The only business writing book you’ll ever need - Laura Brown, Rich Karlgaard 2019

Step 5: Fill in missing content; delete extraneous content
The seven steps

“I hate it when I have to wade through a bunch of information I don’t need to get to the information I do need.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

Most of us are writing in a hurry, and one of the biggest risks of writing in a hurry is making mistakes with content—either forgetting something or including too much. When you write a first draft, you tend to just splat out whatever is in your head. Sometimes you include information that isn’t really relevant. Sometimes you forget to include important content. That’s perfectly normal for a first draft, but before you send your document off to its final destination, you need to be sure you’ve included the right content.

Forgetting important content usually has one of two possible outcomes. Either the reader zones out and gives up, or he has to follow up with you to get the content he needs, wasting time on both your parts.

Including too much information can also make life harder for your reader. Extraneous content will force your reader to work to figure out why you’re saying all this and what she’s supposed to do about it. If your message ends up being too long and vague, your reader might give up entirely.

A quick content check helps ensure that your readers are getting exactly what they need.

Let’s look at a couple of examples to see how this works.

All,

Just a reminder that next Thursday’s training session is mandatory. Everyone in the group needs to complete diversity training for compliance purposes.

If you haven’t done the diversity training module during the last twelve months, you need to do it this time. Everyone has to complete the training by the end of May, or it could affect our licensing.

We’ve got two more slots with the vendor. Please ensure you make it to one of the two upcoming sessions. If you know you cannot make it, let me know now.

Thanks,

Mona

You can tell that Mona is concerned about making sure everyone gets this training and that she’s worried about what will happen if people miss it. She’s also worried that people are going to blow it off. She’s so worried about these issues, she’s forgotten to provide helpful information about when and where the training will take place. First she mentions “next Thursday,” then she refers to “two more slots with the vendor,” and the overall effect is confusing.

Mona takes a step back and thinks about what her readers really need, what’s at stake, and how to communicate it best. She realizes that she needs to add those dates.

All,

To renew our licensing, everyone in the group must complete the diversity training module by May 31. If you haven’t yet, you have two more chances:

February 11: 2—3 p.m.

March 27: 10—11 a.m.

If you don’t remember the last time you did this training, let me know and I will confirm. If you absolutely can’t make either of these times, let me know immediately. This has to get done.

Thank you!

Mona

Reviewing your draft for content often helps you improve it in other ways as well. Mona has added the new information her readers need—the dates of the training sessions—and in the process of thinking it through, she’s also managed to cut down the overall length of the message. Moreover, she has brought the issue of licensing to the very beginning of the message, letting her readers know what’s at stake right away.

Including too much information can be as problematic as including too little. We often include too much because we’re more focused on ourselves than on our reader. A quick review of a draft can help tighten up the communication.

Alec works for a regional bank that’s about to launch a new customer service initiative that will include getting more customers into the Elite Checking program. Currently branch personnel are offering customers Standard Checking as a default. As a result, customers who qualify for the better account are missing out on rewards, and some are paying unnecessary fees. Alec drafts a memo to branch tellers and other personnel introducing the new initiative. Here’s his first draft:

Hello MaxxBank AllStars!

I’m writing today to announce an exciting new initiative for MaxxBank: the EliteStar program. As part of the initiative, we have a goal to bring 20 percent more new customers into Elite Checking accounts, and to move 20 percent of existing customers from Standard Checking into Elite.

Based on research throughout the region, we estimate that currently about 30 percent of existing customers in Standard in fact qualify for Elite based on their running daily balances. And about 25 percent of new customers are placed into Standard Checking when they would be better served by Elite Checking. The result is that many of our customers are being underserved and missing out on the benefits that Elite offers. These customers often incur service charges that they would not be subject to if they had Elite status. We are managing a large volume of complaints across the branches as a result. We estimate that by moving qualified customers to Elite status, we can reduce fee-related complaints by as much as 35 percent. And the revenue from the lost fees could be offset through happier customers engaging with the bank in other ways, say, through credit cards, home loans, mortgages, or other products.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out training to make it easier for branch personnel to recognize potential Elite customers and help them have conversations to invite customers into the program. Keep your eyes open for more communication about this exciting initiative!

