Written Presentation Guidance

1. Written Presentation Guidance

2. Strategy Assignment Overview • Audience: Decision makers that will use the information you present to make a variety of management decisions • Product: Summary, Analysis and Recommendation

3. Assignment Components • Summary: highlights and core elements • Analysis: identifying and assessing component parts and the relationship between those parts • Recommendation: informed judgment based on evidentiary argument and analysis

4. Always Remember the Reader • Write for the reader, not yourself • I am not the reader • Have someone else read what you’ve written

5. Write the Document for Multiple Readers • Assume that readers will vary on level of interest/need for information • Create opportunities for readers to enter at different points in the document • Some readers like text, some readers like figures/graphs

6. Redundancy Can Be Effective • Redundancy is most effective at the beginning and end of the document • Redundancy of argument rather than redundancy of language • Redundancy can take both textual and visual form

7. Optimize on Conciseness and Comprehensiveness • Why use more words, when fewer will do • Conciseness creates opportunities for comprehensiveness • Replace verbosity with evidence

8. Evidence over Opinion • Eliminate “I/we” from your presentation • Use evidence and argumentation to convince and inform the reader • You will provide judgments, but create room for decision making

9. Write Well • Write with purpose – avoid the passive voice • Passive voice: It has been said by the government …. • Active voice: The government says…. • Clarity is prized above all other attributes • One idea per sentence, no more than two