My team has been asked to give feedback recently to some professionals on their business writing. After taking some online classes, they did a writing sample and sent it to us for review. We reviewed them individually and then met with the person to review our notes. Here is some of what we did...

1. We talked to the individuals before we started the feedback session about styles, preferences, and technical writing. A lot of things are subjective and there are more than one way to do things. We explained why we created an internal style guide so that everyone follows the same conventions.

2. I made my notes on hard copies. I proofread/edit better from paper. I used pencil or a pen other than one with red ink. I didn't want to create a flashback to seventh grade English and the dreaded red pen.

3. My technical writer prefers doing feedback electronically. This worked because he printed the document with his comments and notes. (We didn't provide electronic copies because we've had people in the past accept all the changes and not really look at the reasons.) We asked the participants to go over our feedback and update their documents.

4. We also explained that the process isn't a write it and it's a perfectly formed masterpiece. It's difficult to write in a clear and concise manner, and writing is an iterative process.

5. These sessions also provided us the opportunity to talk about our document repository and our template library.

Look for opportunities in your organization where you can help with writing, proofreading, and editing. Always start with the positive, and make sure that you're explaining why you made the change to the document. Also during times of budget-cutting and belt-tightening, you may find opportunities to offer brown-bag sessions or training to folks in your company.

Happy Friday!