Effective Writing PDF

Writing for change
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Writing for change - main menu
Effective writing: core

Writing for science Writing for advocacy
skills
INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION UNDERSTANDING
Principles of effective writing A different form of writing ADVOCACY
What we will cover Who you are writing for
CREATING A MESSAGE What to write for whom
Defining your purpose DEVELOPING THE Constructing a message
Analysing your readership CONCEPT Hearts and minds
Writing a message sentence Why publish Paradigms
Checking your message What to publish
Your main message MEDIA FOR ADVOCACY
ORGANISING YOUR IDEAS Your readership Articles
Creating a structure Where to publish Leaflets
Collecting evidence Newsletters
Writing an outline PREPARING AN OUTLINE Pamphlets
Types of papers Press releases
WRITING A FIRST DRAFT Main message Posters
Functions of prose Principal objective and hypothesis
Explanation techniques Materials and methods Resource centre
Summary and introduction Principal findings RESOURCES
Navigation aids Conclusions Recommended reading
Resource materials Introduction Useful journals and magazines
Using graphics Useful websites
Elements of layout WRITING THE FIRST
DRAFT HELP
EFFECTIVE EDITING Deepening the outline A guide for trainers
General principles Introduction How to navigate
Constructing effective Materials and methods Frequently asked questions
paragraphs Results
Improving your sentences Discussion ABOUT US
Choosing your words Writing a first draft Fahamu
Writing style Authors
Acknowledgements
TOPPING AND TAILING IDRC
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Writing for change - main menu
Title
Ethics of authorship
Abstract
Acknowledgements
References
Appendices
Editing your manuscript
PUBLISHING
Submitting the manuscript
Responding to editors
Correcting proofs
Marketing the publication
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Writing for change - effective writing
INTRODUCTION
Effective writing gets results. That's the most important idea in this
manual. Many people assume that the main purpose of writing is to
convey information.
But effective writing does more than that. Behind the 'information' or
'facts', there is always something else that writers are trying to do.
They are trying to:
● influence the way you see the world;

● get you to believe something is true;
● get you to do something, to make a decision; or
● follow a set of procedures.
That 'something else' is what we call an idea or message.
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The quality of your writing depends on the quality of your ideas.
We judge ideas differently from the way we judge facts. We judge

facts according to how accurate we find them. We judge ideas
according to how meaningful we find them.
Persuasion involves presenting an effective argument. It makes sense

from the reader's point of view.
But a good argument is not enough. It will convince only if supported

by evidence - facts.
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PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE WRITING

Effective writing is built on the following principles.
● Your document should have one governing idea.

● You should address a specific person or group.
● You should make your point, then support it.
● Support your governing idea with a limited number of other
ideas, ordered logically.
● Make the document as easy to read as possible.
Effective writing: core skills shows you how it's done.
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Creating a message
CREATING A MESSAGE
Your document will be more persuasive if it has one governing idea.
Let's call this governing idea the main message. You might give your
message another name. You might, for example, call it a thesis, a
proposal, a proposition or a summary. We like the word message
because the word suggests a specific kind of idea.
● It's aimed at a specific person or group.

● It has a practical purpose.
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Creating a message
DEFINING YOUR PURPOSE

What do you want your document to do?
This is a very different question from asking: What's the document

about?
At work, we write to get results. This means that thinking about the
document's subject is unhelpful. You could, after all, write huge
amounts of material about any subject. You can only narrow the
options by identifying the document's purpose: what you want it to
do.
Distinguish carefully between:
● what you want to achieve;

● what you want the reader to do;
● what you want the document to do.
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Creating a message
ANALYSING YOUR READERSHIP

At work, many documents circulate to wide audiences. Different
readers will have different expectations, priorities and levels of
knowledge.
Planning the document will be easier if you have some sense of who
your readers are and what they expect.
In this section we look at the readership in some detail. We'll think

about:
● three types of readers;

● managing the primary reader's expectations;
● key persuasive factors that will help to convince the primary
reader.
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Creating a message
WRITING A MESSAGE SENTENCE

An effective document delivers a single main message.
The message is your document's governing idea. Everything else - the

other ideas, the information to support them, how it is all ordered,
how you present the material - depends on that message.
Your message isn't a title or an explanation of what you are doing in

the document. It is the single most important point you need to make
to express your purpose.
In this section we'll look at how to create an effective message. This

involves:
● Constructing the message

● Checking and improving the message
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Creating a message
CHECKING YOUR MESSAGE

Validating (checking) your message helps you to make sure that your
message is appropriate: to you, to the reader and to the ideas that
you are interested in putting across.
You can validate the message by working out a story about how it
came into being. This story may also be useful later as the core of an
introduction - in a report, for example.
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Organising your ideas
ORGANISING YOUR IDEAS

The natural way we think is by creating structures. In order to
understand any one piece of information in more detail, we need to:
● break it into pieces;

● see how those pieces fit together.
If you can perform those two operations on your message, you will
create a structure that your reader's mind will find most natural to
understand.
That structure is made up of ideas. Because ideas can only be

organised logically - and not in any other way - the structuring
principle for your document must be logic of some kind.
So your task is to break the message into pieces and present them in
a logical sequence. This section takes you through the steps that will
allow you to do just that.
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CREATING A STRUCTURE
Creating the structure of your document is done in two stages:
● First-stage thinking: generating ideas;

● Second-stage thinking: organising the ideas into a robust
structure.
First-stage thinking is sometimes called 'divergent' or 'radiant'

thinking. During this stage, we explore and gather anything and
everything that we think we might be of interest or use.
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COLLECTING EVIDENCE
Every lawyer knows that, to persuade effectively, you need sound
evidence to support a convincing argument. To quote Rudolph Flesch,
a key teacher in effective writing: 'You'll never convince anyone by
logic alone.'
You've worked out the pyramid of your ideas. Now you need the
evidence to support them.
Does it seem odd that we should think about collecting evidence after
working out our ideas? Surely we must look at the evidence before
coming to a conclusion.
That seems to make sense. But, if you think about it, you cannot look
for any evidence unless you know what it might be evidence for. And
the only thing that evidence can support is an idea.
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WRITING AN OUTLINE
Writing an outline is the final stage of planning your report. The outline
translates your pyramid structure into a blueprint that you can use to
prepare your first draft.
Constructing the outline forces you to clarify your thinking. By

organising your ideas into a numbered format, you can check that
every idea is in the right place and well expressed.
The outline isn't a first draft. It won't include all the information or
evidence you want to give, but only the principle ideas. It includes only
your message, key points, sub-points and minor points.
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Writing the first draft
WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT

Writing your first draft should be considerably easier once you have an
outline to work from.
Creating a first draft means expanding the outline by adding:
● text;
● headings;
● numbering;
● graphics.
The sentences in the outline should give you a clear idea of what to
say in each section.
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FUNCTIONS OF PROSE
Prose is any writing that is not organised into poetic form. This entire
manual is about writing prose.
Functional prose is prose that has a job to do. Many hundreds of years
ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle categorised the jobs that prose
can do under four broad headings. Understanding these functions of
prose helps us to write better: if we can identify what kind of writing
we're doing at any point, we can do it better.
So, what do you think prose can do? Make a list on your notebook of
all the things you can think of that writing can do.
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EXPLANATION TECHNIQUES
Page for page, you probably write more explanation than any other
kind of writing. Instructions, examples, comparisons, accounts of how
something caused something else - all are explanation. Even proposals
will use explanation to support their advocacy at one point or another.
Specifically, we can identify seven types of explanation.
● Example
● Analogy
● Definition
● Categorisation
● Comparison and contrast
● Cause and effect
● Process analysis
Let's look at each type.
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SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION

Many writers confuse these two parts of a document. In this section,
we clarify the difference between them and help you to write each
well.
Put simply, we can distinguish the summary and the introduction like
this.
● The summary of a document is a version of the whole document

in miniature.
● An introduction is a part of the document that tells the story of
how it came to be written. It may also include other elements.
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NAVIGATION AIDS
Professional documents should contain navigation aids to help the
reader find their way around. The most important of these are the
Summary and Introduction. Others include:
● headings;
● titles;
● numbering systems.
The paper you are writing may not include all of these. Larger reports
will certainly contain many of them.
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RESOURCE MATERIALS
Papers for academic or professional publication may include resource
materials. This indicates the resources you have used in your own
research. Your reader will want to see where your information comes
from, whose work you've referred to, who has helped you and what
you mean by special terms or abbreviations.
The main elements of resource materials are:
● References
● Bibliography
● Glossary
● Acknowledgements
● Appendices
Each has its own conventions.
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USING GRAPHICS
Graphics (often called 'figures' in reports) make technical information
clearer by presenting it visually. Some simple guidelines will help you
to make the most of the power to create graphics which computers
now give to writers.
Keep your graphics simple. They should illustrate only one idea - and
the reader should be able to understand that idea immediately.
Use very few words in graphics: title, labels, scales, numbers and
essential information. Don't be tempted to add arrows or comments
within the graphic.
Place a graphic on the page where you refer to it. Make the point that
you want the picture to illustrate; present the picture; add any
discussion as appropriate.
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ELEMENTS OF LAYOUT
Good writing needs good layout.
Until recently, writers could do little to control the way their writing
looked on the page. Now computers offer us a bewildering array of
layout techniques. Used sparingly, they can add to the impact and
quality of your document. Of course, your circumstances may limit
your options in this area. Where you can choose, this section will help
you.
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Effective editing
EFFECTIVE EDITING
The aim of editing is to make your first draft easier to read.
The words on the page should never get in the way of your meaning.
The reader should never have to stop at any point and wonder what
you are saying.
Language is like a window through which your reader can see what
you mean. Editing is like polishing the window. It usually means
taking away the words that you don't need. You should be aiming to
make your language transparently clear.
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Effective editing
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Good editing means making wise choices. What words should you use?
What order do you put them in? There is never a single correct
answer.
Before we look at editing in detail, here are some general principles.
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Effective editing
CONSTRUCTING EFFECTIVE PARAGRAPHS

Paragraphs display the shape of your thinking. A paragraph highlights
a key idea that you want to convey and groups sentences together to
support it.
Use a new paragraph for each new idea. Every time you take a step,
say something new or change direction, you should start a new
paragraph.
You can edit paragraphs in a number of ways.
● Using topic sentences

● Managing paragraph length
● Linking paragraphs together
● Using key words
● Laying out the paragraph
● Using bullet point lists
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Effective editing
IMPROVING YOUR SENTENCES

Sentences exist to express ideas.
The best sentences are sturdy and straightforward. The reader can
understand them easily, without having to reread them. Sentences
become difficult to read for two main reasons.
● The sentence is too long. If you use too many words to

express an idea, the reader will get lost. Aim for an average
sentence length of 15-20 words.
● The sentence is poorly constructed. Sentences are built up
out of phrases: groups of words that express a single element of
meaning. If the reader has to hold too many phrases in their
mind at once, they will struggle. If phrases become knotted or
over-complicated, reading will become more difficult.
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Effective editing
CHOOSING YOUR WORDS

English gives you a far greater choice of words than many other
languages.
The main reason for this huge choice is that English is, and always has
been, a hybrid language. It emerged as a mixture of three languages -
Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin - and it has continued to absorb words
from other languages ever since: from Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Hindi,
Chinese and Persian, to name only a few.
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Writing for change - writing for science
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Writing papers for academic or scientific journals requires particular
skills. You certainly need to be able to write well, using all the skills
you acquired through studying the section on Effective Writing: core
skills. But writing for journals is different from other forms of writing.
Although most researchers, whether working in the social, physical,

biomedical or other sciences, have an intimate knowledge of their
disciplines, very few have been trained in writing for publication. Most
acquire these skills through trial and (often painful) error.
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Introduction
A DIFFERENT FORM OF WRITING

Writing for publication in journals is different from other forms of
professional writing for a number of reasons.
Whenever you produce a report, you are effectively the publisher. You
have the freedom to decide what you will include, its length, the
amount of graphical information, its format, style and content.
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Introduction
WHAT WE WILL COVER

This manual is about how to write for journals in a way that will
increase the likelihood of your papers being published.
This manual is not about how to do research. Your area of expertise

may be so different from our own that we could not advise you on how
to design and conduct your research.
To get the most out of this manual, you should have already
completed your research and data analyses and be ready to prepare a
manuscript for publication.
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Developing the concept
DEVELOPING THE CONCEPT

Before putting pen to paper, you must first build the concept of the
paper in your mind.
We can imagine how you feel. You have spent months, if not years,
researching. You are faced with mounds of notes, computer print-outs,
analyses, tables, graphs, papers. Where do you begin?
There is so much to say, so many complex inter-related activities to

describe, so much literature to read. However will you find the time to
bring it together in a paper? And how can all of this be reduced to a
few pages for publication?
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WHY PUBLISH
Publication in academic or scientific journals may be important for
several reasons.
● Promotions and career prospects for academics and scientists

usually depend on the number of papers they have published and
on how frequently these are cited by others. Is this something
that you are concerned about?
● Publication enables other researchers to reflect upon your
findings. They will assess the inferences and conclusions you
have drawn in your paper in order to develop their own thinking.
They might even, as a result, change their own views. Do you
have something to contribute to that process?
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WHAT TO PUBLISH
We can broadly divide publications into two types:
● Papers whose main purpose is develop ideas or theories.

