1. Did you select an appropriate organizational structure?
2. Does your message flow easily from paragraph to paragraph
and from section to section?
3. Have you included any attachments, appendices, or corollary
documents (such as a brochure) that you refer to in the body of
your communication?
4. Have you considered the level of detail that’s appropriate to
include and are you providing it?
5. For those units of information that require detail, have you
fully explained everything that needs to be described, outlined,
or summarized?
6. Have you included all footnotes and endnotes that are referred
to in the body of your communication?
7. If your document comprises multiple sections, are they consistently
numbered and formatted?
8. If your document comprises multiple sections, are you including
a table of contents, and is it correct?
9. Stop and think: Are you missing any pertinent units of
information?
10. Reread your communication once again focusing on the overall
message. Is it clear?
Level Three: Everything
Andrea, the owner of the insurance consulting firm who discovered that
her boilerplate business letters needed to be proofed using Level Two standards
says, “My proposals are more complex, even though I send out only
one proposal per subject and they’re not huge. Five to ten pages is quite
modest by some proposal standards. I once saw a grant proposal that ran
over a hundred pages. But still, this is my bread and butter. It is essential
to me that my proposals are perfect in every way.
“I used the assessment to figure out what level of proofing is appropriate
for my proposals—Level Two, like for my letters, or what. My
scores were as follows.”
1. Your communication will be distributed only within your
organization. 1