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The term, "Effective Writing," is important to policies and procedures because the result of effective writing is a document that is easy to read, understand, and apply by any reader. The term, "Effective Writing," means different things to people and can give a different impression, subject to individual perceptions based on each person's own experiences. Let me explain, the term effective is defined as producing a determined, decisive, or desired effect. Synonyms to effective are well-coordinated, competent, impressive, powerful, convincing, and profitable. So what we have is a competent, impressive, proficient, and persuasive writing style for policy and procedure writers. Applying this definition and synonyms to writing policies and procedures, these descriptive words focus on quality, productivity, efficiency, user buy-in and acceptance, structured writing format, easy-to-read content, and thorough research and analysis … all elements of effective writing.
The benefits of writing well-coordinated, convincing, proficient, and competent policies and procedures include:
- Well-coordinated policies and procedures implying that a problem, issue, or concern has been discussed with process owners, management, users, and other individuals that may have a direct impact on or may be affected by a forthcoming policy or procedure.
- Convincing policies and procedures suggest that the published policies and procedures contain benefits to the reader, are easy to train, easy to understand, and easy to apply to the work environment.
- Proficient and competent policies and procedures suggest that the best solution was selected by those individuals that assisted with the coordination of the draft policies and procedures.
With good, effective writing, your chance of reader comprehension and compliance increases. Clear, easy to read text and concepts are the goals of effective writing for the policies and procedures documents, for the policies and procedures writer, and for the reader.
Now to the good stuff. The best way to accomplish effective writing in policies and procedures is to use a writing format, a template for laying out the necessary text that communicates your policy and procedure message. Simple, yes. Think about it. Without a template that guides the reader through the content, how could a reader completely and reliably understand the content contained in a policy or procedure document? (Read my other articles on the importance of the writing format)
The purpose of any written document is to communicate thoughts and information. If readers can not understand a policy or procedure document, communication is lost. The Writing Format can help you look good to your readers, whether you are or not, because the writing format will naturally give your writing consistency and clarity of writing.
The conclusion to this article is that effective writing, coupled with a standard writing format, will help any would-be writer achieve praise for well-coordinated, proficient, and reliable policies and procedures.
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