This type also includes 'review papers' where the existing
literature is re-examined from a fresh (or different) perspective.
Although such papers may include empirical data, their main
purpose is to develop ideas or theories.
● Papers whose main purpose is to report on empirical
findings from original research or experiments. There is a
tradition for such papers to be written in a stylised form and to
have a pre-ordained structure. The writer has much less freedom
to decide how to present the main message.
Which of these two types of papers are you thinking of publishing?
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YOUR MAIN MESSAGE

Deciding on the main message is probably the most difficult step in
preparing a paper for publication.
'Wait a moment!', we can hear you say, 'I'm a researcher. This isn't
propaganda! What do you mean message?'
All good publications, scientific, academic or popular, have a message.

In journal articles the message may sometimes be dressed up in 'safe'
clothing, but it's there all the same. For example, Einstein's famous
paper on relativity had a precise, simple and yet profound message,
which was summarised in the famous formula E=mc2.
Although the format of scientific publications is formal and apparently

neutral, well written papers always contain a clear, precise and definite
message.
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YOUR READERSHIP
Writing is about communicating with others. If you want to do it well,
it helps to know who you are communicating with.
The following little exercise will show you why.
Think about what you did last week and describe it in:
● a letter to a close friend or relative;

● a statement for the police.
Do you agree that the way you write - and perhaps even what you say
was different in each case?
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WHERE TO PUBLISH
Deciding which journal you should send your manuscript to needs
careful thought. Where should you publish your paper?
Many people leave the decision until they have written the paper. That
is fine if you are experienced in publishing. You probably have an idea
of two or three potential journals to whom you might send your
manuscript.
But if you are a new to publishing, the more certain you are about
which journal you are targeting, the easier it is to write the paper.
The following will help you work out which is the most appropriate and
suitable journal for the paper you are planning to write.
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Preparing an outline
PREPARING AN OUTLINE
Before you can start writing your paper, you should develop the
skeleton around which you will build it.
Preparing an outline is the most important step - after defining your

message - in the process of producing a paper for publication in a
journal.
We will work on the outline in two stages. Here we will guide you
through preparing a quick sketch of your outline. Doing this will help
you to gain an overview of your paper. Once you get into the details, it
is easy to lose sight of the paper as a whole.
When you come to writing the first draft, we will guide you through
putting in the detail.
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TYPES OF PAPERS
Papers developing ideas or theories
Papers reporting empirical data

MAIN MESSAGE OF THE PAPER

You have already prepared your 20-25 word key message sentence.
Write out that sentence at the top of a blank piece of paper in large
letters. This is going to be the heart of your paper. Everything you say
will be written to support this one key message.
Once you have done that, click on the forward button to move to the
next screen.
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PRINCIPAL STUDY OBJECTIVE OR HYPOTHESIS

Write down your principal study objective or hypothesis. The two
should be related.
For example, if your key message sentence was:
Joint forest management schemes significantly reduce illicit destruction

of trees.
Your study objective was probably something like this:
To investigate whether joint forest management schemes reduce the

incidence of illicit destruction of trees.
And, your hypothesis might have been:
Joint forest management schemes can reduce the incidence of illicit

destruction of trees.
Now you try it.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS

Remember, at this stage, you are only constructing an outline. We will
look at how to write this section in more detail and with greater care at
a later stage. For the moment, you need to put down some notes to
guide your thinking.
Make brief notes under the following headings:
Population: Who (or what 'universe of individuals') did you study?
For example, your population may have been: 'All households of

farmers with less than two hectares of land in district xxx'; or 'Seven
species of Streptomyces'.
Sampling: How was the sample obtained? Were there any special
methods that need to be mentioned which may have a bearing on the
interpretation of the findings?
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PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Your message sentence probably encapsulates the most important
findings. There may be others that you feel ought to be included.
List these in note form. For the present don't worry about the order or
how many you put down.
List as many as you can. We will work on that list shortly.
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CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS
What are the principal implications of your findings? What actions, if
any, would you propose should be taken by other researchers in the
light of what you have found? Are there any changes in practice,
approaches or techniques that you would recommend?
Make brief notes on each of the implications that you think arise from
your study. List them without editing or worrying about the order.
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INTRODUCTION
Before you begin on the introduction, stop and read through the notes
you have made so far in your outline. Read them through and see
whether there is a coherent story, a unifying theme that runs through
the outline. Is there a story there? Does it knit together well?
Your outline should start with the main message, describe what the
purpose or objective of your study was, how you went about doing the
study, what you found and what are the implications of what you
found. If the story outline is there, then it should all point towards
your main message.
If your outline doesn't 'tell a story', you may need to do some work on
it before you prepare your outline introduction.
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WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT

We will use the outline that you prepared to begin writing the first
draft of your paper.
Deepening the outline. First we will work at elaborating, enriching

and deepening the contents of the outline. We will look in greater
depth at what you should include in each section of the paper.
Writing the first draft. We will then look at how to write the paper,
taking account of the requirements of journals that manuscripts be
written in a particular style.
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DEEPENING THE OUTLINE

The next step will be to add the details to the outline that you
sketched. Your aim here is to put things in the right order and to make
sure that you have covered all the necessary ground.
To help you do this, we provide a check list of questions. You should

provide answers to each of those that are relevant to your situation.
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INTRODUCTION
The introduction should provide the reader with enough information to
allow them to understand and evaluate why it was necessary to carry
out the study.
The introduction takes the reader from what they already know to
what you want to tell them. By the end of the introduction, the reader
will be persuaded that there is an important problem to be addressed
and will understand the context of your main message.
So, how will you do all this? You will use the SPQR that you prepared
in your outline and elaborate upon it. As you do so, ask yourself:
'What do I need to include in the introduction to help me convey the
main message effectively?'
We provide you with a list of questions that you should consider as you
write.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS

Your main purpose in the materials and methods section is to describe
how you carried out the study.
How much should you include? This is the part that new researchers
most often get wrong. They believe that everything that was done or
used in the study should be described in detail. It shouldn't.
The clue to writing the materials and methods is to ask: how little
information do I need to provide to allow another competent
scientist, a specialist in my field, to repeat the study or experiment?
Such a person will be familiar with most of the commonly used
techniques. You may need to include references to literature that
describes an unusual technique. But only provide a description if you
have developed a new technique or extensively modified existing ones.
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RESULTS
The purpose of the results section is to present only those results that
are strictly necessary in order to justify your conclusions - your main
message.
Both new and seasoned researchers can go wrong here.
● This is not the place to present all the data that you have
collected.
● This is not the place to present the results of every bit of
analysis that you have valiantly performed. The place for those is
in your field or laboratory notebooks.
No doubt you have laboured for months (if not years) producing the
results of your study. You know them intimately. You've looked at
them in all kinds of ways. You are keen to show how well you've done,
how you've thought of everything. You are dying to get this down on
paper.
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DISCUSSION
The main purpose of the discussion is to:
● describe your principal conclusions;

● assess or evaluate them in the light of existing knowledge;
● highlight the main implications of your findings;
● indicate where further work is necessary;
● summarise your main conclusions.
Let us look at what each of these involves.
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WRITING A FIRST DRAFT

You should now have detailed notes that you will be able to use to
write your draft paper. Some of it will already be written, some of it
will need to be translated into a narrative form.
Before you start writing, take a break. Do something completely

different. Start writing only when you are fresh.
Set aside some quiet time when you can write the first draft in peace.
Then when you are ready to start writing ...
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WRITING STYLE
Writing for journals is different from most other forms of writing
because journals insist on a uniformity of style in the papers that they
publish.
If you understand the conventions established by journals, you will

find it easier to write your paper.
There are four things that cause most people difficulties:
● which verb tense to use;

● whether to use we, I or it;
● writing to suit the habits of the reader;
● brevity.
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Topping and tailing
TOPPING AND TAILING

So far you have written the core of your paper.
Your next step is to complete the manuscript so that it is ready to be

sent to the journal.
Your paper will need:
● a title;
● a list of authors;
● an abstract;
● acknowledgements;
● references;
● a final edit.
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Writing for change - writing for advocacy
Understanding advocacy
UNDERSTANDING ADVOCACY
Advocacy is persuading people to take action. It's about
recommending, supporting, challenging or defending ideas.
Effective writing: core skills (which you should have completed

before starting this section) is about writing to get results. It is about
recommending, supporting, challenging or defending ideas in writing.
We will be building on the skills you learned there.
Our main focus in Effective writing: core skills was how to write
effective professional reports. In Writing for science we discussed
how to write effectively for publication in the scientific or
academic press. Here, we look at how to write effectively for non-
specialist audiences.
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WHO YOU ARE WRITING FOR

Non-specialist audiences might include:
● 'lay' members of the public;

● your project's stakeholders;
● government officials;
● newspapers or magazines;
● your allies in other organisations or institutions;
● staff in your own organisation.
But why would you want to write for them?
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WHAT TO WRITE FOR WHOM

What kind of written material you produce for each type of audience
depends on your knowledge of that audience, its expectations, and
what you want them to do with the information.
You have already taken important steps towards defining that. Let's
develop further the example we used.
Call up the notepad in which you made your list of 'who needs to
know' and 'what you want them to do'. Next to each, note down what
you think might be the most appropriate form of written
communication you might use to convey your message.
Done?
Our own suggestions are shown on the next page.
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CONSTRUCTING A MESSAGE FOR ADVOCACY

All the key criteria of effective messages that we explored in writing a
message sentence apply here (see Effective writing: core skills).
Can you remember the checklist that we drew up to improve the

message?
If you need to, go back to that section now to refresh your memory.
So what's different about a message for advocacy?
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APPEALING TO HEARTS AND MINDS

You should, now, have clarity about the target audience, or range of
audiences, that you must address in different parts of your campaign.
But how do you get them to pay attention?
Different audiences have different priorities. They have their own

agendas, objectives and values. So they will be impressed by different
things. A government committee may be impressed by pages of
statistics, but such material is unlikely to win you support at the
grassroots.
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PARADIGMS
We are all persuaded by evidence that fits the paradigms governing
our own behaviour. Paradigms (another name might be mindsets) are
the deep values by which we live. They are the patterns through which
we see reality and make sense of our lives. They might be:
Paradigms often reveal themselves in what people say if you asked

them what they think is 'true'. Imagining what your target audience
might think about the 'truth' of your issue is a good way to start
discovering their paradigms.
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http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/advmed1.html
MEDIA FOR ADVOCACY

There is a wide range of media available for communicating with the
non-specialist audience. In this section, we look at the most common
forms of written media.
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ARTICLES
Articles are pieces of writing for publication in:
● newsletters;
● newspapers;
● magazines;
● journals.
The main distinguishing feature of an article is that it 'speaks' to its

reader. Its language should be close to the kind of spoken language
that its reader would use - or would like to use. It should flow. This is
not always easy to achieve.
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LEAFLETS
Leaflets are for delivering useful, reusable information.
They are normally created from a single sheet of paper, folded in half
or in three. Most leaflets start life as sheets of A4 paper, but you could
create one from A3 (twice the size of A4), folded as appropriate. The
size and shape of the leaflet is a major factor in its success. A leaflet
that people can't fit easily into a pocket or a bag will be thrown away.
Leaflets may also not be suitable for audiences who don't read much.
Of course, you could create a leaflet that uses mainly - or only -
pictures.
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NEWSLETTERS
Newsletters keep people in touch with what your organisation is doing.
They communicate both to the members of the organisation and,
often, to interested outsiders.
In a newsletter, you'll find news about the organisation and about

issues that are important, urgent or interesting.
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PAMPHLETS
Pamphlets are usually booklets that argue a case. They are the means
by which we explain the rationale behind a campaign, the values that
lie behind it.
You should be able to read a pamphlet in less than 30 minutes. It will

usually contain one document - you might call it an essay - which
develops a single, usually controversial, theme. Unlike a larger book, it
will probably not contain chapters, though it will probably be broken
into sections.
Pamphlets are usually small - about the size of the User's guide
accompanying this CDROM - and made up of a number of pages bound
or stapled together.
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PRESS RELEASES
Press releases send newsworthy information to media editors.
The aim of a press release is to give the editor something to work with
or from. You should not aim to write the story or article for them.
Sometimes organisations use press releases to inform other kinds of

reader: subscribers, members, the public, other activists. When
presented as a press release, the material can assume more power
than a letter. On the other hand, a press release sent to an important
official, minister or leader may not work as well as a personalised
letter.
Press releases must be accurate - but they must also sell the material.
It's easier to sell one idea than many, so - as with any other kind of
effective writing - focus on one idea.
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POSTERS
Posters are fairly cheap and easy to produce. Use them to give people
information about meetings, organisations, events and issues.
Most posters are designed to be read quickly. They need to make their
mark immediately. Others - intended for offices, libraries or other
places where people have a little time to stand and read - at a bus
stop or railway station perhaps - can contain lots of information.
Most posters mix writing, graphics and illustrations. You could consider
using only one of these elements for added effect.
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Writing for change - resources
Resources
Resources
Useful websites
Recommended reading
Useful journals and magazines
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Resources
RECOMMENDED READING
Anderson J and Poole M, Thesis and Assignment Writing, John Wiley,
1994.
Barker A, Writing at Work, Industrial Society, 1999.
Becker H, Tricks of the Trade: how to think about your research while
you're doing it, University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Bell J, Doing Your Research Project: A guide for first-time researchers

in education and social science, 2nd edition, Open University Press,
1987.
Berry R, The Research Project: how to write it, Routledge, third

edition, 1994.
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Resources
Journals
Magazines/Newsletters
The information contained in this section refers to publications related

to agricultural biodiversity. The material was prepared by Daniel
Buckles (IDRC).

