Seeing The Wood From The Trees

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Check your writing makes sense?

It sounds such an obvious thing but, your writing will not have the desired impact if it does not make sense.?

?This is particularly important if you have been working on/editing a document for a long time. Often you cannot see the wood for the trees. A few tips to help include:?

· Schedule the writing of important documents early in the day when you are fresh?

· Work hard in short bursts and take regular breaks?

· Allow time at the end to re-read your document before sending it?

Depending on how important your document is, there are different levels of sense checking that you can apply:?

1) Check for ambiguity and non-sequiturs (facts that don’t follow on logically)?

2) Read your writing backwards – we can become totally blind to our own errors and mistakes because our mind automatically corrects them?

3) Get someone else to read it or put it to one side and reread it yourself at a later stage with a fresh outlook?

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