Planning in Plain English

Writing Tips for Urban and Environmental Planners

Natalie Macris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351177702
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

In this volume, the author draws from more than a decade of editing experience to explain how to craft clear, understandable, and highly readable planning documents. The author suggests ways to overcome planners' most common writing foibles: acronymns, jargon, and overuse of the passive voice. And the author provides handy lists to transform mushy nouns into powerful verbs, pare down bloated sentences, and translate ""bureaucratese"" into everyday language. The author even includes practice exercises designed to help you recognize and overcome bad writing habits. But even the best writing skills won't help if your document is organized poorly and aimed at the wrong audience.The author also explains why it's essential to know who your readers are before you start writing and how to organize your work so that it will be easy to understand and use."

Part
I
Getting Started

Chapter
1
Knowing Your Readers

Have you ever noticed that when you are writing a memo or sending an e-mail to a colleague, some-one you know well and like, the words flow more easily and naturally than they would if you were writing, say, a report to a City Council? In your note to your colleague, your writing style is more relaxed and informal; you may be less concerned with how your writing "sounds." Perhaps most importantly, you are thinking about your colleague while you are writing. What information does he or she need? How can I convey that information clearly?

When you are writing a document that more than one person will read, it is often more difficult to keep your readers in mind. They may be a very diverse group. They may be the general public-many different people with widely varying education levels, interests, and concerns.

It can be a big challenge to keep that many different people in mind while writing. That's why it's easy to fall into the habit of writing without considering the people who will be reading. Unfortunately, that habit leads to a lot of unclear writing; if you have lost track of your readers, you probably won't be communicating directly with them when you write.

For that reason alone, it's worth thinking about your readers–who they are, what they need–before you start writing. Knowing who your readers are will help set the tone and organization of your document. Here are some questions you might consider.

How Many Readers?

Are you writing to one person? If so, is that person an employer? An employee? Another colleague? A citizen? If you are writing to more than one person, is it a limited audience (a board or commission, for example)? Or are you writing to a much broader readership, such as a planning commission and the general public?

If you are writing to one or a few people whom you know well, a casual, conversational tone may be perfectly appropriate. A more formal tone is often advisable if you are addressing a larger group or people you don't know well.

Who are They?

What are your readers like? How old are they? How much education do they have? Are they likely to be familiar with planning issues? What frame of mind might they be in when they read what you are writing? Curious? Annoyed with you or your organization? Upset about the project you are describing? Should you do any research to find out more about your readers before you start writing?

Knowing as much as possible about your readers will help you keep them in mind and communicate directly with them. You will have a better sense of whether they will understand technical terms, and how much you will need to explain.

What Information Do They Need?

What will your readers be looking for in your report? Technical information? Policy statements? Analysis of what will happen if a project is approved? Your recommendation?

What information is likely to be most important to your readers? Will some readers be looking for one thing, while others need something else? For example, suppose you are a local government planner, and you are writing a report about a proposed housing development. The report is addressed to the Planning Commission, but architects, engineers, and the general public will also be reading it. The Planning Commission will probably be most interested in your recommendation. The project architects and engineers will be looking for technical information (conditions of approval, for example). And the neighbors may be most concerned with your analysis of how the project will affect their property values and traffic in their neighborhood. How can you make sure that everyone finds the information they need?

Considering these questions will help you organize your document and lead readers to the information they are most interested in.

How Will They Use Your Document?

Will your readers read your document from front to back? Or will they scan it quickly to find the information they are most interested in? Will they read the document just once, or keep it as a reference? The answers to these questions will help you set up the document format and decide what information should come first.

Do you want your readers to do something once they have read your document? Take an action? Use the information you provide? Agree with your recommendation? Form opinions of their own? The answers to these questions can guide you in setting both the tone of your writing and the format of your document. For example, if you want your readers to agree with your recommendation and take an action, you may want to set out the recommendation up front, follow it with a persuasively written justification, and sum up by repeating your recommendation.

Once you have considered these questions, you can think about how to organize your document with your readers in mind.

Chapter
2
Organizing Your Document

Typically, a planner's most important writing task is to organize large amounts of information in a form that readers can easily understand. Doing that well requires forethought. This chapter suggests some ways to plan and structure your document that you will want to consider before you start writing. Thinking about the questions listed here will help you draft an outline of your document. While doing an outline may seem like a holdover from grade school, it is still a step well worth taking before you start writing. This is especially true if you are starting from scratch, with no predetermined format for your document.