Resources
USEFUL WEBSITES
AROW: http://www.cgiar.org/isnar/arow/index.htm Agricultural
Research Organisations on the Web (AROW) contains a worldwide
directory of organisations and universities working in agricultural
research that have a home page on the Web. It continues to develop
this directory with new listings being added all the time and old listings
being updated or deleted.
CART: http://www.oneworld.org/cart/ CART is a non-profit, people

centred development group whose members are predominantly
students and faculty of a technical institution (the NIE). It came into
existence in 1991 and has grown into a centre for appropriate
technology and development issues, focussing on technology in
development and sustainability of technological choices.
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Help
How to navigate
Frequently asked questions
A guide for trainers
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Help
INTRODUCTION
The following notes are drawn from handouts developed for Writing
for change trainers' workshops. They should be used in conjunction
with, and as a complement to, the Users' guide that comes with this
CDROM.
These notes don't constitute a complete manual on training. We

strongly recommend that you read A Trainer's Guide for Participatory
Learning and Action, by Pretty N, Guijt I, Scoones I and Thompson J,
International Institute for Environment and Development, London,
1995. Some of the material you will find here draws from that
excellent manual.
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Help
HOW TO NAVIGATE
Each page of the manual is designed with the following features:
`
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Help
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Where can I get more copies of Writing for change?
In Europe, you should contact fahamu. In North America, you should

contact IDRC. For the rest of the world, your can contact either
fahamu or IDRC. Click here for more details on how to order.
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About us
About us
fahamu
Authors
Acknowledgements
IDRC
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http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/resabo2.html
About us
fahamu
Established in 1997, fahamu seeks to strengthen the capacity of
nongovernmental organisations in the third world through exploiting
the potentials of information and communications technologies.
We produce learning materials, design and manage websites, run

training courses and provide support on a variety of ICT related work
for non-governmental organisations. fahamu also carries out social
policy research on Africa.
fahamu is currently developing distance learning materials and

courses designed to strengthen the campaigning and organisational
capacity of human rights organisations in southern Africa. This
initiative is supported by the European Union and IDRC.
The word 'fahamu' comes from the Kiswahili word for understanding or
knowledge.
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About us
THE AUTHORS
● Alan Barker is managing partner of Direction, a learning
consultancy that works to develop creativity and skilled
communication. He is also the author of How to be Better at
Managing People, How to be a Better Decision Maker (both
published by Kogan Page) as well as several books published by
The Industrial Society.
● Firoze Manji is director of fahamu. A Kenyan, he has more than
20 years work experience in development. He has worked for a
number of international agencies including the International
Development Research Centre, the Aga Khan Foundation and
Amnesty International. He is Visiting Fellow at Kellog College,
University of Oxford.
Judith Charlton, Tadpole Design (http://www.tadpoledesign.co.uk),

was responsible for illustrations and graphic design.
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About us
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thank: Shereen Karmali, who wrote the section on
proof-reading and edited various drafts; Anna Feldman for preparing
earlier outlines of Writing for advocacy; and Catherine Thompson for
copy-editing. Thanks also to John Pilbeam (University of Oxford) for
his help in preparing the CDROM for use on Macintosh computers.
Daniel Buckles, Senior Program Specialist, IDRC, commissioned this

work as part of the Using Agricultural Biodiversity Research Award
Programme. Don Peden, Senior Programme Officer, IDRC, provided
inputs on the ethics of authorship of scientific papers. Nina Frey, IDRC
Library, helped with literature searches. Our thanks also to Bill
Carman, Managing Editor, IDRC Books, for his many helpful
suggestions.
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About us
ABOUT IDRC
Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is

committed to building a sustainable and equitable world. IDRC funds
developing-world researchers, thus enabling the people of the South to
find their own solutions to their own problems. IDRC also maintains
information networks and forges linkages that allow Canadians and
their developing-world partners to benefit equally from a global
sharing of knowledge. Through its actions, IDRC is helping others to
help themselves.
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http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/scitop3.html
Topping and tailing
TITLE
Your title will be read by many more people than the rest of your
document. Hundreds - maybe thousands - of people may see your
document's title without reading or even seeing the document itself.
Librarians, indexing and abstracting services will use this short group
of words to classify the paper. Other authors who cite your paper will
include the title in their list of references, which, in turn, will be read
by thousands of readers.
Your title may also be the means by which readers find your
document. Apart from those who will read it at the head of the
document itself, the title may appear in indexes, literature-retrieval
systems and search engines. You should consider how these systems
will be able to manage the title you propose.
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Topping and tailing
ETHICS OF AUTHORSHIP
How does one decide on authorship? Perhaps no other issue results in
as much conflict and acrimony as the process of deciding who should
be cited as an author. Such problems can be avoided if thought is
given to defining what role each person has played in the research
process, what it means to be an author, understanding who owns the
data and having clarity about rights and responsibilities of publishing.
Understanding these issues allows you to plan authorship in a way that
brings benefits to all those involved, while maintaining your integrity
and intellectual honesty about the extent to which different people
have been involved in the work.
Let us look at some of the issues you should consider when planning
authorship. (We are indebted to Don Peden for providing thoughtful
material upon which much of the following is based.)
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Topping and tailing
ABSTRACT
'Abstract' is the slightly pompous title for a summary. It is a summary
of your paper. It should be no longer than about 400 words. It says
everything that you want to say in the document, without including
any detail.
Obviously, your abstract should contain only ideas that are also in the
document.
You are producing a abstract for readers who:
● don't want to read the whole paper; or

● want to decide whether to read more; or
● want to work out where to find some part of the paper that
interests them.
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Topping and tailing
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The purpose of the acknowledgement section is to thank people. The
production of knowledge involves a large number of individuals and
institutions. Different people give their labour (intellectual or manual)
to every aspect of scientific work. The input of all those who contribute
substantially should be acknowledged.
You should include acknowledgements to donors, funding agencies,

research award committees, industries and all those who have made
financial contributions to the project.
This is not merely a matter of courtesy and gratitude. It is part of the

process of declaring interests, providing information that the reader
requires in order to evaluate potential bias in your research.
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Topping and tailing
REFERENCES
The purpose of the references section is to provide readers with
precise details of the literature you have cited so they are able to find
these papers with ease. The purpose is not to demonstrate either how
erudite you are or to show how much you have read.
The literature cited is as much a part of the evidence as anything else

that you include in the paper. It is part of the evidence that an
independent competent scientist who specialises in your field will use
to judge the reproducibility of your findings.
You should cite in your paper only references to the most important
publications. You should not aim to be comprehensive.
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Topping and tailing
APPENDICES
Our advice: do not use appendices in journal articles.
● If there is important information that should accompany the

paper, then include it in the text. If the information is complex,
consider presenting it as a table.
● If the information is non-essential, exclude it.
Appendices may be appended to reports. They should not form part of

a journal article.
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Topping and tailing
EDITING YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Good editing means making wise choices. What words should you use?
What order do you put them in? There is never a single correct
answer.
We have already discussed editing skills in some detail in the

Effective Writing: core skills section. Here we remind you of the
general principles.
● Take a break before you start editing. Set your first draft
aside and do something else before editing it. This will allow you
to look at what you've written more independently - as if you
hadn't written it.
● Ask for a second opinion. Give your work to a colleague or
friend, whose opinion you respect. It's important, however, that
you make the final editing choices.
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http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/scipub1.html
Publishing
PUBLISHING
The next stage involves submitting the paper to the journal of your
choice.
You should refer to the journal's guidelines for authors to makes sure
you comply precisely with the instructions.
In this chapter, we will guide you on how to:
● submit your paper for publication;

● respond to editors;
● correct proofs;
● draw the right people's attention to your published work -
marketing your paper.
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Publishing
SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT

There is always a surprising amount to do in preparing the manuscript
for submission. Use the following check-list to make sure you have
complied with all the requirements of the journal's guidelines.
● Is the manuscript structured exactly as required? Have you used

the correct headings, and is each section of the paper in the right
order?
● Have you used double-line spacing throughout?
● Have you ensured wide margins?
● Have you provided all the necessary information on the title
page?
● Have you provided the details of the authors' affiliations?
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Publishing
RESPONDING TO EDITORS
Some time after submitting your manuscript, you will receive
comments from the editor. This will usually comprise a letter
accompanied by comments from referees. Normally, you will not be
told the identity of the referees.
You must brace yourself. None of us ever open the letter without some
anxiety.
No-one, not even the strongest of us, likes to be told that our work is
less than perfect. It is painful. In the majority of cases, editors (and
reviewers) will be trying to help you produce high quality science.
Nevertheless, it is easy to be hurt and to react emotionally.
Feedback from the editors and referees is a dish best eaten cold.
Never respond immediately. Give yourself a few days to reflect.
Editors will do their best to be courteous and gentle, but they also
need to be clear to avoid being misunderstood. This can be difficult.
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Publishing
CORRECTING PROOFS
When your paper is finally accepted for publication, the editor may
make a number of changes to it:
● correcting any grammar and spelling mistakes;

● standardising spellings, abbreviations, units of measurements,
etc, according to the journal's house style.
This process is known as copy-editing. The paper then goes to the

typesetter, who will produce proofs. These proofs will usually look like
the pages of the published journal.
You will be sent a copy of the proofs and asked to check them carefully
for any errors.
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Publishing
MARKETING THE PUBLICATION

Just because you have a paper published in a journal doesn't mean
anyone will read it.
There is so much published every day that even the most hard
working scientist will not read everything that they ought to. How will
they know, unless they were specifically looking for your paper, that
you have just made an important contribution to knowledge in your
field?
Well, you could take the trouble to draw their attention to the paper.
One way of doing that is to send people a copy of your paper. Don't
feel shy about doing so. You are doing them a favour: they won't need
to search for it or photocopy it in the library.
But who should you send it to? You can't send it to everyone. Clearly
you must make a decision about who is important.
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Constructing an effective document is a process in four stages:
● Creating a message
● Organising your ideas
● Writing the first draft
● Editing for greater clarity
This module takes you through each stage in turn and helps you to
produce a document that will get the results you want.
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Creating a message
The message is the most important idea in your document. Everything

else in the document depends on it. The message dictates:
● the other ideas in the document;

● how you organise and express those ideas;
● the information you use to support them.
Creating a message involves four steps. What are they?
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Creating a message
Because the message is the most important idea in your work, you
need to spend some time working out what it is and checking that it's
appropriate: for you, for the reader and for your purpose.
Creating your message involves four key steps:
1. Defining your purpose
2. Analysing your readership
3. Writing a message sentence
4. Checking your message
Let's look at each step, in turn.
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Creating a message
Defining your purpose
Analysing your readership
Writing a message sentence
Checking your message

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effcre6.html
Creating a message
Make your purpose as specific as you can. In this section, we'll look at
some useful words to define different kinds of purpose.
So defining your purpose is a matter of:
● identifying the change you want to achieve (your objective);

● identifying what you want the reader to do;
● clarifying what you want the document to do.
The end result of this analysis is a function statement.
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Creating a message
What is your objective?
What do you want the reader to do?
What's the document's purpose?
Write a function statement

Creating a message
What is your objective?
What do you want to achieve? What do you want to happen as a result

of your reader reading this document? You probably don't want things
to stay as they are. So what change are you looking for?
It may help to write down a sentence beginning with the words
I want..
or
I want ... to happe
or
I want to achieve..
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Creating a message
Three types of readers
Managing expectations
Key persuasive factors

Creating a message
Three types of readers
Think about all the people who will or might see this document. Make
a list of all the readers you can think of.
● How many are there? Do you know their names? It might be

worth the effort to find out.
● What are their roles and responsibilities? Which readers will take
the action you want to be taken? Your document will probably be
wasted if the wrong person reads it.
● What do they need to know? What do they want to hear? There
may be a conflict between the two.
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Creating a message
Managing expectations
Think about your primary readership and put yourself into their
position. Asking some or all of these questions will help you write more
directly and persuasively.
Type of report: How does the reader like information delivered?

Would a presentation be better than a document?
Nature of outcome: Will the reader expect to be given a course of

action, or options to consider?
Subject limits: Overview or one part only? Global practice or internal

activities? Departmental or organisation-wide?
Level of detail: Summary or intimate detail? The same level of detail

throughout?
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Creating a message
Key persuasive factors
The key persuasive factors are the most important elements in

convincing your reader. They may arise from the reader's:
● background;
● strategy, priorities or driving values;
● place in the organisation;
● relationship to the social environment.
What persuades you may not be persuasive to the reader. For

example, you may consider a community project worth pursuing
because you are committed to that community's development. Your
reader may never have heard of this community and will judge the
project according to other, quite different, criteria.
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Creating a message
Constructing the message
Checking and improving the message

Creating a message
Constructing the message
Remember the function statement that your prepared earlier? Look

at on the first part:
I want this document to..
Now, think about your primary readership. Who are they? What do
they expect? Which key persuasive factors do you think will most
strongly influence them?
Imagine this situation. You are holding a conversation with the

primary readers. It is the start of the conversation and greetings have
been exchanged. They have no idea what you are about to talk about.
They're waiting for you to say something interesting. What would you
say?
Write down in a single sentence the most important point you

want to make.
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Creating a message
Checking and improving the message
Here is a checklist to help you construct an effective message.

