Writing the Comments

• Author: Elizabeth D. Mullin
• Pages: 31-44

31

CHAPTER 5:

Writing the Comments

Sit back and think. Who will be reading your comments? Try to visual-

ize a face, a cubicle or oce, a stack of paper, a backlog of e-mail mes-

sages, and desktop photos. Is it the person in the oce next door, or a

giant agency, or a company that you vaguely distrust? How many sets of com-

ments is the person likely to receive? Is it one, ve, hundreds, or thousands?

ink a little more. If you were t he recipient, what comments would you

want to receive? e answer to that one is easy. You, like anyone, would like

to see the following:

Loved the document! It’s perfect! Don’t change a single word!

Anything less is a punch in the stomach and something that the unhappy

recipient of your comments (usually the author of the document) wi ll have

to deal with in one way or another. Whatever you say is trouble and work.

So, make the job easy.

Hand your comments to the recipient on a silver platter. Present clear,

convincing, and easy-to-follow comments appropriate to your type and level

of review. State concisely what changes you want and why, if it is not obvi-

ous. If possible, give the recipient both what he or she needs to make the

revisions and to summarize the comments for supervisors or clients. Persuade

as necessar y.

e remainder of this chapter gives tips on how to prepare formal, written

comments on a major environmental document. For short or informal com-

ments, you will probably not need to go this far. Tailor these suggestions to your

specic needs and your role in the commenting process, and use what is helpful.

e organi zation and format ca n make or break your comments. Using

a good format makes your comments easier to understand and use, lets the

recipient discern what you are after, and can even increase your credibility.

Most importantly, however, it helps ensure that your key points don’t get lost

in your verbiage.

Once you have thought about how to fra me your comments, move to

Chapter 6 (“What to Say”), which addresses the substance of your comments

(i.e., what to say, rather than how to say it).