Revising, proofreading, and evaluating is the final stage of the 3-x-3 writing process, it is to ensure that your message fulfills its purpose. A message is clear if it is immediately understood by its audience.
For clarity, a message ought to be simple, and conversational. Eliminate foggy writing by applying the KISS formula: Keep It Short and Simple. Additionally, achieve a conversational tone by including occasional contractions and first person pronouns.
Moreover, a message should make its point in the fewest number of words possible. This is efficient because main points stand out, thus saving the reader valuable time. To create a concise message, fillers such asthere and it should be removed as well as long obvious lead-ins. Redundancies from excessive adjectives, adverbs, and phrases are to be avoided, and compound prepositions and empty words should be purged.
In order to add vigour to a message, verbs should not be needlessly transformed into nouns, and overused trite business expressions ought to be cut out.
It is suggested to use parallelism to ensure comprehension by the reader. Parallelism means consistency in the use of verbs and nouns. Numbered and bulleted lists add ease for the reader when understanding the essence of a message. A message can also be reinforce by adding visual effects such as headings at the beginning of certain sentences. Furthermore, one could use myriad graphic techniques that directly affect the visual aspects of the words. For example, capitalizing, underlying and bolding of letters are good tactics to catch the attention of readers.
Finally, the readability of a message should be reviewed by having it proofread at least twice. Proofreading consists of looking for word meanings, and analyzing technical elements and grammar to evaluate whether or not a message has achieved its purpose.
