itself the object of the exercise. Its purpose is to being clarity: once it has done that, put it away and start your writing project in earnest – compiling a plan, writing a proper draft, and editing and refining that into a final version.

The case study that follows demonstrates the more traditional technique of schematic outlines. Being a fairly straightforward assignment, it lends itself to that approach. But you could just as easily – and as quickly – get the same result by using the rough-drafting technique. And for more complicated writing tasks, you might find the new technique far more efficient than the traditional one.

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For many people who ‘live by the word’ – Public officials, PR spokesmen, advertisers, campaigners, and the like – euphemism is a favourite weapon. Advertising copywriters, for instance, scared of alarming potential customers, temper the harsh reality: an economy-size or standard carton (small), a budget ticket (cheap), dresses for the full-figure woman (fat), adult films (pornographic).

Sociologists and Psychologists indulge wholesale in ‘sentimental’ (left-wing) or  ‘cosmetic’ (right-wing) euphemisms: disadvantaged, lower-income levels, adjustment problems, slow learner, underachieving, shrinkage (losses through shoplifting), and so on.

Journalists reputedly draw on a ‘secret’ code of euphemisms that skirts the libel laws without for a moment puzzling regular readers: convivial (drunk), ruddy-faced (drunken), steadfast (obstinate), irreverent (rude), outspoken (insulting or threatening), pert (small and plain), creative accounting (fraudulent tampering with the figures), The project is in abeyance (it is suspended because disastrous).

The estate agent’s copywriter used to be the butt, fairly or unfairly, of jokes by housebuyers, amused or unamused. Among his alleged euphemisms were: conveniently located for local transport facilities (overlooking noisy railway lines), sun-drenched (too hot in summer), a renovator’s dream (very tatty), would benefit from some minor structural improvements (condemned as unsafe, about to collapse).

Most notorious of all are political and military spokesmen. Their dubious contributions to the language include the following typical items: pacification (battering into submission), logistical strikes (bombing raids), border realignment (seizure of territory), frank discussions (a slanging match), revenue enhancements (tax increases), containment (concealing information from the public).

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