TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR REPORT WRITING 3- PROOF READING TIPS
Having Problems with Proof Reading Your Reports?
Here’re some ideas that may help you improve the quality of your reports.
Tip 1: Print out a copy of the report. Spell-checkers and grammar checkers
miss things, and people do not read text onscreen with the same diligence as they read from a page.
Tip 2: Use a ruler to slow down your reading and make yourself read line
by line.
Tip 3: Read the report out aloud. This process slows down your reading
and makes you listen to how it sounds.
Tip 4: Read the report backwards. Obviously it will not make sense but it
is an excellent way to spot spelling mistakes.
Tip 5: Limit your proofreading to one small section at a time. Then take a
short break before proceeding to the next small section.
Tip 6: Proofread when you are most fresh. This time may be early in the
morning or whenever you feel the most alert. I prefer doing it at night where there’s no one disturbing or when everyone goes back.
Tip 7: Try to proofread when you know you will have peace and quiet and
can avoid interruptions from the telephone or visitors. Like an editor, all phone calls, include your cell phone has to be turned off so that you can concentrate on your proof reading.
Contributed by Master Trainer, Sue Boey @ iTrainingExpert.com
To get a comprehensive training on Technical Report Writing for Engineers & Technical Personnel, click HERE to access to the upcoming workshop details.
TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR REPORT WRITING 2
Do your reports sometimes get ‘bounce back’ to you with bloody red-inked printed comments from your boss?
Do you get sometimes get comments from your managers asking you to improve your report writing skills while wondering I thought I did a great job!
Well, fear not folks, here’s some help to you ‘proof-read’ your reports before you submit to your ‘unforgiving’ boss!
First, before you send in your report, put yourself in his or her shoes. Think like your boss, what do they look at to appraise your draft report:
1.Assimilate.
What is the report trying to achieve?
How has the writer attempted to achieve this?
2. Question.
Are all the facts, arguments, conclusions and
recommendations accurate, complete, convincing and justified? Be
prepared to face some very detailed questioning.
3. Evaluate.
How significant are the findings?
4. Check.
Will the writer need to provide any further evidence or re -
assess the practicality of any recommendations?
4. Amend.
Will the report need to be re-structured?
5. Edit.
What changes will need to be made to the content or
presentation? Are the most important findings, conclusions and
recommendations given due prominence? Are less important
findings confined to the main body, an appendix, or perhaps
omitted?
6. Finalise.
Is the report now written to the standard the recipients
require, or, in an organisation with many levels of management, to
the standard other senior levels require?
Tips shared by John Bowden
To get a comprehensive training on Technical Report Writing for Engineers & Technical Personnel, click HERE to access to the upcoming workshop details.
Book a training or attend one of our public seminars
Go to www.iTrainingExpert.com for all trainings in the 2012 Training Calendar.
How to Overcome Writer’s Block
Writer's Block in Report Writing
Problem
Once, an engineer in my workshop said that his worst nightmare attempting to prepare an urgent report is the horror of facing that first blank page.
Everything seems to be too important. Everything has to be written but no words come out from his blank mind.
He asked me if there’s a panacea to this problem.
Solution
My answer to his dilemma is pretty simple.
Start by writing what you find the easiest or most inviting.
Forget about the style, formatting and everything else that worries you too much.
Once you get pass the initial stage or being stuck, the more difficult parts of the report seem less forbidding once the easier ones have been accomplished.
Good luck guys.
Sue Boey from http://www.sueboey.com/
To book Sue for a Business Writing or Technical Report Writing course, go to www.iTrainingExpert.com
Creativity, Problem Solving Skills Training
Unleash Your Creativity, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills to Achieve Greater Heights
Date: 24/5/2012 – 25/5/2012
Venue: Holiday Inn,Glenmarie, Kuala Lumpur
Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm
100% HRDF CLAIMABLE
INTRODUCTION
This course has been specially restructured to include an intense session to enable you to break out of your comfort zones & think creatively. It is better you face the pressure & stress in the training room than out there in the brutal business environment & cut throat market place. Once you can face the pressure in the training room you are ready to tackle any obstacles, challenges & stress in the real world.
