Writing a Presentation or Document - Cliff Notes

Scope, Summary, and Audience

For anyone creating a presentation, pitch, or paper the overall structure should be:

Tell'm who you're talking to and what you're going to tell'm; Then tell'm; Then tell'm what you've just told'm and what to do about it.

Details

The rough generic headings and outline, as applicable (Some may repeat and you don't always need all of them!):

Title, Author, Date, Lifetime, Status, Copyright or License, Version : Usually some variant of all of these should appear somewhere, sometimes in the headers or footers, etc.

Scope and Audience : What this type of document or presentation (not the content) is supposed to do and who is supposed to read or see it. The scope is not a summary.

General (or Executive) Summary : “tell'm what you're going to tell'm” - before they know anything.

Introduction : What's the problem or subject we're going to discuss or solve for the defined audience, and why they should care.

Overview : A brief high-level view of all [valid] solutions or discussions, the “landscape”, or how/where does this fit in to the world.

Details : of this discussion, solution, or viewpoint.

Proof : (or evidence) if appropriate, for this viewpoint, or that this it is a solution.

Comparison : if appropriate, with other views, or solutions, including trade-offs, benefits, limitations, “got-yas”, mitigations, etc. This is where you tell'm what you don't want to tell'm.

Conclusion : “tell'm what you told'm” - now that they know something.

Final words : tell'm what [you want them] to do now or next.

References and Acknowledgments.

Types of Summaries

Abstract - A summary of the details as you would summarize it to yourself knowing what you or a reasonable peer would know.

General (or Executive) Summary - A summary of the details for an average or reasonable person in the target audience before they know the presented information.

Conclusion - A summary of the details for an average or reasonable person in the target audience now knowing the presented information.

Overview - A summary of how the relevant information is to be presented and how it fits into the larger world.

Conclusion and Final Words

This document is amusingly recursive, but is only a guide - as long as the information is there, remember, perfection is the enemy of good. Start writing and see what happens!

References and Acknowledgments

This is a much-edited version of something I cut and paste from an email from a colleague, friend, or advisor many lifetimes ago! I should mention Mark and Bruce.