4.1 Introduction

Successful business communicators meet their audience’s needs. Organization is one more way to do that. When a document is well-organized, readers can easily get the information they need. Good organization also helps readers see the connections between ideas.

We know that time is one of the biggest constraints in modern business communication. Most people get a lot of emails, and so often must skim. If you can’t capture your audience’s attention in the first few seconds, you risk losing it completely. When organizing business documents, we, therefore, need to ask ourselves some questions:

• What is the most important thing for the audience to know?
• What does the audience need to know first? Second?
• How can I draw attention to key points using organizational aids like headings and bullet points?
• Will my audience understand the connections between my ideas? If not, how can I help them?
• Should all the information be in the document, or should some of it be in attachments or links?

Using headings and subheadings, lists and paragraphs as some way to organize a message to capture and keep your audience’s attention.