Remember that a message, by definition, is a piece of information
targeted at a specific person or group for a specific reason.
An effective message:
● expresses your purpose;

● makes a single point;
● must be a sentence;
● should contain about 15-20 words;
● is focussed on action;
● is interesting to the reader;
● is written in familiar terms;
● provides new information;
● provokes a question in the reader's mind.
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Creating a message
The story follows four stages. We can remember this sequence using
the acronym SPQR (which you may remember from history lessons as
the motto of the Roman Republic...Senatus Populusque Romani -
meaning the Senate and People of Rome).
● Situation
● Problem
● Question
● Response
We'll look at each of these elements in turn.
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Creating a message
Situation
Problem
Question
Response

We can think of organising information as a process in three steps:
● creating a structure of ideas;

● collecting the evidence that will support those ideas;
● writing an outline that will show the key ideas and their
relationships.
The beauty of this process is that the structure you create to display
your ideas is always the same. And that structure is a pyramid.
We'll explain what we mean by a pyramid shortly.
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Creating a structure
Collecting evidence
Writing an outline

By contrast, second-stage thinking is sometimes called 'convergent'

or 'focused' thinking. This organises the material we have collected to
support one or another of our ideas. Every bit of evidence that we
include must justify its existence; it can only do so in support of an
idea.
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We tend to be much better at second-stage thinking than at first-stage

thinking. So much so that we often fail to see first-stage thinking as
thinking at all.
But we ignore first-stage thinking at our peril. No amount of excellent

second-stage thinking can compensate for poor or inadequate ideas.
You must spend time generating ideas before trying to assemble

them into a structure.
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Of course, you might be looking at information because you have a

hunch or a half-formed idea in your mind - or even out of sheer
curiosity. Such intuitive research can be very valuable.
Research, like any other types of thinking, can be thought of as having

two stages:
● First-stage thinking: exploration, discovery;

● Second-stage thinking: collating, sifting, organising to support
the idea.
In practice, research has a habit of being iterative. In looking

purposefully for evidence, you may find something else that sends you
exploring new regions of ideas you may not even have thought of
before. They might contain even better evidence to support your
ideas. And, of course, you might find evidence that will actually change
the shape of your ideas.
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Altering an idea may affect its place in the pyramid or even the
structure of the pyramid itself. Be prepared to change the structure of
your ideas as you find more evidence. But be prepared also to limit the
range of your research to those areas that directly relate to your
argument.
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Principles of outlining
How to use the outline
Checking the outline

Principles of outlining
At the top of a page, write your message sentence, headed Message.
Follow this with a headed Introduction: SPQR, briefly stated.
Then write each key point sentence, numbered, in order, with each
sub-point and minor point numbered beneath each key point. Use a
decimal numbering system for maximum clarity:
1.
1.1
1.1.1
and so on.
Add a title for the whole outline. At this stage, other headings are
unnecessary.
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How to use the outline
So what use is an outline?
It has three main uses:
● to check that your plan is coherent;

● to help you produce your first draft;
● as 'work in progress' in conversation with your primary reader.
It shows you clearly - on one page - what points you want to make,
and how they fit together.
You can use the outline to alter the structure of your ideas, without
changing lots of text.
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Checking the outline
Once you have prepared your outline, you should use the following
checklist to improve it as necessary.
● Is the message still appropriate to the primary reader?

● Does the message still express your purpose clearly?
● What question does the message provoke? Why? How? Which
ones?
● Are your key points all answers to that question?
● What principle governs the order of the key points? ranking
order (importance, size, priority), process steps,
chronology, logical reasoning
● Can you justify ordering them in this way?
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Think of writing the first draft as a separate activity from either

planning or editing. Be guided by the following principles.
● Write quickly. Don't ponder over words. Keep going. Leave

gaps if necessary. Aim for a natural flow.
● Write in your own voice. Expressing yourself in your own way
will help you to say what you mean more exactly. If your reader
can 'hear' your voice, reading will be easier.
● Write without interruption. Try to find a time and place where
you can think and write without distractions.
● Write without editing. Don't try to get it right first time. Resist
the temptation to edit as you go. You will tend to get stuck and
waste time.
● Keep to the plan of your outline. Use the sentences from your
outline to focus what you want to say. If you find yourself
wandering from the point, stop and move on to the next sentence
in the outline.
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Let's look at more detailed aspects of producing your first draft. We

suggest that you use these sections as you need to, rather than
working through all of them in order.
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Functions of prose
Description, explanation, advocacy and narration.
Look in this section to explore how to write each type.
Explanation techniques
Writing often involves explanation of one kind or another.
We explore six types of explanation and how you can use them.
Summary and introduction
Don't confuse these two important sections of a document.
Navigation aids
Headings, page and section numbering.
Resource materials
References, bibliographies, glossaries, appendices and more.
Using graphics
Bringing your information to life: using bullet points, tables, graphs

and more.
Elements of layout
Find out about choosing typefaces, spacing, highlighting and more.

What do you think prose can do?
Here are some of the actions that you might have included in your list.
In fact, prose on its own can only do some of these.
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What prose cannot do
For a start, there are certain things that prose cannot do. For example,
prose can't think - you can, but your writing can't. So, in our list, these
actions are actually impossible for prose to achieve.
Writing, by itself, cannot achieve any project or organisational

objective. This is important: as objectives for you, the writer, these
are of course quite legitimate. But don't confuse what you have to do
with what you want your writing to do.
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Example
Analogy
Definition
Categorisation
Comparison and contrast
Cause and effect
Process analysis

Example
An example makes a general idea concrete by giving one or more

specific instances.
Foodstuffs include crop residue, cultivated fodder and natural fodder.
One of the best known examples of methyl mercury poisoning was

discovered in 1956 in communities near Minamata Bay, Japan.
The Amazonian ecosystem is very complex. The foodchain, for

example, is longer and more detailed than any found in more northerly
river basins.
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Analogy
An analogy is a specific kind of example: it explains something by

comparing it to something else.
You must be confident that the analogy will hold: that the parallel you
are drawing is accurate. Consider:
A computer without a floppy disk is like a car without an engine.
This analogy fails because a floppy disk does not drive the computer.
Can you find a better analogy here?
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Definition
A definition identifies something uniquely: an object, a procedure, a

term or a concept. There are three types of definition.
A short definition explains by means of a synonymous word or

phase, often in brackets or between commas.
A sentence definition is made up of two sections: the class to which

the object belongs; and the features which distinguish it from all other
items in the class. A glossary is made up of sentence definitions.
An extended definition can be as short as a paragraph or as long as

a chapter. It may include a brief history of the term (the language it
came from, its current use, how the use has changed). An extended
definition should also include the object's function.
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Categorisation
The human mind seems to have a natural talent for sorting

information into categories. Categories are created by dividing
information into parts.
Every item under consideration should fit into one of your categories.
If you have odd items left over, add other categories or rework your
existing categories.
Categories should not overlap.
Items should fit into only one category. If you cannot decide where to
put something, ask yourself if it can be eliminated as irrelevant, or
whether it needs a category to itself.
Give each category a clear name. Sub-categories will come under

larger categories with more general names.
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Comparison and contrast
Comparisons display the similarities between things; contrasts show

the differences. You can use them separately, or together: comparison
before contrast.
Establish the criteria by which you are comparing and contrasting.

Have as many as possible: cost, convenience, prestige, size, security,
safety and so on.
Rank the criteria in priority order. This might be a controversial

exercise, but unless the criteria are weighted you will not be able to
contrast them effectively.
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Cause and effect
Cause and effect explains why something happened. The difficulty, of

course, is in deciding which is cause and which is effect!
A cause is so often the effect of another cause, which may be harder

to determine or control. Look for the immediate cause; the underlying
cause; and the ultimate cause.
Cause and effect is a technique fraught with danger. Determine which

type of cause you are searching for: immediate, underlying or
ultimate. What is your purpose in identifying these causes? Be open-
minded. Try not to rush to conclusions or to allocate blame 'politically'.
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Process analysis
A process analysis lists all the steps necessary to carry out an

operation.It may take the form of a set of instructions (like a recipe), a
quality procedure or a technical specification report. It proceeds step
by step. The steps must occur in a particular order: if the order is
wrong, the operation will fail.
Process analysis usually tells the reader about a process or how to do

it. Instructions tend to be far more detailed explanations.
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Summary
Introduction

Summary
The summary is your document in miniature. It should be no longer

than about 400 words maximum. It says everything that you want to
say in the document, without including any detail.
Obviously, your summary should contain only ideas that are also in
the document. Any idea in the summary must also be in the document
itself.
The summary comes at the very start of a document. The usual page
order is:
Title page
Summary
Contents list
Introduction
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Introduction
An introduction explains everything that the reader needs to know to

put the document into context.
At its heart is SPQR: the story of how the document came into being.
The introduction will emphasise:
● the problem that you are addressing;

● the question or questions that you are seeking to answer.
Because the 'response' element of SPQR is the same as your message,

you restate your message at the end of this story. You might express
it in slightly different terms from those you used in your summary.
For more on SPQR, look again at the section headed Checking the
message.
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Headings
Titles
Numbering systems

Headings
Headings are prominent navigation aids and you should use them
carefully. Individually, they can give the reader an immediate
indication of what they will see in each section; together, they are a
set of signposts that show what the whole document covers.
Perhaps the most important rule in using headings is: don't overdo
it.
Use headings only if they will clarify your meaning, and the structure
of your ideas. Too many headings may make reading difficult.
A good heading has high scanning value. It conveys a lot in a very few
words: vital when the reader is scanning the document at speed. A
heading should be accurate, specific, attention-grabbing and concise.
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Titles
The title of your document defines the document's contents in as few

words as possible. An effective title 'sells' the document to your reader
immediately.
The form of the title will depend on the type of document you are
producing. A poster, an article, a leaflet, a business document and a
scientific paper will each have a title: its style will be different in each
case.
Your title will be read by far more people than the rest of your
document. Hundreds - maybe thousands - of people may see your
document's title without reading or even seeing the document itself.
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Numbering systems
The two main systems of numbering that you could use are:
1. Page numbering
2. Section numbering
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References
Bibliography
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Appendices

References
References are the source materials that you have referred to or

quoted in your paper. Sources for this material might include:
● books;
● periodicals;
● published reports;
● in-house reports;
● websites;
● minutes of meetings;
● proceedings of conferences;
● theses, dissertations or other academic papers;
● personal communications.
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Bibliography
By common convention, a bibliography usually follows a list of

references.
A bibliography lists material that you have used but not referred to
directly in your paper. You might also include material that you think
your reader may find useful or interesting. You should separate these
two categories into two lists.
Sources for your bibliography will be similar to those for references.

The main difference in laying out your bibliography is that you will
arrange it alphabetically - and not, of course, numerically. Each item in
the bibliography should be full enough to allow the reader to find it.
The structure of the item will be exactly the same as for a reference -
without the number.
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Glossary
A glossary is a list of explanations of words. Arrange it alphabetically

by word explained.
A glossary is a vital navigation aid to help readers understand your

ideas more quickly, particularly if they lack your specialist knowledge
or don't work in your organisation. Of course, a glossary is also useful
for those readers who refuse to read the paper from the beginning.
A glossary can appear at the end of the paper as an appendix, or -

perhaps preferably - in or near your introduction.
You should also list acronyms and abbreviations in the same way as a
glossary - and for the same reasons.
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Acknowledgements
The acknowledgements section is where you thank those people or

institutions who may have contributed to your work. This is not just
politeness: it is important to declare your interests and the interest of
those who have supported the work.
If there are relatively few people whose help you want to

acknowledge, you should list these in the order of importance,
indicating briefly how each has helped.
If you have a long list, then consider ordering them alphabetically, or

group them by the type of assistance each has provided.
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Appendices
Appendices are useful for including material that does not directly
support the main ideas in your document.
They are particularly valuable when your paper is aimed at a diverse

audience. Some readers will want to see detailed facts and figures;
others will not. Data that specialists or future decision-makers may
want to use will probably find their way into appendices.
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The most common graphics are:
● Bullet points
● Tables
● Graphs
● Pie charts
● Bar charts
● Flow charts
In this section, we'll look at how these powerful graphic devices can
help you to explain complex information and support your key ideas.
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Bullet points
Tables
Graphs
Pie charts
Bar charts
Flow charts

Good layout makes your writing easier to read and more inviting to the
eye. The three key elements of good layout are:
● the font and the point size;

● space on the page;
● highlighting.
We'll look at all three here.
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Font and point size
Space on the page
Highlighting

Effective editing
● Take a break before you start editing. Set your first draft
aside and do something else before editing it. This will allow you
to look at what you've written more objectively - as if you hadn't
written it.
● Ask for a second opinion. Give your work to a colleague or
friend whose opinion you respect. It's important that you retain
the final editing choice.
● Edit on paper, not on screen. You can look at text on paper
more objectively.
● Edit for clarity. That means using plain English.
● Edit systematically. The most efficient approach is to edit the
text on three levels: paragraphs, sentences and words Trying to
improve your work word by word is time-consuming and tedious.
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Effective editing
Editing systematically
The approach to editing that we propose here is systematic. Edit on

three levels.
● Construct effective paragraphs.

