From 1989 to 1991 I worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington, DC. Part of my duties included writing short briefing papers for high-level Pentagon and State Department officials. As part of my training, I took a DIA course called Writing for Decisionmakers. Its aim was to teach analysts to write short briefing papers for users who would be under daunting workloads and considerable time constraints. These papers were to be superficial treatments of complex topics, so that a diplomat, who had never been to a country, could read these on their first trip there and familiarize him/herself with the situation waiting. Topics could be anything from the biographies of officials he/she would meet to the operational status of an air force or air defense command or navy, etc.
The papers we had to write had to be no more than the front and back of a single sheet of paper with the more graphics (pie charts, maps, etc.) and the more white space the better. If I recall correctly, the text could be single-spaced.
This was the only true writing course I ever had and the lessons I garnered from it have lasted decades. For your enjoyment and edification, here are the lessons from it and from experience that have lingered for over thirty years.
The first lesson I learned about writing these papers, though from experience and not from this course in particular, was how to take my broad knowledge of a subject and boil it down to its essence, down to the critical bullet points that official would need. This I had to learn on my own through trial and error, but the paper format did help somewhat, because each paper had to begin with a two to three line executive summary, so that if the official had almost no time, he/she could read that summary, know the most important point(s) of the paper, and decide whether to read the rest.
Over the years, using my lessons learned from writing executive summaries plus lessons from other organizations and my experience giving numerous briefings and presentations, I found that the best way to write official documents and most non-fiction material (and for writing a speech) is to write it like a newspaper article: put the most important point as the first sentence in the text. Then the second most important point is the second sentence, the third most important point is the third sentence and so forth. Then if the reader reads nothing but that first sentence and is suddenly called away onto some emergency, they still know the most important point of your document.
The next lesson was to use short, declarative sentences in the present tense. This keeps the action flowing and lets the reader know exactly what is happening at the moment he/she is reading the document. It also lets the reader know exactly who is performing which action. For the purposes of writing fiction, this taught me that packing more action into a sentence keeps the story from being boring.
The third most important lesson I learned was to eschew the passive tense. Passive tense is used a lot in government organizations, because it simply states that an action has taken place but doesn’t have to say who performed that action. Therefore, it is useful for avoiding blame for some snafu or to avoid pointing out who is responsible (for example your supervisor, your colleague, or a combination of people) if you want them to avoid blame for something or if you want to ensure they receive the blame for something. That is cold to say, but it is the reality of bureaucratic Realpolitik.
Finally, one critical lesson was to use as few words as possible (which Strunk and White’s Elements of Style also advises). Do this by packing as much meaning into each word as possible by using words precisely and avoiding adverbs. Each word has a specific meaning. Find the word whose meaning reflects precisely the action you are describing. Why say “John walked slowly and lazily into the room”, when you can be more descriptive and more precise by saying “John sauntered into the room”? Using specific, meaning-charged words also packs power into whatever you are writing. Why would you say “Joe went to the store” when you can pack more meaning and action into the sentence by saying “Joe raced to the 7-11 in his ’78 Camaro”?
A good example of a sentence that would benefit from these lessons would be:
At this moment in time no changes in enemy operations have been observed by our local personnel.
That is a good example of what I think of as governmentese.
A little thought shows that:
“At this moment in time” = now. But you don’t need now, because the verb is present tense, which also equates to now.
Now change from passive voice to active and the result is:
Our local personnel have observed no changes in enemy operations.
Why not say: Our local personnel have not observed any changes in enemy operations. ?
The first example contains nine words. The second example contains eleven.
You may also notice a device I use which is technically correct and which helps understanding. I spelled out the numbers 9 and 11 versus using the numerals. Different style guides have varied guidance on this, but this is a good, general rule of thumb from Grammarly:
It is generally best to write out numbers from zero to one hundred in nontechnical writing. In scientific and technical writing, the prevailing style is to write out numbers under ten. While there are exceptions to these rules, your predominant concern should be expressing numbers consistently.
What I like about this is that if you have a single number, it prevents changing the entire meaning of not only a sentence, but of a paper, if you have a typo. Consider the sentence:
3 strikes and you’re out.
A typo changes it to: 5 strikes and you’re out. This is bad if you are writing the Official Baseball Rules, published by Major League Baseball. It is incredibly bad if the typo goes unnoticed and is published. But if you write out the number and have a typo, it may look like this:
Threy strikes and you’re out.
Even if you are not familiar with baseball, you know what the author intended the number to be. If it manages to go to print, you look like an idiot, but everyone who reads it knows what you meant.
My personal preference is to go with writing out numbers under a hundred whenever I can and ones over a hundred if they are important. Of course, I use numerals when it is practical to do so.
Someone I knew who used to be a bank teller told me that banks never look at the numbers of an amount on a check. They always go by what is spelled out on the line below. This is wise. Likewise, I write out any critical number in any document just to be certain that I cannot be misunderstood, or that the meaning of the entire document cannot be changed by a typo.
Another example: suppose you gave an organization a promise to pay them $1,000, but a typo changed it to $3,000. It would have been better just to write out one-thousand dollars. Also, it is harder for someone to deliberately cheat you out of more than you owe.
These are just a few thoughts on my philosophy of writing and how it has developed over the years. Stay tuned. More are coming.
I hope these few pointers help in your writing experience.
Image generated by AI.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 