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This is a
dramatic -- and highly exaggerated -- example of what I immodestly
call "Yaffe's Law". It states: If you give people
what they want first, they are likely to accept anything else
you want them to have. If you give them what you want first,
chances are they won’t accept anything at all.
By telling you that you could gain $300,000 by reading the
telephone listings, I sparked your interest. Put more bluntly,
I immediately answered the question that every good writer
or presenter should ask themselves: "Why the hell would
anyone want to read what I am going to write or listen to
what I am going to say?" Or from the audience's point
of view: "What's in it for me?"
If you can't answer this question, then you might as
well shut down the computer and go back to sleep, because
anything you produce will be largely wasted time. Answering
this question is not always easy; in fact, it is often very
difficult. But unless you make the effort, you can hardly
expect your audience to it for you. Here are a couple of examples
to make the truth of Yaffe's Law more concrete.
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Example
1 Original A piece of electronic equipment
installed in automobiles could allow insurance companies
to monitor the driving behavior of their customers.
Each time a motorist uses the car, the device will record
the roads being traveled and the time of the journey,
and send the information via satellite to the insurance
company. With this data, the company will be able to
calculate the insurance premium for each individual
journey based on the relative risk of crashes on the
different roads at different times of the day. The motorist
will receive a monthly or quarterly “usage statement”,
similar to a telephone bill, itemizing the insurance
cost for each use of the car.
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By agreeing
to the system, motorists could save hundreds of dollars on
their automobile insurance. Because of the lower risk of crashes,
trips on superhighways will cost less per kilometer than on
city roads and
Revision
Motorists could save hundreds of dollars on their automobile
insurance by allowing their driving habits be monitored by
a satellite-tracking device installed in the vehicle. Each
time a motorist uses his car, the device will record the roads
being traveled and the time of the journey, and send the information
to the insurance company. The company will then calculate
the insurance premium based on an assessment of the relative
risk of crashes on the different roads at different times
of the day. Motorists will receive a monthly or quarterly
“usage statement”, similar to a telephone bill, giving the
insurance cost for each journey. Because of the lower risk
of crashes, trips on superhighways will cost less per kilometer
than on city roads and . .
Simply moving
the fourth paragraph of the Original to the first paragraph
of the Revision changes everything. Who wouldn’t want to know
how to save hundreds of dollars on their automobile insurance?
Example 2 Original People with mild but measurable
memory problems who took the drug donepezil, trademarked Aricep,
delayed the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by an average of
six months, a study showed. The research indicates that the
drug works for just a short time and then stops. Still, the
report is the first to find a drug therapy that delays the
onset of Alzheimer’s in people at high risk of the disease.
The result does not directly take researchers closer to a
cure for the disease, but understanding how the drug prevents
its onset could provide some important clues.
Revision Donepezil, trademarked
Aricep, has been shown to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease
in people at high risk, the first time any drug therapy has
ever demonstrated such an effect. A clinical study reported
that the drug delayed onset of Alzheimer’s by an average of
six months in people with mild but measurable memory problems,
a strong risk factor. Six months of course is not very long.
However, the fact that the drug worked at all is already a
breakthrough, because it could provide important clues towards
better prevention, treatment, and even a cure.
As you may have guessed, these two examples are taken from
newspapers. This is typical of how good newspapers are written
because this is typically how people want to read. But does
the same technique apply outside of newspapers, and in particular
in the type of writing you do? Indeed it does.
Because whatever kind of text, people still typically want
to get the information in the same way:
1. A clear, concise statement of what the text contains
2. A clear indication (if not an actual statement) of "what's
in it for me?"
When you read documents, isn't this how you would want them
structured? Then this is how you should write them.
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