You may be an incredible writer, but if your presentation is full of inconsistencies, your readers may not be getting your message. It's too easy to get lost in the funky formatting.

1. Your presentation (whether it's on paper or the web) needs to have consistent margins, fonts, and formatting.

2. Pick a couple of fonts and stick to them throughout the document. If you choose a fancy one, make sure that it looks good on screen and on paper. Avoid loopy, italicized fonts for body text. They are hard to read. (San serif should be used for body text on the web. Serif fonts should be used for paper documents.) Know your audience. If they're over 40, don't make the font too small. (You shouldn't use more than 3-5 font types in a document.)

3. Chunk your content. Adult readers can process 5-9 things. Readers get lost if there is too much or the text is too dense. Use subheaders to break up your material.

4. Make sure that your subheaders are consistent. I saw a document last week with 15 subheaders and no two were alike. (Just because your word processor has a lot of formatting options, doesn't mean that it's good to use all of them in the same document.) Subheaders are supposed to guide your readers (not distract them).

5. Color used to be very expensive for printed documents. If you're creating an online document, color can be used for emphasis and style. Don't go overboard with backgrounds, borders, and colors. Princess pink with sparkles doesn't exude professionalism in most business settings. Remember that there is a large portion of the male population that is affected by color blindness.

6. Use italics instead of underlining. Underlining should be reserved to denote hyperlinks. Underscores were used in the days of typesetting and typewriters when italics weren't readily available.

7. Be consistent with spacing, indents, and spacing between paragraphs. Rivers of white running through your document waste space and paper.

8. Be consistent with capitalization in headers and subheaders.

9. Use a template to ensure that all of the same type of documents have a similar look.

10. Use your word processor's styles/style sheets for larger documents. This keeps sections consistent. It also makes formatting changes much easier.

When users see formatting issues, they get distracted from your message. If you have a blog or web page, you'll lose readers. In today's world, you only have a couple of seconds to catch people's attention. These are some simple things that you can do to improve your work's presentation.