The tools that you will be taught in this training program can help you to become more creative, think laterally & come up with more desirable solutions. The focus here will be on 3 main models - CREATIVITY, LATERAL THINKING & PROBLEM SOLVING. They are designed to help you devise creative & imaginative solutions to problems & help you to spot opportunities that you might otherwise miss. Many of the techniques we introduce here have been used by great thinkers to drive their creativity, innovativeness & problem solving abilities.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Sales coordinators, Production Planner, Technical Production Personnel, Engineers and anyone who needs to creatively find ways to solve their day-to-day work problems fast, accurate and effective.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
This program provides you with the opportunity to practice techniques taught:
- Now you can acquire skills & techniques to produce creative & innovative ideas
- How you can eliminate all 10 barriers & blocks to creativity
- Master the secret of stepping out of your normal set pattern`s of thinking – learn to be more proactive, effective & results oriented
- Learn how to get out of comfort zone, take initiative & be more flexible when handling situations at the workplace or when confronted with problems
- Practice the “challenge” technique to make improvements or to change things for greater productivity & better results
- Harvest the results of your creative thinking in order to increase the output, spell out useful new ideas & design ways forward
- Proven creative & systematic techniques for critical thinking, identifying root causes & making decisions rationally
- Announcing the tools that utilize both left & right brains ie critical & accurate thinking combined with creative vision to think outside the box
- Discover lateral thinking tools & techniques to generate ideas, alternatives & solutions, fast
- Save money, time & resources by applying specific techniques to make the output practical, easy to implement, profitable & valuable
COURSE OUTLINE FOR DAY 1
9.00 am CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS (CPS)
- Recognition: What is it? (storing & retrieving)
- Concepts: Putting things into groups (recognizing & linking – springboard for new ideas)
- Possibilities: What could it be? (put forward a possibility when we cannot see clearly)
- Judgment: Does this match? (operation of human thinking – matching & fitting)
- Analysis: What are the parts? (break down complicated situations into smaller sections)
- Comparison & Choice: What is different & what is the same
- Analyzing The Environment & Recognizing & Identifying A Problem Or Opportunity
- Generating Alternatives, Implementing The Solutions & Controlling The Results
- Incorporating CPS Techniques & Design A Way Forward
10.00 am Morning Break
10.20 am TECHNIQUES FOR IDENTIFYING PROBLEMS
Why-Why Diagram
This technique helps problem solvers explore many more possible causes & relate them to the overall problem rather than focusing on a single narrow cause. The why-why diagrams leads to a more thorough analysis
Picture Stimulation
Drawing pictures seem to aid the creative process as it activates your creative right brain. This technique aims to provide ideas for brainstorming a problem from the viewing of one or more pictures. Excellent for getting to new ideas that wouldn’t be spawned by your normal idea generation processes
What Patterns Exist?
Look at the available information. Do you see any patterns or relationships, causal or otherwise? Draw a diagram showing the interconnections among the facts you have uncovered
Camelot
Create a benchmark – compare against ideal or others
Listing Complaints & Bouncing Off Some One – A Fresh Eye
Complaints are excellent sources of identifying your problems. Bouncing ideas off a colleague or friend or someone unrelated to your business is also an excellent way to get a fresh perspective & new insights
10.00 am Morning Break
2.00 pm INDIVIDUAL TECHNIQUES FOR GENERATING ALTERNATIVES
Brainstorming Techniques – Different Points of Views
Generating many radical & useful ideas. Brainstorming is a useful & popular tool that you can use to develop highly creative solutions to a problem
Attribute Listing
List all the attributes or qualities of a problem or object (or service or process or product). Then systematically analyze each attribute or group of attributes & attempt to change it in as many ways as possible
Back to the Customer
Identify the various issues that relates to your customers in terms of product, price, promotion, distribution, target market & customer experience. Write the related issues you should consider in going “back to the customer” to solve your problem. This means that you would identify issues for each of the 6 marketing mix factors related to the problem. Then identify solutions for each of these issues
SCAMPER
SCAMPER is a checklist that helps you to think of changes you can make to an existing product to create a new one. You can use these changes either as direct suggestions or as starting points for lateral thinking.
Morphological Analysis
It involves a matrix on a two-dimensional axis, the vertical axis might list particular characteristics, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc. On the horizontal axis would appear another set of objectives, characteristics, factors, adjectives, adverbs, verbs & so on.
The purpose of the analysis is to force one set of characteristics & words against another to create new ideas, not unlike what occurs with SCAMPER. The advantage of morphological analysis is that numerous ideas can be generated in a short period.
