Supplementary Reading
The Administrative Memo:The ABCs of Good Administrative Writing[2]
Accuracy．Good writing is accurate writing.This is true in two senses.First，the statements that you make in your writing—the facts on which you rely—should be true.If you are writing a report for the county office of social services and you note that last year its social workers had an average case load of 75 clients each，make sure that is a correct figure.Everyone makes mistakes occasionally;good writers minimize them.Nothing causes the credibility of an administrator to plummet as quickly as a reputation for error.
Accuracy is important in a second sense as well:Your spelling，punctuation，and grammar all should be correct.There is an old saying:“You can't expect anyone to take your writing more seriously than you appear to take it yourself.”If you draft a memo or prepare a report that is sloppy，filled with run-on sentences or misspelled words，you clearly have not taken your writing seriously.Others will treat it accordingly.
This rule is not hard to follow.One clearly does not need to have“natural writing talent”to be careful in the use of facts or to use a dictionary.
Brevity．The best administrative writing is short and to the point.Administrators are busy people.So are the legislators，contractors，clients，and others with whom they interact.Almost no one has the time or patience to wade through a memo that runs on like a Norse saga.In many offices，the rule is that if a document is longer than three or four pages，it must have an“executive summary”attached to the front for interested parties to scan quickly.You need to exercise judgment in following this rule of brevity，of course.If your assignment is to write an evaluation of a major agency program，you likely will need to say more than“This program has failed to meet its objectives.”
Clarity．Good writing is clear writing.It is writing that takes the work—and the guesswork—out of reading.When you write clearly，your audience knows exactly what you mean，and that should be your primary goal.
To keep it clear，keep it simple.Too many people knit their words together as if they were weaving an oriental carpet，producing awesomely intricate and ornamented patterns of prose.Even if you think your readers enjoyed diagraming sentences in tenth-grade English(a doubtful proposition，by the way)，don't construct your sentences as if they were puzzles to be solved.For those who aspire to clear writing，there is no better friend than the simple declarative sentence，arranged in subject-verb-object form(e.g.，“The Department of Transportation［subject］awarded［verb］300 contracts［object］”).
Avoid unnecessary jargon and fancy words.Though you may be justly proud that you have mastered the foreign language of your profession(Pentagon-speak，legalese，accountingish，or whatever)，don't assume that all your readers are equally adept.As the great essayist E.B.White wrote more than 40 years ago，“Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy，ready and able.”
Clarity does not come cheap.In fact，there is an inverse relationship between the ease of reading and the ease of writing.As Hemingway put it，“Easy writing makes hard reading.”Thus it is a good guess that the crisper and clearer the sentence，the longer it took to write.The key is to rewrite，and then rewrite some more.
A Writing Checklist(https://www.daowen.com)
1．Know your main point，state it at the outset，and build the rest of your writing around it．
2．Verify your facts．
3．Check your spelling and grammar．
4．Eliminate unnecessary words and phrases．
5．Use the active voice．
6．Keep your writing short，simple，and to the point．
【注释】
[1]Source:Adapted from Mark W.Huddleston and Dennis L.Dresang，The Public Administration Workbook，New York:Pearson Education，Inc.，2007，pp.131-133.
[2]Source:Huddleston，Mark W.and Dresang，Dennis L.，The Public Administration Workbook，New York:Pearson Education，Inc.，2007，pp.6-7.