Have you found that many of your employees don’t use your in-house procedures? Even if you’ve asked them why, they may have only answered, “It’s confusing.”
But what makes many organizations’ procedures so confusing? Often, lack of editing is the culprit. Failing to proofread and edit your manuals, procedures, and other documentation is likely resulting in more than just a few misspellings. You could have significant errors that are making your documents confusing, or even incorrect. These mistakes can be costly and dangerous if they result in a lack of compliance, accident, or equipment malfunction.
Keep reading to learn why people struggle to read your company’s procedures.
Why Is No One Using Your Procedures?
Confusion is the number one culprit when it comes to ineffective procedures and documentation. If your procedures aren’t getting across the pertinent information quickly and clearly, it’s likely your employees will skip the reading. However, when procedures are required for safety and compliance, you can’t rely on word of mouth and training to get by. You need your procedures documented.
So why are your procedures confusing? Here are three reasons why your employees may be leaving your procedure documents on the shelf:
There Are Too Many Grammatical Errors
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The above paragraph is chock full of grammatical errors. Your procedures may not look that bad, but even a few grammatical errors can make a paragraph confusing or even unreadable.
These are just a few common grammatical errors that can lead to problems in your procedures:
- Run-On Sentences
Run-on sentences and clunky phrasing tend to be confusing, causing readers to lose the thread of what is being said. Take the first sentence in the example above. By the end of it, is it clear what the sentence was about? If the reader must re-read a sentence several times to understand its meaning, it’s likely poorly written. - Word Confusion and Misspellings
We’re all guilty of it: writing “they’re” instead of “there” or vice versa. However, when it comes to procedures, these errors can be costly. They’re easy to miss, but they can add up quickly, especially in a procedure that is already full of mistakes. Too many misspellings can also result in a confusing procedure. For example, lose and loose have two different meanings. Your sentence won’t make sense if you use the wrong one. The reader may eventually figure out what you’re trying to say, but they will waste time and cost you money in the process. - Misuse of Commas
Some writers tend to be a little too comma happy. Others are unsure where to put commas. A good thing to keep in mind is that commas are a “small pause.” Too many commas will result in choppiness. Too few results in what feels like endless text. Both errors make procedures difficult to read.
It Contains Too Much Unnecessary Information
Probably every employee is familiar with receiving emails that contain too much information. The message could be about an upcoming event, but the email takes forever to get to the point. The same problem happens with procedures and documentation.
Procedures should only contain the information that is necessary to the task at hand. If you waste the reader’s time, they will ignore the entire procedure.
The Information is Poorly Organized
Formatting matters in procedures. If your formatting is choppy or nonexistent, it can disrupt the flow of the procedure, even if the writing is free of grammatical errors. The reader may struggle to read the instructions, find information relevant to their question, or even identify the point of the procedure.
How Can Editing Help?
Editing isn’t simply the method of correcting misspellings or instances of “they’re” vs. “there.” Editing refers to the ability to transform writing for readability. This includes fixing procedures for grammar, clarity, readability, organization, consistency, formatting, and more.
In his memoir and master class book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, famous horror writer Stephen King talks about how editing is a major part of the writing process. He explains the 10 percent rule, which is the idea that after you’ve finished writing, you go back through your document to remove (at minimum) 10% of what you wrote. The idea is that it gets rid of all the “unnecessary” information, leaving only what is necessary to achieve the goal of your document.
This rule can be helpful for procedures, too. Technical writers may find that they wrote information in the document that isn’t needed, and that’s okay. That’s what editing is there for!
How Can You Optimize Your Editing?
If you want to ensure your employees are reading your procedures, it’s time to develop a strategy for editing your documentation. These pro tips will allow you to make your procedures more readable.
Create an Editing Checklist
Your first step should be to create an editing checklist that accounts for everything an editor should look for in your document. This should include the grammar, spelling, and formatting of your content, as well as information on company branding and a list of all the errors commonly found in your documentation. This will ensure your content is aligned with your brand and free of mistakes.
Use Standard Templates
Standardized templates for each of your document types allows for increased consistency across your company’s documentation library. Users can find information quickly and efficiently, and if a new procedure is published, they can easily understand it as it follows the same template as previous procedures.
Use AI Tools
Artificial intelligence (AI) shouldn’t be your only secondary writer and editor, but it can be a helpful tool. From spell check to ChatGPT, these resources can assist you in identifying errors in your writing. However, they shouldn’t be wholly relied upon as they can be incorrect or inconsistent.
Get Fresh Eyes On Your Document
If you’re writing a procedure, it can be helpful to have someone you trust read it over. They can identify mistakes or confusing pieces of content that you overlooked. You may also want to consider having an employee that will be using the published procedure read over the draft. This allows them to ask questions and raise concerns if there is any confusion, giving you time to edit the procedure before it goes live.
If you can’t get someone else to read the document, you might want to set it aside for a day or two to look at it “fresh.” We also suggest reading your work out loud as this can help you identify odd phrasing and grammatical errors. Printing a hard copy and marking errors with a colored pen may also be helpful, as opposed to just reading and editing on your screen.
Work With a Third Party Editor
Working with a third-party editor for your procedures allows an expert to take over the job. They understand what to look for in a document, the common problems that arise, and how to adjust content to fit into a brand or template design. Technical writers can convert complex and challenging information into clear documentation that your target audience will read and understand.
At Shea Writing and Training Solutions, we provide editing, proofreading, procedure writing, and template development. Our writers and editors work to improve the quality of a document and ensure it is truly ready for publication. If your organization is struggling to write procedures that your employees will read, it may be time to partner with a third-party editor. Discover what we can do for your organization here.
There’s so much more to writing than simply typing out a few sentences! Proofreading, editing, and template development are all important parts of the writing process. They remove errors, ensure uniformity, and make content more readable. Taking these steps when it comes to editing will help to ensure your procedures are clear, compliant, and, most importantly, being read!