Rich Picture
Rich pictures (situation summaries) are used to depict complicated situations. They are an attempt to encapsulate the real situation through a no- holds-barred, cartoon representation of all the ideas covered already layout, connections, relationships, influences, cause-and-effect,
Individual Exercise: Select Your Technique – Analysis, Evaluation & Presentation
3.00 pm Afternoon Break
3.20 pm GROUP TECHNIQUES FOR GENERATING ALTERNATIVES
Lotus Blossom Technique
Draw upon the metaphor of a lotus blossom where the central idea, problem, issue or technology – written in centre of diagram. Then brainstorm related ideas, issues, solutions, applications etc. Written in surrounding 8 cells where each of these 8 ideas become the centre of a new lotus blossom. The resulting ideas, solutions etc are discussed & evaluated
Scenario Planning
This involves analyzing information, thinking about what this information means & then writing scenarios which describes an organization’s, a company’s, a product’s or an individual’s potential future. After the scenarios are written then the most important part of this exercise begins with identifying internal strengths & weaknesses relative to the scenarios envisioned and the external threats & opportunities that may result form these scenarios. Next strategies must be formulated to utilize strengths to overcome weaknesses, mitigate threats & to take advantage of the opportunities revealed in these scenarios.
Storyboarding
Storyboarding is creating a story on boards. You take your thoughts & those of others & spread them on a large work surface as you work on a project or attempt to solve a problem. When you put your ideas on storyboards you begin to see inter connections – you see how one idea related to another, how all the pieces fit together.
Group Projects – Brainstorming, Discussion & Presentation
4.00 pm Afternoon Break
EVALUATING CHOICES, CHOOSING AMONG ALTERNATIVES (DECISION MAKING) & IMPLEMENTING THE SOLUTIONS
- Analyze & create solutions to difficult situations
- Underlying factors for making sound decisions
- 2 techniques to consider when making decision
- Action plan, contingency plan & follow up
- 6 Techniques: Cost-Benefit analysis, Grid Analysis, Decision Tree, DOT Voting
HOW-HOW Diagram, Be A Warrior In Selling Your Ideas
COURSE OUTLINE FOR DAY 2
9.00 am WHY CREATIVITY & INNOVATION? LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!
- What is creative thinking
- Why creative thinking?
- Why innovation?
- What is innovation?
HOW TO BE MORE CREATIVE
Essential ingredients of innovation & creativity
Discover the 12 barriers to creativity – learning how to overcome them
Using right brain activities such as pictures, music, movement
Visualization, pictures & music to tap into the creative right brain
Experiential Activity: Visualization & Creative Music Session
10.00 am Morning Break
10.20 am CREATIVITY PROCESS, APPLICATION & ACTIVITIES
Idea Generating Questions to Spur the Imagination
The key to spurring the imagination is to learn to think both fluidly – generating a quantity of ideas flexibly – generating unconventional ideas
Steps Towards Stimulating A Creative Environment
Creating an environment in which creativity can flourish
Giving people the freedom to create things
Steps to Develop Creative Thinking Skills
Starting from Step 1: “Is there a Better Way?” to Step 8: “Helicopter Skills”
Ready To Use Creative Platforms: Challenge Assumption, Questioning, Provocation, Reversal/ Opposite Thinking, Absence Thinking, Fantasy/Visioning, Visualization
Interesting & stimulating activities to stimulate your creativity. Awaken the immense creativity in you. After you have removed the barriers to creativity & understand the various creativity tools, you are ready to apply your own creativity. Here, you will work on the challenges in your own organization. Bring your work problems or marketing/ business /office projects with you, you are going to produce actual creative ideas you can use back in your office.
1.00 pm Lunch
2.00 pm THE CREATIVE GAME
A learning game that is fun & specially designed to bring out the following qualities & expertise in you:
- Creativity, brainstorming & problem solving skills
- Lateral thinking – thinking outside the box
- Innovation & innovativeness
- Conducting market research & being a market leader
- Determining what the customer wants
Debriefing & Time Out: Lessons Learnt that Can be Applied Back at Work
3.00 pm Afternoon Break
3.20 pm WHY LATERAL THINKING?
- Vertical vs lateral thinking
- Techniques that can be used
- Looking at problems from various angles
- Applications at the workplace
Put Into Practice: Master These 3 Key Techniques Well
TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR REPORT WRITING
Take an overview of your report before you begin to draft it. There are three aspects to this (five if you are making recommendations),namely:
1. Targeting.
Remember to think of your readers and what they want. It is all too easy to write for yourself and not for them. Remember, the more senior positioned your readers are, the lesser they want to read. They would probably want you to send them an Executive Summary in a page to say all you needed.
