Introduction

Welcome to another edition of the Red Pony Express. Still in the grip of winter, Melbourne seems to get colder every day. Spring is supposedly just around the corner, but you wouldn't believe it to look out the window.

As a distraction from the grim weather and also the thrills and spills of the federal election campaign, Peter invites you to meditate upon the five secrets to a successful executive summary and I offer some gentle guidance for those who insist upon making nouns into verbs. We also clear up some confusion surrounding homophones ... or possibly create some.

Happy reading,

Andrew

news@redpony.com.au

5 tips for creating a compelling executive summary

Peter Riches

Writing the executive summary is generally the most important and therefore daunting task in creating any document. As the name suggests, this section must target the decision makers—and it may well be the only part of the document they read. Therefore it is vital that it provide a concise, accurate and compelling summary of everything that follows.

Of course, summarising an entire report, business proposal or submission in two pages (and an executive summary generally shouldn’t be any longer than two pages) is never an easy task. Here are a few tips to help you.

Always write the executive summary last. Even if you have planned out the entire document, the act of writing it will help you to arrange your ideas and crystallise your thinking. This will be invaluable when you come to writing that final, all-important synopsis. Once you have drafted the body of your document, review each section and note the key points to be included in the executive summary.

Your executive summary should follow a basic logic that offers the reader an understanding of the issue, and why the proposed course of action is being recommended. You can modify the following generic structure to suit your specific requirements:

1. Background
2. Purpose of the report/problem to be solved
3. Methodology (how you decided on the recommendations)
4. Recommendations
5. Benefits
6. Implementation
7. Costs (financial or otherwise)

Remember also that the audience for the executive summary is not necessarily the same as for the rest of your document. The decision maker is often someone in a management role, not a subject matter expert, so keep the technical detail for the main body. The executive summary should be clear, concise and written in plain English.

Five helpful points to remember are:

• Be concise (no more than two pages).
• Provide a context for the document – What is the background and what problem or need is it intended to address?
• Explain what the recommendations are, how they were reached and the likely benefits and implications.
• Don’t just cut and paste chunks of text from the body of the document. The executive summary is a distillation of the main document, not a series of excerpts.
• Remember your audience. Avoid jargon or technical terminology.

Verbing nouns

Andrew Eather

English is a constantly and rapidly evolving language. Its flexibility is astonishing. While this can give speakers and writers of English an enviable degree of freedom, it can make things difficult for us (we?) ‘custodians of language’, otherwise known as editors.

Good, you say. Stick-in-the-mud grammarians need a clip over the ear from the salty tongues of the speakers of everyday English (if you can tolerate that startling mixed metaphor).

But where does experimentation with language stop and gibberish start? A recent article in the Boston Globe tackled the problem of ‘verbing’ nouns. What? Well, when you verb a noun you are--just like it sounds--turning it into a verb.

For example: impact, leverage, access. As in, ‘How will this nuclear explosion impact our bottom line?’

This is very popular in business because it creates the impression that if you are using a doing word, you must be doing something. I find it very annoying, but that’s no argument against inventive language. As ever, if you are clearly understood by your intended audience, you should do it. Just don’t expect it to be pretty.

Having said that, it was good enough for Shakespeare (‘Julius Caesar, I Who at Phillipi the good Brutus ghosted’), and, as we all know, if it was good enough for Shakespeare, that ends the argument, no matter how convoluted his syntax may be.

Fulsome prison blues

Andrew Eather

Sometimes words betray us; they don’t necessarily mean what we think they mean. We can go for years misusing relatively common words or phrases, getting them ever so slightly (or totally) wrong. It can be quite embarrassing, especially once we find out we’ve been getting it wrong all our lives.

Here are a few common ones that crop up in print all the time. One reason we (and spellcheck) don’t pick them up is that they are often homophones; that is, two (or more) words that sound the same but are spelt differently:

• A council decides whether or not you can build a turret on your roof. Counsel is advice you receive. Or your legal representation once you appeal council’s rejection of your turret-building application.
• One is discreet about one’s illicit affairs. When one wishes to keep two elements separate, one insists they remain discrete (and pronounced ‘diskret’).
• Principals are people who lead, whether companies or schools. Principles are the rules by which we live.
• Heroines, as a rule, do not take heroin.

Other errors, or solecisms, as we call them in the linguistics caper, come about through simple confusion:

• Erstwhile means former, not steadfast.
• You are not flattering someone by using the word fulsome. It means insincere.
• Mischievous has only two ‘i’s in it. Often you will hear a third ‘i’, sometimes even from newsreaders.

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Create a compelling executive summary You can do it in five easy steps.

Verbing nouns Try not to do it at all, unless you're Shakespeare.

Fulsome prison blues Mischievous homophones that offer false counsel.

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