● Improve long and complicated sentences.
● Choose words carefully.
In this way, you edit the largest units of meaning in your text first.
Problems at the sentence and word level will tend to disappear as you
edit paragraphs; other problems at the word level will fall away as you
edit sentences. Editing systematically means that you get maximum
benefit for minimum effort.
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Effective editing
Constructing effective paragraphs
Improving your sentences
Choosing your words

Effective editing
Using topic sentences
Managing paragraph length
Linking paragraphs together
Using key words
Laying out the paragraph
Using bullet point lists

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effedi8.html
Effective editing
Using topic sentences
A topic sentence summarises a paragraph. It expresses the

paragraph's governing idea. It should:
● be the first sentence in the paragraph;

● make a single point;
● contain no more than about 15 words;
● say something new;
● connect logically to the topic sentences before and after it.
Using a topic sentence helps you to decide what material to put in the
paragraph. Only ideas that support the topic sentence have a place
there. Your outline - if you've written one - is a ready source of topic
sentences.
Work hard at this technique. Nothing will do more to improve the

quality of your writing.
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Effective editing
Managing paragraph length
Working on topic sentences should bring your paragraphs under

control very quickly. But there is no iron rule about how long any
paragraph should be. Shorter paragraphs are generally easier to
understand than longer ones; a sequence of very short paragraphs,
however, can make your ideas look messy and incoherent.
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Effective editing
Linking paragraphs together
Your paragraphs should make sense in order. There are two ways to
ensure that they do.
● Read the topic sentences of paragraphs in order. They should

follow one another logically.
● Use link words or phrases to show the connections between
paragraphs. These transitions, as they are often called, may be
single words, phrases or even the whole topic sentence. Make the
links between your paragraphs explicit. If you don't spell out how
one idea relates to another, your reader may misunderstand you.
A list of common link words and phrases are shown on the next page.
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Effective editing
Using key words
Key words are words that bind a paragraph together and help the
reader to connect one paragraph to the next. Some words will be at
the heart of what you want to say; don't be afraid to repeat them.
Beware of using different words to express the same thing. Your

reader may not understand what you are doing and think that you are
talking about different ideas.
Distinguish between key words and other, less important words.

Repeat key words to reinforce the point you are making; find
alternatives to unimportant words that may become annoying if
overused.
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Effective editing
Paragraph layout
Paragraphs in modern documents are usually 'blocked': the first line is

not indented. (We don't indent our paragraphs in this manual, for
example.)
You can, of course, indent sub-paragraphs to show the structure of

your ideas. You might consider numbering sub-paragraphs.
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Effective editing
Using bullet point lists
Bullet point lists can lighten a paragraph by presenting detailed

information vertically. This puts space into the paragraph and makes
the detail easier to digest.
Use bullet points sparingly. They are very strong visual devices. You
may destroy the effect if you:
● use too many lists on one page;

● make them too long;
● use them for unimportant details.
More and more writers use bullet points, but few use them well. So
let's see how to do the job properly.
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Effective editing
As a general guideline, aim to express one idea per sentence. If you

must put two or more ideas into a sentence, think carefully about how
you do it.
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Effective editing
Three kinds of sentence
You can construct sentences in only three ways.
● Simple sentence
● Compound sentence
● Complex sentence
Understanding these methods of sentence construction will help you

take command of your sentences.
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Effective editing
So choosing the best word is an important part of writing well in

English. Five techniques will help you to make wise choices:
● Using plain English

● Activating passive verbs
● Using strong, clear, specific words
● Removing unnecessary words
● Using short words
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Effective editing
Using plain English
Activating passive verbs
Using strong, clear, specific verbs
Removing unnecessary words
Using short words

Introduction
A large proportion of papers submitted for publication are rejected

because they are poorly written. Important ideas and research findings
fail to reach the scientific community because of researchers' inability
to write clearly and follow the conventions of style and format
that are characteristic of journals.
This section of Writing for Change is designed to help you acquire

those skills and to improve the chances of your papers being accepted
for publication.
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http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/sciint4.html
Introduction
It is different when you write for journals.
● You can't write about anything you want - you can only write
about what a particular journal is interested in. Each journal
publishes papers on an extremely limited range of subjects.
● You can't write for whoever you want: your primary readership is
defined for you.
● You can't choose your own style of writing: it is set by
established standards, rules and conventions.
● You can't chose you own layout or format: these are determined
by the publisher and designed to make every paper look the
same.
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http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/sciint5.html
Introduction
● Whatever the purpose of your paper, it must be written so that

other experts can assess your observations, repeat your
experiments and evaluate your thinking. A group of your peers
will judge whether your paper meets their standards.
● You are competing with hundreds, possibly thousands, of others
who want their papers published in the same journal. Publishers
insist that papers are short and make minimal use of tables,
graphs and illustrations or other materials that might increase
the cost of publication.
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Introduction
To write, and write well, under such circumstances is not difficult,

provided you understand the rules and conventions.
Our aim is to help you acquire the necessary skills.
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Introduction
There are five chapters in this section. These will cover:
1. Developing a concept of the paper
Before starting to write, you will find it helpful to clarify for yourself:
● why you want to publish;

● what specific topic you want to write about;
● what is the most important message you want to convey;
● who you are writing for;
● which journal you plan to submit your paper to.
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Introduction
2. Preparing an outline
Your next step is to quickly sketch the outline of your paper. This will
help clarify your thinking and establish a framework for writing your
paper.
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To construct a concept of the paper you want to write, you must ask
yourself these questions:
● Why do you want to publish?

● What do you want to publish?
● What is the main message you want to convey?
● Who are you writing for?
● Which journal will you target?
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Why publish
What to publish
Your main message
Your readership
Where to publish

● Publication enables others to evaluate and test the reproducibility

or validity of your work. Do you feel confident that your research
will stand up to that test?
● Publication is a formal means of adding to the 'sum of human
knowledge'. That implies that what you publish must be
something new. Are you confident that your research has
produced new knowledge? Are you publishing something you
have already published elsewhere?
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● Reference to published works, especially to those in well-known

and respected journals, can add credibility to viewpoints
expressed in policy discussions. Be careful, however. While an
academic paper can lend weight, it is not the ideal vehicle for
influencing policy makers. You will need to write quite a different
document especially for them.
Perhaps you have other reasons for wanting to publish. This is a good
time to write down your reasons.
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If you are planning to produce a paper that develops ideas and

theories, you may find it helpful to review the chapters on Creating a
message and Organising your ideas in Effective Writing: core
skills. The structure of such papers is largely determined by the
content of the arguments presented. You will find all the help you need
in writing such papers in that section.
Papers that report on empirical data arising from primary research or

experiments tend to have a standardised structure: Introduction,
Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion. You must
therefore organise your ideas around that structure. We will explain
how you do that later in this manual.
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Although you may have gathered huge amounts of data, there is

rarely enough space in an article intended for publication in a journal
to write about every aspect. You must, therefore, decide what will be
the main subject of this particular paper.
But you also need to be clear what exactly you want to convey about
the subject. The clearer you are, the easier it will be to write and the
more likely it is to be published.
True, your paper will present data. But which data you select for
inclusion, and even how you present it, will be determined by what
message or argument you are trying to convey. That message may,
for example, be an answer to the hypothesis underlying your study.
Being clear what your message is makes writing an academic or

scientific paper easy to do.
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Think about the paper you are planning to write.
● If you were asked to summarise your paper in one sentence,

what would you say?
● If one of your colleagues read your paper in a hurry and could
only remember one thing about it, what would you want that to
be?
Spend some time working this out. Get this right and the writing is
easy
Aim to write a sentence of no more than 25 words.
The examples of 'key message sentences' on the next page may help
you to formulate your own.
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The same principle applies to writing for journals. You need to know
who you are writing for before you can decide what you will say and
how you will say it.
Think about the paper you are planning to write. Do you think your
primary readership comprises:
● policy makers?
● readers of the journal?
● your juniors?
● your professional colleagues?
● your professor or your boss?
● your family?
● someone else?
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Did you choose 'readers of the journal'? Most people who are shown
this list don't make that choice.
The primary readership of all journal articles is always the

readership of that specific journal. Sounds obvious, now that
we've told you. But not everyone realises it. Failing to understand that
is one of the main reasons for papers being rejected by editors.
True, you may want to use the publication to target people beyond
that constituency. You may want to influence policy makers or impress
your colleagues, boss, professor or family. But from the point of view
of writing for publication, these people should be considered as
secondary readers.
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If you send your manuscript to the 'wrong' journal, your paper could
be:
● rejected out of hand as being inappropriate;

● reviewed and, some months later, rejected as not appropriate;
● unfairly or negatively reviewed owing to the lack of expertise of
the editors and referees in the specific discipline;
● published, but without the benefit of competent referees to help
you correct important errors that you have made;
● published and never read (or referred to) by those who should
know about your findings because they would not think to look in
such a journal.
You need to choose carefully. But which is the 'right' journal?
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Ask yourself these questions to help you decide which journal you
should submit your paper to.
● Which journals publish papers on subjects such as yours?

● Which are the best known journals on the subject?
● If you were looking for papers like your own, in which journals
would you look?
● Which journals have the best reputation for publishing high
quality science in this field?
● Which journals are most likely to be cited by others?
● Which journals currently publish materials such as yours?
Remember, journals have 'fads' and fashions. What was popular
last year may not be so 'sexy' this year.
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In this section we start by looking at the types of papers you can

write. This will determine how you structure your paper.
To write well, you need an outline. To prepare an outline, you will need
to make notes on the following:
● your main message;

● the principal objectives or hypotheses;
● materials and methods (how you carried out your investigation);
● your principal findings;
● the main conclusions;
● key points of introduction.
We will explain why you should write your outline in that order.
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Types of papers
Main message of the paper
Principal objectives or hypotheses
Materials and methods
Principal findings
Conclusions
Introduction

There are two types of papers that you can write for scientific
publications:
● papers that develop ideas or theories;

● papers that report on empirical data.
Although in both cases you must prepare an outline, the process of

doing so is different for each.
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Papers developing ideas or theories
If you are preparing an outline for a paper that develops ideas or

theories, the process of preparing an outline involves:
● organising your ideas;

● creating a structure (mindmapping, grouping and summarising,
and managing the details);
● collecting and assembling the evidence;
● writing the outline using your main message, outlining SPQR, and
developing key point sentences.
You will recall that we considered these issues in the Effective

Writing: core skills section. If you are preparing this type of paper,
we recommend that you review the chapter entitled Organising your
ideas.
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Papers reporting empirical data
To be accepted for publication your paper must present data in a way

that allows other experts in your field to:
● assess your observations;

● repeat your experiment (or judge its validity);
● evaluate the intellectual processes.
For this reason, papers that report on empirical data have a

standardised structure. They are also usually written in a highly
stylised and distinctive way.
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Such papers usually contain four sections:
● Introduction
● Materials and methods
● Results
● Discussion
Some journals may permit some variations of this structure. However,

the content is always the same.
Here we will suggest how you can approach preparing an outline for
each section.
Although the Introduction will eventually be the first part of the paper,
our advice is to leave preparing the outline of the introduction to the
end. Many people do it that way, which is why introductions are often
referred to as 'post facto justifications for what follows'.
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Materials: List the materials used in the study and what they were
used for.
Methods: Briefly list the methods used in your study, including any
special data analysis techniques. In other words, describe briefly how
you carried out your investigation.
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Now let's look at how you sketch out the outline of the introduction.
You will remember that introductions always contain four parts

(SPQR):
● Situation
● Problem
● Question
● Response
This will be the structure of your introduction.
Imagine that you want to explain why you did the study to someone
who knows nothing about your work or your field of expertise.
How would you go about doing so? What would you need to explain to
them?
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Using the four headings (SPQR), write one or two sentences next to
each that explains in non-technical language:
● what was known before you started the study (situation);

● why things couldn't be left as they were (problem);
● what answers were needed to address the problem (question);
● what you did to answer the question (response).
Do this quickly - don't worry about the grammar or structure of your

sentences.
Now look at your main message. Is the main message the final
'punchline' of your introduction? If it isn't, then you need to work on
the 'story' in your introduction so that it all leads to your main
message.
Let's look at an example.
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Deepening the outline
Writing a first draft

Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Illustrating data
Discussion

ILLUSTRATING DATA
In the days of powerful computers and graphic printers, it is tempting
to include many graphs or illustrations. Don't be tempted. They are
great for verbal presentations and for reports. But be very cautious
about including graphs and illustrations in papers destined for
publication.
Avoid tables, graphs and illustrations if you can. Use tables, graphs
and illustrations only to present data which would be both too complex
and tedious to describe in words.
We have discussed elsewhere how to illustrate data using tables,

graphs or illustrations (see Using graphics).
Here, we will only highlight a few additional points.
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Situation
Problem
Question
Response
Summarising

