Skip to content

#Fact: Polished, Professional Documents Matter

1 Comment on #Fact: Polished, Professional Documents Matter

If you want to make a good impression, you need to make sure that your documents are polished and professional, with every element right where readers expect it. Think about how you prepare for a job interview. You wear specific kinds of clothes. You carry specific accessories, depending upon your field. You make sure that you look polished, not wrinkly. Everything is exactly right and just as the interviewer expects it. Nothing is missing.

By analogy, the documents that you write need to have the same polished, professional appearance. Everything needs to be in its place, just were the reader expects it. Nothing is missing. As you work on your Genre Analysis Report, review the components that make up the front and back matter for your report in this University of Minnesota video (4m35s):

 

Note: This video has closed captioning, so it does not need a transcript.


 

1 Comment

I think Front Matter is really what distinguishes a professional report from a school paper. Having a title page and table of elements adds design elements that attract the reader and makes them want to start reading. Personally, I have never liked using pictures on a title page unless they were taken by me. I think online photos can make the title page look cheesy and sometimes unprofessional.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar