This is a transcript of one of the videos in the plain language training course Writing well at work. There are references to slides and visual material that are only available by viewing the video.
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PAM
So there we have it. Purpose audience message. The three things I reckon you need to get straight before you start writing any document.
I call it PAM, just a short acronym to help me remember purpose.
Purpose – I need to know why I’m writing this document.
Audience – I need to know who I’m writing to.
Message- I need to know what I’m going to say.
These three components are vital. I consider them to be like 3 legs on a stool. If one of those components is missing, my document is going to become very wobbly.
Sometimes I’m asked to review documents that aren’t working so well. And as I get into the task, it becomes really clear that there hasn’t been a whole lot of PAM thinking before they started to write.
Now you may be thinking that’s all well and good, but do you expect me to do all this work every time I write anything? And I’m going to answer yes and no.
I’m going to say yes, you must do this thinking anytime you write anything. But no, you don’t need to write it out longhand as I’ve asked you to do in this course for all documents.
For some documents, you can do this thinking really quickly inside your head in just a few minutes. So if I was just writing a an email about lunchtime arrangements. Yeah. Purpose. Audience message. I’ve done that. Let me get on with the task.
But if it is a more significant document, it would be really worthwhile investing some thinking time before I start writing to be very clear about purpose, audience and message.
Clarity about purpose, audience,message – a way to cut document review time
And I think it would be good to be talking to other people about PAM to have some agreement about PAM before we started to write.
If we had good agreement about Pam before we started to write the document, what do you think that would do to the review or approval process? I think it’s going to shrink it down considerably.
My observation is that we often don’t have these conversations about PAM until after there’s a first draft, and then people say things like ohh yeah, that’s good, but I’m not sure we’ve hit the purpose. Or maybe it’s not gonna suit our audience.
That’s the time when we have these conversations when people want to provide their input. Well, if it happens at that stage, we’ve got a whole lot of rework to do and a whole lot of churn throughout the review process.
If you can get this straight – purpose audience and message – and get that straight right at the very beginning and get some good agreement about it, that will make the entirety of the whole writing process much smoother.
There may be times that as you go through the writing process, you will modify what you started with PAM. That’s OK. The writing process is part of a thinking process, and sometimes that happens.
But starting with a really good solid idea of purpose, audience and message is always the best way to start any writing task.
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