Situation
● How would you describe the current situation (before you did the
study) in a way that will be familiar to the reader?
● How can it be best described from the primary reader's point of
view?
● Which are the most important and pertinent references to cite
and which will the reader expect you to include?
● Have you demonstrated that you are sufficiently familiar with the
relevant literature?
● Can you summarise the relevant findings of previous studies in
the fewest words? You don't need to describe each study. Simply
summarise the most important findings.
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Problem
● What is the key problem that this paper seeks to address? Can
you express it in a single sentence?
You might find that you can rephrase your main message sentence in
the form of a problem statement. For example, supposing your
message sentence reads: 'Women farmers are creditworthy because
more than 90% were able to repay their loans within three years', you
might express your problem statement as: 'Women farmers are unable
to obtain loans because they are not considered creditworthy by
financial institutions in the region.'
● Does the problem lead logically from the description of the

'situation'?
Be careful that you don't express the problem statement in a way that
causes the reader to react negatively.
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Question
● What questions are raised in the reader's mind by the statement

of the problem? Which are the most important questions?
For example, the problem statement:
Women farmers are unable to obtain loans because they are not
considered creditworthy by financial institutions in the region.
provokes the questions:
Why? What can be done? How might they be shown to be

creditworthy?
These are the questions that, presumably, your study will seek to
answer.
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Response
● State the objective (or the hypothesis) of your study. Is it a

logical response to the question?
● What did you do to try and answer the question? In other words,
summarise in a sentence or two the investigation or study that
you carried out to obtain an answer.
● State your main message. Check that it is a response to the most
important question provoked by the problem.
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Summarising
SPQR provides you with the main elements of your introduction. You
should be able to write it in about four paragraphs (avoid lengthy
introductions - your reader's attention might drift).
In this manual, we recommend that the introduction should contain all

four components of SPQR. Indeed, we recommend that the last
paragraph (response) should summarise how the study was conducted
and conclude with your main findings (the main message sentence).
For example, the last paragraph of the introduction might state:
Structured interviews and focus group discussions were held with

women in 300 households in Kakamega District over a four month
period. Our findings confirmed that women are the principal providers
of fuelwood for the household, and that this role is reinforced by
customary behavioural norms.
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You may wish to include subheadings in this section if the materials

and methods were complex: it may help your reader understand how
you carried out your work.
Let us elaborate on the notes you made in your outline.
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Population
Sampling
Materials
Methods
Data analysis
Ethical concerns

Right? Fine, write down all you want. Get it out of your system. Then
put it away. It's not what you will need for this publication.
Let us repeat: your aim is to present enough, and only enough,

information to justify your main message, your main conclusion.
● Anything more than that will distract your reader.

● Anything less than that will detract from your message.
The key to being a good scientist is to demonstrate your ability to

discriminate between what is and what is not relevant. The same goes
for writing good science.
This is not bias or manipulation. It doesn't mean selecting only those

data that suit your prejudices. Integrity is essential for good science.
But you only have space for what is essential to support your
conclusions. Use that space well.
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Your reputation as a competent scientist is based on your ability to

demonstrate that you can discriminate between the gold and the sand
in your data. Editors and readers have neither the stamina for, nor
interest in, wading through mountains of data in order to find that little
nugget of wisdom. The task of sifting the sands is yours, not the
reader's.
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Principal conclusions
Assessment
Implications
Need for further research
Summarising your main conclusions

Principal conclusions
The first sentence of the discussion should be your main message

sentence. Don't leave it till later. State it right away. There is no need
to contextualise the statement.
In the introduction, you set the context for the study, justifying why it
needed to be done. In the materials and methods section you
described how you did it. In the results you describe what you found.
The burning question in the reader's mind will be, 'So what?'
Start your discussion by stating your main message.
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Assessment
In the next paragraph of the discussion, you should assess your

findings in relation to previous knowledge of the subject. Your task
here is to distance yourself from your findings, and evaluate them as if
they were the results of someone else's study.
Consider:
● Do the findings confirm other studies (which ones)?

● Are they inconsistent with the results of other studies?
● If so, which, how and why? Is it because of:
● differences in methods or techniques?
● differences in analytical approaches?
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Implications
Your next task should be to assess the implications (theoretical,

practical or policy) of your findings. Consider these questions.
● What are the most important implications of your findings?

● Will existing theories or concepts need to change? If so, why and
how?
● Are there any practical consequences? Will, for example, changes
need to be made to the way in which certain assays are carried
out, or studies designed?
● What are the policy implications of your findings?
● Have you justified your reasons?
● Have you explained what should be done, by whom and how?
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Need for further research
Explain whether there are still gaps in knowledge that need to be filled
by further research or which arise as a consequence of what you
found. Make notes on the following.
● Are there any new hypotheses arising from your study? If so,
what are they?
● What are the most important, relevant, issues that remain
unresolved as a result of these findings?
● Does anything need to be done to confirm or test the results?
● Are you presently investigating issues that are directly relevant to
these findings? Be careful. If you don't know the outcome of that
research, how much do you want to reveal here? If you know the
outcome, do you want to reveal it here? Would the editor or
referees consider your paper incomplete without the results of
that research?
next

Summarising your main conclusions
You should end your discussion by stating, briefly, your main

conclusions and summarising the key evidence that supports each
conclusion. You might want to list these as bullet points.
Why do you need to repeat your conclusions? You've summarised

them in your introduction, then you stated them at the beginning of
the discussion and now you're stating them again.
There are two reasons:
● These are the places where busy people tend to look to get a
flavour of a paper.
● It's a classic technique of communication. As the army sergeant
major put it: 'First I tells them what I'm going to tell them; then I
tells them; and then I tells them what I told them'.
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Write quickly. Don't ponder over words. Keep going. Leave gaps if
necessary. Aim for a natural flow.
Write in your own voice. Expressing yourself in your own way will
help you to say what you mean more exactly. It will be easier for your
reader if they can 'hear' your voice.
Write without interruption. Try to find a time and place where you
can think and write without distractions.
Write without editing. Don't try to get it right first time. Resist the
temptation to edit as you go. You will tend to get stuck and waste
time.
Keep to the plan of your outline. Use the sentences from your
outline to focus what you want to say. If you find yourself wandering
from the point, stop and move on to the next sentence in the outline.
next

Verb tense
We, I or it?
Writing to suit the habits of the reader
Brevity

Verb tense
Many people find it difficult to know which tense to use in their

manuscripts. Although the standard rule is that you should write in the
past tense, in practice things are not that simple.
In English, the tense changes depending on what you are writing

about.
When you report what you found or what you did, or what happened
in your study, you always use the past tense.
We visited 3,500 households ...
Our study demonstrated that ...
There was no association between ...
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We, I or it?
In the past it was conventional for papers to be written in the third

person. Authors would describe how, for example
Three regions were surveyed ...
instead of
We surveyed three regions ...
You will find many publications in which authors use the passive voice
because they believe they are demonstrating their objectivity, that
they are presenting data in a neutral way. Although some editors still
prefer the passive voice, a growing number will permit, or insist that
you use, the active voice. Researchers should, they believe, take
responsibility for their work by using 'I' or 'we'.
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Writing to suit the habits of the reader
We suspect that you are a busy person. Your desk is probably piled
with papers, letters to be replied to and memos to be answered. You
don't always have the time to read as much as you should.
Your readers probably face the same problem. Most experienced

readers develop a style of reading articles in journals that helps them
decide what is worth reading in greater detail.
Not all parts of published papers get the same attention. If you know
how people read, you can write in a way that ensures that you convey
your main message effectively.
Let's look at how people read journals.
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Brevity
Be brief.
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Topping and tailing
Title
Authors
Abstract
Acknowledgements
References
Appendices
Final editing

As with all forms of effective writing, before you begin to write you
must:
● identify your primary readership;

● decide what is the most appropriate medium to use to reach
them;
● construct a clear message that they will understand;
● appeal to their hearts and minds;
● change or modify their paradigms.
Let's look at each of these in turn.
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Who are you writing for?
What to write for whom
Constructing a message
Appealing to hearts and minds
Paradigms

Why write for them?
Development workers and researchers often complain that their

projects have little or no influence on policy. We often hear of project
staff who diligently send off reports and scientific publications (perhaps
with a covering letter) to the press, government officials and other
stakeholders, in the hope that their wisdom will be heard. They
express surprise when the response is just silence.
But is that response surprising?
A document written for one audience is not effective with another,

even if your key message is the same. Expectations of each are
different. What you may want one set of readers to do will be different
from what you want another to do.
Let's look at an example.
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Example
Supposing your key message is that vaccine X is more effective in

preventing measles than conventional vaccines. Who needs to know
about it and what actions do you want them to take?
Write down your ideas. Our thoughts on this are shown on the next
page.
next

next

Your response may be different from ours in many respects because

your audience is probably different.
In many cases, writing may not be the most appropriate way of

communicating with a particular group. For example, if literacy levels
are low, you would need to look at how visual images can be used to
convey, without ambiguity, messages for that particular context.
Even where there are high literacy levels (as in many developed
countries), writing is not necessarily the most effective form of
communicating ideas. (How to use other non-written forms of
communication is a subject that falls outside the scope of this
manual.)
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The answers lie in the audience and the media.
A powerful campaign message needs to:
● focus exclusively on the action you want the audience to take;

● appeal to hearts and minds.
Look at the next section of the menu for more on hearts and minds.
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Like all of us, however, people whose attention we are trying to attract
have other things on their mind. There may be many others who are
competing for their attention. Why should they read what you have
written? What's so special about you? Even if they see what you write,
will they read it? And if they read it, will they understand it? And if
they understand it, will they do what you want them to do?
Are you certain you know the answers?
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To be effective, you need to identify the key persuasive factors that

will win your target audience over to your point of view. These will
help you frame a persuasive message, plan your campaign and choose
the most appropriate media for the job.
The key to successful advocacy is in seeing how your objectives make

sense in your audience's terms, how such objectives satisfy their
(not your) needs. What excites you and your colleagues may not
interest your target audience.
The key to addressing a particular audience is to gain some sense of

the values that underlie their concerns and priorities. Another name
for these values is paradigms.
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ADDRESSING A PARADIGM
You can address a paradigm directly or indirectly.
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Addressing a paradigm directly
You can address a paradigm directly. For example, if you know that
your audience makes decisions primarily on cost, you might construct
a campaign, a message and a set of information that demonstrates
how cost-effective a particular solution is. If the community is
governed by powerful social paradigms - about the social or cultural
significance of a crop, for example - you might appeal directly to that
paradigm by showing how that value is under threat.
next

There is, of course, one major medium missing from our list: the
Internet.
The opportunities for research and advocacy provided by the Internet

are substantial. Learning how to exploit its potential is a substantial
subject. Look out for Using the internet for research and advocacy,
one of fahamu's forthcoming titles.
next

In the following, the structure of each section is broadly similar. We

take you through five main steps in the process of developing each
type of material:
● understanding the uses of each kind of media;

● planning;
● writing and design;
● production;
● distribution.
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Articles
Leaflets
Newsletters
Pamphlets
Press releases
Posters

Articles need to entertain. Your reader doesn't need to read any

article you write; you have to 'hook' them quickly, as they browse
through the publication. They may have paid for the newspaper or
magazine and have a right to demand that we interest (if not also
divert) them.
next

Why write an article?
Planning an article
Writing an article
Publishing an article

Why use a leaflet?
Planning a leaflet
Designing a leaflet
Producing a leaflet
Distributing a leaflet

WHY USE A LEAFLET?

Leaflets are ideal for delivering useful information. They are portable
and easily stored. Although they can carry more detailed information
than posters, leaflets tend to be much shorter than reports and
pamphlets. Use leaflets for information that your audience may want
to use again and again.
Most leaflets, almost by definition, are created from single sheets of

paper. The leaflet's closest relative is probably the poster. Indeed,
many leaflets are put together as half-size, replica versions of posters.
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PLANNING A LEAFLET
Think of your leaflet as having a few key elements:
● headline;
● short sentences or bulleted lists;
● brief explanatory text;
● pictures.
If all this information is supporting a single message, the leaflet will be

clear and useful. The more obvious the message, the less background
detail is required for it to make sense, and the easier it will be for the
leaflet to create an impact.
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DESIGNING A LEAFLET
Laying out a leaflet can be a daunting task. It is also a crucial one, as
it can make the difference between your precious content information
being read or ignored.
A good way to approach layout is to try and think about your leaflet in
terms of its different components. These should include any or all of
the following:
● a main headline in large, bold text, that links directly with the
leaflet's main message;
● your organisation or campaign logo and/or motto, so you can
develop an image that people associate with your work;
● the name of your organisation or campaign, so everyone knows
who the leaflet is from;
● the main body content - either in pictures, words, or both.
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PRODUCING A LEAFLET
The best way to produce a leaflet is on a computer. A good
wordprocessing or desktop publishing programme will produce
excellent results with a little practice.
Alternatively, you could take your work to an agency who will lay it out
for you. This can be expensive, but you may be able to justify the cost
against time or effort. As always, the true cost of using outside agents
is that you and your colleagues don't develop your own skills.
Printing your leaflet is also much simpler using a good computer

printer. Although ink cartridges tend to be expensive, the cost of
producing a run of leaflets on a fine laser or inkjet printer will almost
certainly be less than taking the copy to a professional printer. Of
course, commercial printers will be cheaper if you want to produce
very large numbers - 1,000 or more.
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DISTRIBUTING A LEAFLET
Apart from their size, it is the distribution of leaflets which really
distinguishes them from posters.
A leaflet is a directed body of information. It passes to and from

individuals. A leaflet can be taken into the private space of its reader.
The reader picks it up - as a result of your displaying it, posting it,
handing it to them or leaving it in a pile. And leaflets can be passed
from one reader to another.
For this reason, your distribution strategy needs to be carefully

thought through. Where can your leaflets be placed to ensure
maximum access to your target audience?
next

Newsletters are not as easy to produce as you might imagine. You can
produce them quite cheaply, but many organisations have difficulty:
● meeting deadlines;
● gathering enough material to fill a newsletter;
● publishing the newsletter regularly;
● maintaining interest in a regular publication.
next

Newsletters must appear regularly. This means allocating resources to

producing them: people, time, budgets, equipment. The team
producing the newsletter would benefit from experience in writing,
editing and page layout. You could grow these skills from within your
own organisation; you could ask (or pay) for help. The editorial team
must also have the skills to drag material (usually called 'copy') out of
busy people.
Deciding to produce a newsletter is a big commitment. It's a strategic

decision.
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We can distinguish pamphlets from leaflets by saying that pamphlets

usually contain more pages, more text, more argument. More
importantly, a pamphlet is more likely to be arguing a case; a leaflet
may do so, and may also be a source of useful information.
In this section we look at pamphlets in terms of:
● Why you might choose to produce a pamphlet

● Planning a pamphlet
● Writing the pamphlet
● Designing the pamphlet
● Producing the pamphlet
● Distributing the pamphlet
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Why use a pamphlet?
Planning a pamphlet
Writing the pamphlet
Designing the pamphlet
Producing the pamphlet
Distributing the pamphlet

Why write a press release?
Planning a press release
Writing a press release
Issuing a press release

WHY WRITE A PRESS RELEASE?

