Think of your audience first: a before-and-after example
Lynn Gaertner-Johnston (of the Business Writing blog) was recently asked to participate in a medical research study. That’s about the only thing that was really clear in the letter she received:
I received a letter from my health plan yesterday. It began this way:
We would like to ask you for your help with a vaccine research study. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the immune response to an investigational 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine …
(I worry a bit about people who toss out phrases like “13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine” in letters to the general public.)
Lynn dissects the letter, and offers a proposed rewrite that begins with the reader’s point of view in mind, which the original almost, but not quite, entirely failed to do.
Roy Jacobsen
in Elsewhere on the Web
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