This suggests an important caveat: If you work for an agency that has already set up standard report formats, you may not be able to follow all of the suggestions offered here. Perhaps, though, you can incorporate some of these ideas while still working within the preordained report structure.

What is the Main Message?

Knowing the main message that you want to convey is the key to organizing your document. You will usually want to move as quickly as possible to the main message, or highlight it in some way so that your readers can find it easily. For example, if you are writing a report to a planning commission, your main message will probably be your recommendation about the action the commission should take. You may want to make the recommendation early in the report, and then follow it with supporting analysis and technical information.

Planning reports often present a hierarchy of ideas or a series of main points. Thinking about your document in this way can help you to identify the main message or messages, the secondary messages, the order in which to present them, and ways to connect them. Doing this is usually the first step in setting up an outline. Consider the "inverted pyramid" writing model used in journalism. Most news stories describe the most important information-who, what, when, where, why, and, if possible, how-in the first paragraph, with the paragraphs that follow providing progressively less important information. This ensures that the main message comes across at the very beginning. Readers can then scan through the remaining paragraphs and decide how much more they want to know.

What Can You Leave Out?

Planners generally like to provide lots of information. Unfortunately, all of that information sometimes buries the main message of a report. Consider carefully what you can leave out, put in a table or chart, or move to an appendix. This is especially important if you are writing for a very diverse readership. For example, if you are writing a report to a city council summarizing a traffic study, you might consider highlighting the main points in your report and moving the traffic count data to an appendix. That way, traffic engineers and other interested readers can still find the technical information, but your main message to the council ("traffic will be at gridlock at 5:00 PM," for example) won't be lost.

Consider setting page limits to keep your information-providing tendencies under control. This is a useful way to make sure that your document keeps its focus and doesn't overwhelm readers with data.

Does the Document Need Headers?

Headers can help you to organize your ideas and outline your report. They break up the report into shorter sections, group related ideas, and lead your reader through the document. They can call attention to important points.

Make sure that the headers are easy to understand. Phrasing headers as questions can be one way of catching the reader's eye and communicating the message of each section clearly. For example, when outlining a neighborhood urban design plan, you might use headers like "How tall can new buildings be?" and "How much can be built on any one property?" These are catchier headers than "Height Limitations" and "Floor Area Ratio Requirements."

Does the Document Need a Summary?

Providing a summary section is a very useful way of communicating clearly. A summary often allows you to pare down your report to plainer language, highlight the main message, avoid difficult terminology, and break away from cumbersome but legally required report formats. A summary is often especially helpful when you have a diverse group of readers who are all looking for something different in your document. In a report to a planning commission, for example, a summary could highlight your recommendation and other key information that the commission needs to know. The remainder of the report could then provide the technical information that may be less critical to the commission's decision, but that project proponents and neighborhood groups will want to have.

Are There Ways to Make the Document Livelier?

As a final step before you start writing, consider ways of making your document livelier. Here are some possibilities:

Using Personal Pronouns

Consider whether you could use personal pronouns ("you," "we," "us," "our," "ours") in addressing your readers. Personal pronouns make your document clearer and livelier by keeping your sentences shorter and more conversational. Using personal pronouns can be especially appropriate in memos and in lists of instructions. (For example, in an instruction list for design review applications, "You will need to submit a full-size set of plans to the Planning Department" is a friendlier statement than "A full-size set of plans shall be submitted to the Planning Department.") Keep in mind, though, that personal pronouns create a more casual tone that may not be suitable for longer, more formal documents, such as a general plan or environmental impact report.

Keeping Paragraphs Short

Long paragraphs often look like massive, insurmountable blocks of words on a page. Your readers' eyes may skip right over them. Breaking up long paragraphs into shorter ones can make the text easier to read.

Using Graphics

Tables, photographs, and other graphics also break up long blocks of text and add visual relief to your document. They can convey some types of information more clearly and quickly than the written word. Some people grasp visual material more easily than words. (For other people, though, the reverse is true.) To be certain that your message will get across to everyone, don't let graphics speak for themselves; plan to describe each one in writing, too. The best graphics reiterate and build on what's in the text.

Using Highlights and Sidebars

Consider highlighting important phrases, sentences, or paragraphs in bold, italic, or underlined font. Or, set off key ideas in boxes or in sidebars in the margins.

Setting Margins and Line Spacing

Your readers might appreciate wide margins and ample space between lines of text, especially if your document is a draft. This will give them room to edit and take notes.

You now have an idea of how you will organize what you have to say. The next step is to say it as clearly as you can.