A press release tells the reader that you have news for them. If you
want to publicise your campaign or an issue through the media, a
press release is what you need to write.
Remember that press releases are useful, not only for national or local
broadcasting organisations and newspapers, or large-circulation
magazines, but also for in-house publications: newsletters and
bulletins within organisations or communities.
Remember that a press release is not intended as final copy: it's for an
editor to turn your press release into the style and format that their
publication needs. Think of a press release rather as raw material:
structured, but not yet cooked.
next

PLANNING A PRESS RELEASE

Anything that happens is potentially newsworthy. It all depends on
who's giving the news. But if your press release is constructed around
an event, it will work particularly well. The event could:
● have just happened;

● be about to happen;
● be threatening to happen;
● have been created to justify the press release - a technique
frequently used in commerce as a means of obtaining free
advertising in newspapers.
Once you know what event you are highlighting, other information will
tend to fall into place.
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WRITING A PRESS RELEASE

Clarity is all. You don't need to write especially simple language: you
can be quite detailed and technical if you want to be. Incorporate
some facts and figures so that the editor or another writer can use
them. Make sure that your sentences are well constructed so that they
could, if necessary, be lifted straight into another article.
● Avoid ambiguity and clever turns of phrase. Don't use

presentational techniques like underlining or bold.
● Avoid humour or gimmicks.
● Don't be frightened to end abruptly.
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ISSUING A PRESS RELEASE

You can issue press releases through the normal channels: post,
courier and of course now electronically.
Make sure you know exactly who to contact in any publication. A

specialist editor or journalist may be a better target than an editor.
Often, press releases carry an embargo. This is a statement

prohibiting use of the press release until a certain date. This can be
useful - and sometimes essential - as part of your campaigning
strategy.
Click here for an example of a press release.
next

Why use a poster?
Planning a poster
Designing a poster
Printing a poster
Distributing a poster

WHY USE A POSTER?

Posters have two main uses:
● to mobilise people into action;

● to popularise an idea.
Use posters to get people to do or believe something.
Remember that posters are usually taken in fast. They must be

publicly accessible and must communicate in one step. When used
well, posters can convey a message extremely powerfully.
next

PLANNING THE POSTER

Planning a poster - and a poster campaign - starts with these
questions.
● What is the aim of the poster?

● Who is our target audience?
● What is our message?
● Where will the poster be put up?
next

DESIGNING THE POSTER

Effective posters combine words and visual elements to deliver a
simple message.
The key elements of design are:
● the size of text (Can they be seen from a distance?);

● the size of the picture;
● the position of text and picture on the page;
● the use of empty space on the page;
next

PRINTING THE POSTER

You can print your poster in a number of different ways.
● You could write or paint the poster by hand. This is time-

consuming, especially if you want lots of copies, but the
technique can be very effective. You could use the hand-crafted
quality of the work to support your message. For example, a very
local issue, or one that involves children, might benefit from the
hand-produced effect.
● You can use stencils or spray paint. Stencils allow you to make
lots of copies. Again, consider the effect of stencils and spray
painting on your message. Where else do you see such effects:
on walls, on public transport - in galleries of modern art? Do
these associations fit your message?
next

DISTRIBUTING THE POSTER

Distributing the poster means working out:
● where the posters will be displayed;

● when they should appear;
● who will put them up.
next

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/resres3.html
Resources
Changelinks: http://nrm.massey.ac.nz/changelinks Changelinks is an

on-line resource guide for those seeking to develop sustainable change
in the way we manage our natural resources
ELDIS: http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis ELDIS is a gateway to online

information on development in countries of the South. Coverage
includes social, economic, political and environmental issues. ELDIS
makes a qualitative selection of materials and structures it for easy
access. It offers a directory of development/environment information
sources: organisations, WWW sites, full-text documents. It is
searchable with subject guides and practical help.
next

Resources
Bishop, C T, How to Edit a Scientific Journal, ISI Press, 1984.
Brollo P, The Grammar Workbook, Industrial Society, 1999.
Buzan T, The Mind Map Book, BBC, 1993.
Buzan T, Use Your Head, London, BBC, 1989.
Burchfield R W (ed.), The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, Oxford

University Press, 1996.
Butcher J, Copy-Editing: the Cambridge handbook for editors, authors

and publishers, third edition, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Creme P and Lea M R, Writing at University: a guide for students,

Open University Press, 1997.
Cutts M, The Plain English Guide Oxford University Press, 1995.
next

Resources
JOURNALS
Title: AMBIO
Publisher/Periodicity: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Published monthly except for January, April, July and October.
Focus: Significant developments in environmental research; policy and

related activities.
How to submit: Articles should examine specific issues or projects in a

comprehensive fashion.
Reports should summarize findings from recent, previously

unpublished, experimental or investigatory research.
Synopses should deal briefly with a specific topic, news items,

conference reports, etc.
Instructions to authors are available on last page of the journal (May

1999).
Where to submit: AMBIO, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Box

50005, S- 104 Stockholm, SWEDEN, Tel: +46-8-673- 95 51, Fax: +46-
8-16 62 51
Email: elisabet@ambio.kva.se
Comments: Non-profit; peer-review; only manuscripts that comply to

the AMBIO in-house style will be considered
http://www.ambio.kva.se/.
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Resources
MAGAZINES/NEWSLETTERS
Title: DOWN TO EARTH: Science and Environment Forthnightly
Publisher/Periodicity: Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), 41

Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi 110 062
Bi-weekly publications.
Focus: Multi disciplinary - biodiversity; forestry; agriculture; genetics;

famine; wildlife; biotechnology, etc.
How to submit: N/A, however there is a sentence saying "Down to

Earth welcome contributions from readers", which should be addressed
to the editor. (Dec. 1995 and May 15, 1999)
Where to submit: Anil Agarwal, Editor, Down to Earth, 41 Tughlakabad

Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110 062
Comments: cse@unv.ernet.in
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Resources
Davies J W, Communication for Engineering Students, Longman, 1996.
Day, RA, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, Cambridge

University Press, 1998.
Eastwood J, The Oxford Guide to English Grammar, Oxford University

Press, 1994.
Fowler H R and Aaron J E, The Little Brown Handbook, Longman,

1998.
Goodlee F and Jefferson T (eds.), Peer Review in Health Sciences.

British Medical Journal Books, 1999.
Gowers E: The Complete Plain Words, HMSO,1986.
Graves N and Varma V, Working for a Doctorate: a guide for the

humanities and social sciences, Routledge, 1997.
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Resources
Title: BIODIVERSITY and CONSERVATION
Publisher/Periodicity: Chapman and Hall, 2-6 Boundary Row, London

SE1 8HN, UK
Monthly publications (total 12 issues).
Focus: Biological diversity, its description, analysis and conservation,

and its controlled rational use by humankind. Its scope is wide and
multidisciplinary and embraces all life forms.
Research papers, contributions and case studies on the above are

welcome.
How to submit: Submissions of three copies of the manuscript and

illustrations.
Submissions of manuscripts on disk is encouraged.
Guidelines are available on inside front and back cover of the journal
(December 1998).
Where to submit: Copies should be sent to one of the editors (4). Their
names and addresses are provided on the 2nd page of the journal.
Comments: http://www.wkap.nl/
next

Resources
Title: CURRENTS
Publisher/Periodicity: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

(SLU), P. O. Box 7005, SE-750 07, Uppsala, Sweden
Quarterly publications.
Focus: Multi disciplinary - rural development; biotechnology; plant

genetics; agriculture; fisheries; etc.
How to submit: N/A, however contributions and enquires are welcome

and should be submitted to The Editor (September and December
1998).
Where to submit: The Editor, Currents, Department of Rural

Development Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.
O. Box 7005, SE-750 07, Uppsala, Sweden
Email: Katarina.Toborn@lbutv.slu.se
next

Resources
Essay Writing for Students in Politics and the Social Sciences by

David W. Lovell and Rhonda Moore:
http://www.pol.adfa.edu.au/resources/essay_writing/contents.html a
useful online guide to writing for the social sciences.
Ethics: http://csf.colorado.edu/sristi/diversity.html provides useful

information on relevant ethical issues.
IDS: http://www.ids.ac.uk This new online service offers hundreds of

summaries of problem-solving work on critical development dilemmas
around the world.
next

Help
How to order your copy
Customers in Europe should order from fahamu. Customers from

North America should order from IDRC. Customers in other regions of
the world may order from fahamu or IDRC.
next

Help
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
● Adult learners are volunteers - no one has (usually) forced them
to attend. They usually come with their own reasons for learning
and have their own priorities and views about why something is
important to them.
● They come with the intention of learning - so you need to keep
them motivated.
● They come with experience, and therefore can contribute to the
process of learning - draw on their experiences.
● They learn best when they are actively involved and when they
can participate.
● They learn best when the training provides practical benefits for
their own work.
● They usually have diverse backgrounds - exploit these to provide
different perspectives on each problem.
next

Help
Effective learning
Effective learning is achieved by:
● involving people fully and openly in new, concrete experiences;

● giving them opportunities for reflection and observing from
different perspectives;
● enabling them to conceptualise by integrating their
observations into sound theory ( abstract conceptualising);
● enabling them to experiment actively to make decisions or solve
problems for themselves.
Don't rely on short-term memory - allow participants to digest and

internalise, to learn at their own pace. But the new things they learn
need reinforcement - which is why workshops alone are not sufficient
for good learning. Writing for change was developed to enable
selfreinforcement by providing materials participants can refer to
outside the workshop.
next

Help
To order from fahamu, contact us at:
fahamu
38 Western Road, Oxford OX1 4LG, England, UK.
Tel: +44-(0)1865- 436446; Fax: +44-(0)7920-245166
email: info@fahamu.org http://www.fahamu.org
Price: 20.00 pounds ISBN 0-9536902-1-0
next

About us
You can contact us at:
fahamu
14 Standingford House, Cave St., Oxford OX4 1BA
Tel: +44-(0)1865-791777; Fax: +44-(0)1865-203009
Email: info@fahamu.org; Website: http://www.fahamu.org/
Registered in England and Wales No. 4241054.
Registered offices: Buxton Court, 3 West Way, Oxford OX2 0SZ UK.
next

About us
The following kindly commented on earlier drafts: Odilia Maessen,

Consultant; Philip Fergusson, African Foundation for Development
(AFFORD); Jeff Thindwa and Sarah Atwell, World Vision UK; Peter
Ross, University of Edinburgh, Scotland; Philip Bradley, University of
Hull, England; Villia Jeffremovas, Carlton University, Canada; Ian
Smith, WHO TDR, Nepal; Murtaza Jaffer, Mazingira Institute, Nairobi,
Kenya; John Hailey, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England.
Our thanks to the many who participated in field testing of the manual
at various sites. In particular, we would like to thank the participants
and trainers at workshops held in Hyderabad, India, for their
enthusiastic support and helpful comments.
next

About us
IDRC publishes research results and scholarly studies on global and

regional issues related to sustainable and equitable development. As a
specialist in development literature, IDRC contributes to the body of
knowledge on these issues to further the cause of global
understanding and equity. IDRC publications are sold through its head
office in Ottawa, Canada, as well as by IDRC's agents and distributors
around the world. The full catalogue is available at
http://www.idrc.ca/booktique/.
next

About us
The following kindly provided permission for us to reproduce

illustrations: Training and Research Support Centre (Zimbabwe);
Centre for Development Communications (Hyderabad, India); UBINIG
(Bangladesh); Institute for Women's Development (South Africa);
TWIN (England).
Our thanks to Jan Goyvaerts for permission to include EditPad with this
CDROM.
Our thanks to Cambridge University Press for permission to quote from