2. Outlining.
Remember your purpose and objective(s). Make sure your outline (general plan) is just enough for your report to be sufficient– no more and no less. You can mind-map your entire report before writing as that will give you a clear picture of your entire report.
3. Structuring.
Refer to your Outline framework. Is it still the most suitable, or will it need to be revised, perhaps to highlight some particularly important finding? Can you omit some unnecessary points to make the report more concise, precise and easy to understand?
4. Developing.
What will you recommend to overcome problems identified? Don’t just recommend for the sake of recommending. Put some thoughts into you by being a professional problem-solver.
5. Checking.
Are you sure that these recommendations are practicable? Convince your readers with your recommendation by showing that you’re firm and confident that those solutions work best for them.
Contributed by Master Trainer, Sue Boey @ iTrainingExpert.com
To get a comprehensive training on Technical Report Writing for Engineers & Technical Personnel, click HERE to access to the upcoming workshop details.
How to Write a Winning Tender Proposal
Writing a Tender or Proposal
Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills
I’ve recently completed a 2 day Presentation and Persuasion Skills training in Malaysia before I left for Hong Kong for another one.
While I was on the plane, I looked through the evaluation forms that were filled out after the course. The ratings were generally excellent but there’s this one comment that caught my attention. It says, why should we copy other’s style of presenting? Let individual participant develop their personal presentation style that they are comfortable with.
That comment isn’t the first that I received. I didn’t have some other people who also have the same query and I find it really amazing. Well, it’s a pity that these people couldn’t see the value behind it. But having said that I cannot blame those who don’t know what they don’t know. As educators, our job is to clarify the unclear and reveal the unknown.
Well- the story goes back to my very hands-on and practical workshop. During my intensive workshops, I often picked some of the best people in the world and get the participants to ‘emulate’ what they have done.
During the process, it’s not easy because it involves a lot of analysis, thinking, practicing and script memorising within a short time. (And if English is a challenge, it will increase the level of challenge to you! No wonder so much resistance!)
So here come the TROUBLE! This is where we have some resistance to change. Here’re those people who would question why we have this ‘breakthrough’ session.
- Those who wants to be ‘better speakers’ but insist on their own old ways
- Those are not ready to work hard to be the best and fail to see the value
- Those who are yet to discover what’s being the ‘best presenter’ means and feels
- Those who think they should create their own style of presenting ‘comfortable’ to themselves (if you so have your own style that stands out-you should be casting for Hollywood!)
OK, here’s my explanation! The principle behind this session is Model the Best.
anthony robbins itrainingexpert.com
If you want to get rich, do you ask those who’ve succeeded in amazing a handsome sum of money or would you ask the pauper by the five foot way the secrets to being richer?
The answer is obvious. Of course you’re asked those who have made it. Because they’ve proven to you that they succeeded by following a certain path, you ask them how to trail that path to wealth right? I know what you’re thinking. O, those rich people must have beg, cheat or stolen the money from someone else and that’s why they are rich today. So I don’t want to follow their way. I want to follow my own way. I will work very hard building castles in the air!
Well, guys if you insist on thinking this way, you seriously need to rewire your thinking. The rich do not steal. The rich just simply know what to do best to get there; they seek advice from those who have made it. They copy, emulate and model the ones who have successfully earn their keep. While the poor, keep on doing what they do best ; develop a comfort zone that they are comfortable with and remain there!
COPY, MODEL, EMULATE are the keywords!
She has good behaviour.
He has good attitude.
Copy her! Model him!
Isn’t this an principle easy enough to be understood?
So, back to being a Winning Presenter, iIf you want to be a great presenter and still finds it a struggle that you’re not as ‘interesting’ or ‘power-packed’ as desired, the best way is to emulate those who’ve done is successfully. In other words, model the best. What exactly is the best? Not just the best within the organization. It should be the best in the world. The best in your industry; the most respected and popularly accepted. In short : Model the Best in the world.
So who are the best presenters by far?
Here are a few examples:
Anthony Robbins – Personal Breakthrough
Steve Jobs – Multimedia
Oprah Winfrey – Motivation and Life
Les Brown – Never Give Up
T Harv Eker – Business and Money Blueprint
Blair Singer- Sales Dogs and Rich Dad Advisor
Nick Vujicic – Being Strong
Barrack Obama – US President
and so many more….
SO WHY ARE THEY THE BEST?
Because they PRACTISE enough to be the best!
Because they are coached to be the best!
Because they work on their strengths and improve their weakness to be the best!
Because they’ve the PASSION & COMMITMENT in what they’re talking about
Because they touch the hearts of those who heard them
ARE YOU TOUCHED?
If you want leave an impact and impression on others, make sure you are the first to be impressed by yourself. While you’re researching your presentation, are your touched by what you have to say?
Are you passionate and are you touched?
So, don’t tell me you want to develop your ‘personal’ presentation style – because you have none! And that’s why your presentation is dull, uninteresting and snore inviting. Just follow instructions for one and swallow your ego!
For now learn from the best, learn how they simply use their gestures, voice inflection, facial expression, audience grabbing techniques, postures, appearance and presence.
Until you can model the best and be the BEST yourself, can you think of having your own Personal Style.
If you are not, then don’t expect miracles to happen whereby you would have a standing ovation from the audience.
Also, don’t tell me you’re confused after the course?
I won’t know why you’re confused.
It is your responsibility to ASK and CLARIFY!
As the principle goes, Seek and you will find, ask and you will be given.
by Sue Boey
Get Trained In Power Packed Presentation Skills
Are Your Presentations Having The Impact You Want?
How you present yourself to any audience, whether two or two hundred listeners, is critical to your success or failure…the stakes are that high.
Lost business opportunities and feeling stuck in your career can be things of the past if you take advantage of a few simple tools!
Each time you present is a career changing opportunity…yours for the taking!
Check out http://www.itrainingexpert.com/Training-Calendar-2012/ on the next Power Packed Presentation Skills training.
Ask for Speak with Confidence (in English) tailored course today.
Email info@itrainingexpert.com
Effective Delegation Skills
As climb higher and higher in your career ladder, you’ll discover that your work essentially has to be shared or done by a group of people or more. So you’re now a leader of a department and your workload increases by leaps and bounds. Now, you’ll be thinking of ‘delegation’- the ability to effectively assign task responsibility and authority to others. Or, in other words, delegation skill is your ability to get things done by using work and time of other people.
Critical Survival Skills for Managers
The effective delegation is a critical survival skill for leaders be it managers or supervisors. I’d like to emphasize that understanding delegation skill and knowing how to use it right is an important personal time management skill regardless of you having subordinates or bosses, or if you’re working from home or on-site.
I’m doing everything myself dilemma
So you’ve finally come to a point that you can no longer do everything by yourself. You want to free yourself of some tasks for other thoughts. Here’s where delegation steps in.
The very first thing that you should do is to ask yourself who is the right person to do the task.
A common myth here is thinking like “If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself”. Such thinking is a sure way to stay overloaded with the same kind of work. It is a severe limit on how far you can go and how much you can grow in your job, business, or personal life. So before that happens, study the people’s skills and abilities.
You can use the following simple strategies. First, if you have subordinates, can any of them do the task at lower cost than you? If you are concerned with that they do it worse than you, can they do it at least 80 percent as good as you would, or could you train them to do it so?
If the task requires making decisions you are not authorized to make, when it is very right to delegate it to your boss.
Find a win-win deal
Outside the standard boss-subordinate situation, a key component of the delegation skill is the ability to find a win-win deal, and still delegate the task to someone.
A common win-win situation is when delegating the task saves your time and gives a valuable learning experience, skill training, or an interesting opportunity for the delegatee.
One more situation is task or service exchange, when someone does a task for you in exchange for that you do another task for her/him. Finally, it may be more effective just to buy some particular service from outside, or delegate the task to technologies, for example, to some special software.
You are responsible to oversee the big picture
For your delegation skill to work, make sure that you will be able to monitor the progress of task execution and know if the task is actually completed. When you delegate, normally you are still responsible for that the task is completed. Avoid delegation when you are unable to monitor the completion status.
Yet, delegate the whole task
What you live to the delegatee is the responsibility for how the task is executed, the method of execution. When you do this, for the delegation to be effective it is important that you delegate the whole task. You need to effectively and clearly communicate to the delegatee what outcome is expected and what requirement are for the task results.
This is very important for the delegatee’s motivation and performance, as well as for your satisfaction with the task results.
iTrainingExpert.com’s editorial