Can Do Writing™: The Proven Ten-Step System for Fast and Effective Business Writing

Chapter 5. Compose the Draft

After you finish analysis, turn on your word processor and compose the draft. Transcribe your purpose statement and your sentence outline into your word processor. Your purpose statement becomes the first sentence in your introduction. The points in your sentence outline become the first sentences in your paragraphs.

All documents present information in the following order: introduction, body, and conclusion. Each part of the document serves a different purpose. The introduction helps readers use the document. The body provides the information readers need. The conclusion tells readers what happens next.

However, you compose your draft in the order of these five techniques:

• 5.1 Compose the draft body.

• 5.2 Compose the draft conclusion.

• 5.3 Compose the draft introduction.

• 5.4 If necessary, compose the draft executive summary.

• 5.5 If necessary, compose the informative abstract.

Most writers get the order wrong, composing the introduction first—a linear approach. However, the introduction introduces the document. Until you have the body and the conclusion, you don't have a document to introduce. You don't really know what you need to put in the introduction. When composed first, introductions are usually too long and full of irrelevant information. Many people use writing the introduction as a substitute for analysis; consequently, their introduction includes information that belongs in the body or in an executive summary.

Some documents, if necessary, use an executive ...