Robert A Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 5th Edition,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.
next

About us
HOW TO REACH US
Our Head Office
IDRC, PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3H9
Phone: (+1-613) 236-6163; Fax: (+1-613) 238-7230; Email:

info@idrc.ca (to get general information); reference@idrc.ca (to reach
library reference desk); order@idrc.ca (to order publications or
subscribe to Reports webzine); pub@idrc.ca (to get information on
IDRC publications); mag@idrc.ca (to send a letter to the editor of
Reports webzine); URL: http://www.idrc.ca
next

Topping and tailing
An improperly titled paper may be lost and never reach its intended
audience.
Remember that, for indexing services, literature-retrieval systems and

search engines, your title should contain key words: words that
highlight the important content of the paper in terms that are
understandable and retrievable.
The title of your document defines the document's contents in as few

words as possible. An effective title 'sells' the document to your reader
immediately.
The title of a scientific paper is traditionally used to deliver an

accurate summary of the paper's contents, rather than its message.
However, just stating the content without the message is unhelpful to
the reader.
next

Topping and tailing
For example, a scientific paper with a heading such as:
MERCURY AND AMAZONIAN FISH SPECIES
is vague. It does not reveal anything about the nature of the study.
On the other hand a title such as:
MERCURY IS A SIGNIFICANT CONTAMINANT OF AMAZONIAN

FISH SPECIES
is considered too sensational for a scientific paper. The title could be re-
phrased as:
MERCURY CONTAMINATION IN AMAZONIAN FISH SPECIES
This provides some indication of the concern without using terms such
as 'significant'. Notice that redundant words, such as verbs and
articles, have been eliminated, so that the title functions as a label
rather than a sentence.
next

Topping and tailing
Defining the research process
Most research activities consist of five distinct steps leading up to

publication:
● conceptualisation - a process whereby a group of colleagues

generate, though creative thinking and interactions, an idea for a
research activity;
● planning the research, including the preparation of detailed
protocols, proposals, budget etc;
● implementation of the project and conduct of data collection
and information gathering;
● data analysis and interpretation;
● writing and editing of research papers.
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Topping and tailing
Defining authorship
You can define authorship by examining the extent to which each

individual has played a role in the five steps. We suggest that there
should be two criteria for deciding who should be considered an
author.
● An author is an individual who has participated in at least two of

the five research steps. One of these must be the writing and
editing of the paper.
● The author should have sufficient involvement in the research
that he or she can defend the content of the publication when
questions or criticisms are raised.
If the individual concerned cannot be defined as an author using these

criteria, but has played some role in the research process, their role
should be recognised in the acknowledgment section of the paper.
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Topping and tailing
The abstract is an important part of your paper. It is reproduced by

indexing and abstracting services. Other researchers will judge the
value of your paper almost entirely on the basis of what is contained in
the abstract.
A well-produced summary is like a map or plan of the paper. The

reader will use it to help them find their way round the document.
The summary should be structured exactly as the paper itself is

structured, and that structure should be easy to see.
next

Topping and tailing
Ideally, you should:
● place the message at the top of the summary, as a one-sentence

paragraph;
● summarise briefly your introduction - focus on SPQR;
● briefly summarise what you did (materials and methods), your
key findings (results) and principal conclusions;
● remove repetitions, lists, detailed evidence or statistical
information (unless the latter is absolutely vital), examples,
graphics or pictures;
● cut down your language to the bare minimum: hunt out long-
winded expressions, unnecessary words and convoluted
sentences. However, be aware as you do this that you may be
creating a summary that fails to make sense by itself.
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Topping and tailing
Some research institutions insist that all papers should include a

statement expressing gratitude to the director 'for permission to
publish this paper'. Its ritual use diminishes the value of the
statement. Most experienced researchers give little weight to such
statements and often form a negative opinion of those who insist on
its use. It is a pity that those who insist on the ritual do not recognise
the harm it does.
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Topping and tailing
Only refer to published materials or materials that have been

accepted for publication. This is necessary because only published
materials are generally available for independent inspection. If you
refer to unpublished materials, theses or abstracts, others will not
necessarily be able to access them. Consequently, a part of your
evidence will not be available for independent verification.
You must refer to the instructions to authors to make sure you do this
as required by the journal. One of the most tedious aspects of writing
for science is complying with the different styles used by different
journals both for how literature is referred to in the text and how the
papers are listed in the reference section.
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Topping and tailing
How to refer to the literature
There are essentially three styles used by journals.
● Name and year system (Harvard system).

● Alphabet and number system.
● Citation order system.
There are many variations of these systems. New systems are

evolving, as materials increasingly become available on the Internet.
We have provided you with a list of websites where you will be able to
find information about international standards for references and
where you can find information about the requirements of a range of
journals.
You must follow precisely the instructions contained in the guidelines

to authors.
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Topping and tailing
● Edit on paper, not on screen. You can look at text on paper

more objectively.
● Edit for clarity. This means using plain English.
● Edit systematically. Edit the text on three levels: paragraphs,
sentences and words. Trying to improve your work word by word
is time-consuming and tedious.
next

Topping and tailing
Editing systematically
Edit on three levels and in this order.
● Construct effective paragraphs

● Improve long and complicated sentences
● Choose words carefully
In this way, you edit the largest units of meaning in your text first.
Problems at the sentence and word level will tend to disappear as you
edit paragraphs; other problems at the word level will fall away as you
edit sentences. Editing systematically means that you get maximum
benefit for minimum effort.
next

Publishing
Submitting your manuscript
Responding to editors
Correcting proofs
Marketing the publication

Publishing
● Have you included the address for correspondence?

● Is the abstract formatted exactly as required?
● Is the style of references correct?
● Are the tables and figures correctly numbered? You are usually
required to provide each on a separate page. You should ensure
that you have indicated in the margin where they should appear
when the paper is typeset.
● Is all artwork correctly prepared?
● Are the pages numbered consecutively (1,2,3 ...)?
● Have you produced enough copies of the manuscript, tables and
figures? You are usually required to send between three and five
copies.
next

Publishing
● Have you kept an exact copy of the manuscript for yourself?

Papers can get lost in the post. You will need a copy to refer to
when you receive comments from referees.
● Do not staple the manuscript - use paper clips. The editor may
wish to make more copies.
● You may be required to send the manuscript on a disk as well. If
so, now is the time to copy the files to the disk and label the disk
as instructed.
● Have you prepared a covering letter to the editor? Click here to
see a standard letter that you can use.
● Have you enclosed, if required, a signed declaration from all
authors?
next

Publishing
Types of comments from editors
There are a range of comments that you could receive from the editor
and referees. Broadly, the response of the editor will be either that
your paper has been accepted for publication or not.
If the response from the editor is that your paper has not been
accepted for publication, there will usually be reasons given for the
decision. You should not lose faith, if that is the case. You need to
assess the reasons to see whether your paper might be accepted if
you made certain revisions.
Let's look at the kind of comments that you might receive.
next

Publishing
Subject outside the scope of the journal
If the editor believes that the subject of your paper falls outside the
scope of the journal, you have no choice but to submit to another
journal. If the subject of your paper is not appropriate for publication
in that journal, it is not a comment on your capabilities.
There is no point in contesting this.
next

Publishing
Importance of proof-reading
How to proof-read
Marks used
Guidelines
Checklist
Exercise

Publishing
Importance of proof-reading
Checking the proofs is your opportunity to make sure that your printed
paper is correct in every way.
The most common errors are typographical: misspelled words,

incorrect punctuation marks, figures transposed. Even if you submitted
your paper on disk after carefully checking it for mistakes, do not
assume that there will be no typographical mistakes in the proofs.
Errors might have been introduced during copy-editing or typesetting.
Changing proofs is expensive, so most journals will only allow you to

correct errors. Don't assume that you can make any other alterations
at this stage. It's too late to rewrite part of your discussion or to
introduce new material.
next

Publishing
How to proof-read
You should proof-read your paper twice. You need to:
● check the proof against copy, i.e. check every word and figure
against the original typescript
● read it through for sense.
You can choose in which order you do this.
To be an effective proof-reader, you need to look at each word

individually and carefully. This is very different from the normal way
we read. Fast readers take in a phrase at a time, looking at the shape
of words rather than at individual letters. Good proof-readers have to
unlearn that skill.
next

Publishing
Marks used for correcting proofs
There is a convention for making corrections to proofs. These are

designed to convey precisely the changes you want the typesetter to
make. They are designed to avoid ambiguities.
There are a large number of markings available for use. In the

following tables, we illustrate the most commonly used ones.
next

Publishing
Guidelines for proof-reading
Mark all proof corrections in ink, not pencil.
Corrections have to be marked twice: once in the text and once in the
margin. If you only mark them in the text, the typesetter might not
see them.
Place the margin marks in the margin nearest to, and level with, the
mistake. For example, if the mistake is in the left half of the column of
text, insert your mark in the left margin, on the same line as the
mistake.
If there is more than one correction in a line, arrange marginal marks

from left to right in the same order as they occur in the line.
Draw a stroke (/) after each marginal mark so that it is clear that it is
concluded. It is particularly important to do this if there is more than
one correction in a line.
next

Publishing
Checklist of important things to look out for
● Look out for a word that has been changed for another. e.g. from
changed to form, or first changed to fist, or causal changed to
casual.
● Make sure that any figures or tables are in the right place and
that they have their correct headings or captions.
● Take particular care over checking scientific or technical terms.
● Take particular care over checking figures. You are the only
person who will know if they are wrong - until your peers spot
them in the published paper.
● Tables: make sure that all words and figures are in the correct
columns and that figures are correctly aligned.
next

Publishing
Exercise
Proof-reading takes practice. Much of the advice we have given will

make more sense once you try it for yourself.
On the next screen we provide an extract from a paper that requires

correction.
Print it out and make corrections using the marks we provided on the
table earlier.
next

Publishing
You might consider sending copies to the following:
● authors of the publications you cited in your paper;

● other researchers or scientists who have published on the same
subject or whom you know are working in that field;
● those who have supported your research;
● junior researchers who are developing skills in the same field;
● your institute's librarian - especially important in developing
countries where there may only be a few journals available;
● your superiors;
● your collaborators;
● others who helped in the study (and whom you thanked, we
hope, in the acknowledgements).
next

Publishing
Can you think of others? It is worthwhile keeping a list of such people,

adding to it from time to time.
Most journals offer a reprint service - they will print off extra copies of
your paper for you, provided that you order them in advance (and pay
for them). If you have a list of potential recipients of your paper, you
will know how many reprints to order.
A word of warning: if you plan to send copies to policy makers or other

non-specialists, you must prepare a covering letter in which you
summarise the paper in non-technical language, explaining why you
think it is important that they should know about the content of
your paper.
next

Effective Writing PDF

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Writing for change

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/ [21-03-2003 12:46:53]

Effective writing: core

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/sitemap.html (1 of 2) [21-03-2003 12:46:57]

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/sitemap.html (2 of 2) [21-03-2003 12:46:57]

They are trying to:

● influence the way you see the world;

That 'something else' is what we call an idea or message.

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effint1.html [21-03-2003 12:48:56]

The quality of your writing depends on the quality of your ideas.

We judge ideas differently from the way we judge facts. We judge

Persuasion involves presenting an effective argument. It makes sense

But a good argument is not enough. It will convince only if supported

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effint2.html [21-03-2003 12:48:58]

PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE WRITING

● Your document should have one governing idea.

Effective writing: core skills shows you how it's done.

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effint3.html [21-03-2003 12:50:56]

● It's aimed at a specific person or group.

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effcre1.html [21-03-2003 12:52:54]

DEFINING YOUR PURPOSE

This is a very different question from asking: What's the document

Distinguish carefully between:

● what you want to achieve;

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effcre5.html [21-03-2003 12:52:56]

ANALYSING YOUR READERSHIP

In this section we look at the readership in some detail. We'll think

● three types of readers;

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effcre16.html [21-03-2003 12:52:57]

WRITING A MESSAGE SENTENCE

The message is your document's governing idea. Everything else - the

Your message isn't a title or an explanation of what you are doing in

In this section we'll look at how to create an effective message. This

● Constructing the message

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effcre29.html [21-03-2003 12:52:59]

CHECKING YOUR MESSAGE

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effcre37.html [21-03-2003 12:53:00]

Organising your ideas

ORGANISING YOUR IDEAS

● break it into pieces;

That structure is made up of ideas. Because ideas can only be

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/efforg1.html [21-03-2003 12:54:59]

Organising your ideas

● First-stage thinking: generating ideas;

First-stage thinking is sometimes called 'divergent' or 'radiant'

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/efforg4.html [21-03-2003 12:55:00]

Organising your ideas

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/efforg43.html [21-03-2003 12:55:02]

Organising your ideas

Constructing the outline forces you to clarify your thinking. By

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/efforg60.html [21-03-2003 12:55:03]

Writing the first draft

WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT

Creating a first draft means expanding the outline by adding:

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effdra1.html [21-03-2003 12:57:01]

Writing the first draft

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effdra5.html [21-03-2003 12:57:03]

Writing the first draft

Specifically, we can identify seven types of explanation.

Let's look at each type.

http://www.fahamu.org.uk/WFCEng/effdra26.html [21-03-2003 12:57:04]

Writing the first draft

SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION