Email from Todd regarding Final Report

[Murtaza Hitawala]

Hi Team Leaders:

For the Final Report, you are expected to deliver about 50 pages.   
Coordinating an effort like this with multiple authors requires  
planning.  THat is why the scheme for the Final Report is a  
deliverable itself.

Start by marking a table of contents, a list of tables, figures and  
appendices.  Take the time to make sure that every member of your team  
agrees on that.  Then send it to Ivan, Nizami, Tom and I.  We will  
look at it and let you know if there are gaps.

Then, expand the table of contents.  Under each main heading, you  
should have al the relevant subheadings.  Then under each subheading,  
put a bullet-list of the key points that you plan to include un each  
subsection.  Get everyone in the group to review this before submittal  
on Monday.  Make sure everyone knows what sections they are primarily  
responsible for (i.e., they have to write it) and secondarily  
responsible for (i.e., they are the first person to read it after  
someone else writes it and they do the first round of edits).  This  
"expanded outline" should be about 7 pages.  That's what I hope to see  
for Monday.

Nizami, Ivan and I will provide feedback on the scheme on Tuesday and  
once our edits are addressed, the document preparation is actually  
fairly simple.  Each bullet is a topic, so each one becomes a  
paragraph.  Every paragraph needs a "Topic Sentence" at the beginning,  
which is like an executive summary of the paragraph.  All it says is  
the take-home message.  If all you do is read the first sentence of  
each paragraph, you should be able to follow the report logic  
perfectly.  The last sentence of each paragraph is the "Tie-In"  
sentence, which answers the question "why do I care?".  This is where  
the relevance of each topic to your overall theme(s) is made clear.   
Sentences in between the Topic Sentence and the Tie-In Sentence  
provide al the necessary technical detail, citations, etc. to enable  
the reader to independently verify the report is true, accurate and  
complete.  Each sentence is one idea only, generally one or two lines  
is best (long sentences can be grammatically correct, and still  
confusing).  Your duty to the reader is to write clearly, concisely,  
with necessary and sufficient detail for peer technical review and a  
clear and easy to follow logic flow.  All of this gets a lot easier  
with a good scheme (a.k.a. expanded outline).

Don't be shy about sending interim versions if you are not sure you  
are on the right track.

Todd