Alec puts his draft aside and comes back to review it the next day. Reading it over, he realizes that the content in the middle paragraph was on his mind because of a meeting he’d attended that day, but it really isn’t helpful to his readers. It makes the memo too long and tedious to read. In fact, some of that content—the section about making up lost revenue—he would prefer not to share with the branch personnel, because he doesn’t want to risk their passing it on to customers. That’s information for internal consumption only. He does want to provide some explanation for the initiative, though, because people perform better when they understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

Here’s Alec’s second draft:

Hello MaxxBank AllStars!

I’m writing today to announce an exciting new initiative for MaxxBank: the EliteStar program. As part of the initiative, we have a goal to bring 20 percent more new customers into Elite Checking accounts, and to move 20 percent of existing customers from Standard Checking into Elite.

Research shows that many of our Standard customers qualify for Elite status, and they’re missing out on the great rewards they could be enjoying, including free checks, overdraft protection, and interest on their balance. We want to ensure that these customers get the most from their MaxxBank relationship!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out the EliteStar training to help you identify potential Elite customers and bring them into the right account for them. Keep your eyes open for more communication about this exciting initiative!

In his revision, Alec removes the figures and some of the detailed rationale from the middle paragraph, and instead writes a middle paragraph with a clear message that will resonate with his readers: we’re launching this initiative to make sure that customers are having the best possible experience with MaxxBank. In this case, less content makes for a more effective communication.

Use Structure to Help You Choose Your Content

Not everyone likes to use outlines when they write. If you’re writing something very short and straightforward, an outline might be unnecessary. But sometimes with a longer document, structuring your message with a quick outline can help you make sure your content is complete and you’re presenting it in a logical way. The outline doesn’t have to be complex; it can be a list of topics, which you then arrange in the order in which you want to present them.

You can even outline after you’ve written a draft, to check whether you’re including the appropriate information—and nothing extraneous. Outlining after the fact is called “reverse outlining.” Let’s look at reverse outlines of the two versions of Mona’s message above.

Original version

Diversity training is mandatory for compliance purposes.

You have to go to the diversity training once during twelve months so we can get our licensing.

If you haven’t been to a session yet, you must go to one of the two remaining ones this year.

Let me know if you have problems.

Revised version

Everyone has to do this training or we won’t get licensed again. Here are your chances.

Here are the two dates of trainings.

I’ll help you make sure it gets done; let me know if you have problems.

We have to do this.

You can see in the revision of Mona’s message that she hasn’t just added the missing information (the dates and times of the training sessions); she’s also restructured her entire message to make it clearer to her readers.

Writing a quick outline doesn’t have to be a big deal, but it can make a big difference in the content and quality of your message.

How to Get the Content Right

If you like to plan before you write, you should think about your content in light of the work you did for Step 1, Get the ask clear, and Step 2, Write for your reader. Ask yourself these questions:

What content must I include to achieve my purpose in writing?

What content does my reader need?

If you’re the kind of writer who likes to create a first draft and then edit, make sure you do a content check as part of your revision process. Including extraneous content often comes from the writing equivalent of “thinking out loud”—mulling over or reviewing content in your own mind without considering if your audience needs it. Sometimes it’s helpful to your thought process to write everything out. But if the content isn’t useful to your reader, you should go back and cut it out. If you’ve already got a draft, take a quick pass over your document. Look at your pieces of information one at a time and run through a mental checklist:

Is this all the information my reader needs?

Does my reader really need this information?

Whether you’re a planner or an editor by nature, taking a quick content inventory before you send your draft will help you meet your readers’ needs.

SUMMARY: Fill in Missing Content; Delete Extraneous Content

Think for a moment before you start to write or before you send: “What do I want my reader to do?”

Then ask yourself, “Have I given them the information they need to do this? Have I given them content they don’t need?”

Organize and edit your draft with this in mind.

Now that you feel confident about your content, we’ll explore how to write your message as clearly as possible.