Let’s face it. Everyone is busy these days, and there are too many things competing for your readers’ attention, especially in the workplace.
On a daily basis, we are inundated by emails, slide decks, proposals, product briefs, design documents, status reports, policy papers, news, and more.
Readers skim because they lack time
When people do not have enough time to read, much less think, what do they do? They skim. And, let’s admit it: so do we.
In fact, skimming is such a popular coping mechanism that there is no shortage of articles and books that teach people how to master skimming, scanning, and speed reading.
How to Make Your Writing Easy to Skim
If we accept that the vast majority of our readers will be skimming our work, the next step is obvious: we must structure and format our business writing so they’re friendly to skimming.
This post provides five ways to do that.
1. Break Your Piece into Sections that Support Your Key Message
Readers find it easier to understand your written work when you’ve split it into distinct sections, each with a key point or topic that supports the main message of the piece.
Imagine opening an email and seeing a single, long paragraph that’s over twenty lines long. If you happen to be pressed for time right then, your instinctive response will be to sigh, close the email, and deal with it later.
Readers are more likely to give your message or document their immediate attention if they have fewer mental hoops to jump through to grasp your key point. By creating distinct sections, you give your readers the ability to absorb the information in discrete and manageable chunks.
2. Use Typography and White Space to Provide Structure and Improve Readability
Luke Jones illustrates this tip thoroughly and beautifully in his Medium post entitled 3 Typography Tips for a More Comfortable Read (Wayback Machine archive). It’s a five-minute read and well worth your time.
His key points:
- Use Typographic Hierarchy to create a clear page structure. Start by choosing the text size of your main body text. Set the size of primary headings to 180–200% of body text. Set the size of secondary headings to 130–150% of body text. Set the size of tertiary headings to 100–125% of body text.
- Use Paragraph and Line Spacing to make your words easier to scan. Set paragraph spacing to the size of the body text. Set line spacing to between 120–160% of text size.
- Keep your line length between 65–75 characters. Set your column width so that each line of text does not exceed 75 characters.
In addition to the typography tips above, use bolded or italicized text to emphasize the key points in your writing.
Most popular word-processing software products (e.g., Word, Google Docs) provide heading styles and vertical spacing options. You may need to read a few help pages to create your own custom styles and document templates, but it’s time well spent.
3. State Key Points in Section / Subsection Titles
Writing for business is the opposite of writing a suspense thriller or a murder mystery. We don’t take our readers along on a merry journey and save the big reveal for the end. Instead, we state our key points up front. There’s no better place to do this than in section and subsection titles.
Consider the headings of this fictitious “Recommendations” section. A reader who is merely skimming the document won’t see the key point of each recommendation from these headings.
Recommendations:
1. Coordination 2. International Considerations 3. Age Considerations
In contrast, consider these re-worded section titles and how they’re more useful to someone who skims:
Recommendations:
1. Use a centralized glossary of terms 2. Create localized glossaries for strategic international markets 3. Enforce content filters for teenaged users
Use the section or subsection title to express each recommendation as an imperative statement and you’ll get your point across quickly.
4. Use Bullet Points Liberally
Bullet points improve the readability of long paragraphs by breaking them into lists that can be skimmed.
If the key message of each bullet point needs some elaboration, state the key point in the first sentence of the bullet and make the first sentence bold. Someone skimming your work can immediately get the key points just by reading the bolded text.
Section 2 of this blog post (Use Typography and White Space) illustrates this tip.
5. State Key Points in Chart Titles and Captions
At some point in your business writing, you will need to create charts or graphs to communicate information to a management audience.
When you create a graph or chart, use the title text to state the key point of the chart itself. Don’t be satisfied with merely stating the subject matter of the chart.
Two examples:
- Generic chart title: Help Desk Tickets Created in Q3 2015.Better chart title: Q3 2015 Help Desk Tickets up 22% vs. Q2
- Generic chart title: Gender Breakdown of Monthly Active UsersBetter chart title: 67 percent of Monthly Active Users are Female
A reader who does not have time to study the chart will get your key point by simply reading the chart title. A reader who does have time to study the chart will know to check for data that supports your key point.
Use the same principle when you write captions for figures or tables.
In Summary
While the tips in this article are by no means exhaustive, they are easy to follow and will greatly improve the readability and effectiveness of your business communications.
To recap:
- Break Your Piece into Sections that Support Your Key Message
- Use Typography and White Space to Provide Structure and Improve Readability
- State Key Points in Section / Subsection Titles
- Use Bullet Points Liberally
- State Key Points in Chart Titles and Captions
A quick final test: skim through your document or email with fresh eyes and read only the headings, section and subsection titles, bullet points, chart titles, captions, and other bolded text. If your key points jump out at you while you’re skimming the text, well done!
