8.5.1 Functional Writing

• Notices and their conventions
• Posters and public information
• Writing instructions and procedures
• Safety guidelines
• Designing for readability

• write a clear notice with the necessary information
• write instructions that can be followed without help
• write safety guidelines appropriate to an audience
• lay out functional text for readability

“How do you write something a stranger can act on without asking questions?”

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1. Notices and posters
   40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
   Getting the necessary information onto something read in five seconds.
2. Instructions and safety guidelines
   40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
   Writing steps a stranger can follow exactly, without asking you anything.
3. Health posters
   40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
   A poster is not a notice with a drawing. It has one message, one audience, and almost no prose.
4. Memos
   40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
   A short internal message with a subject line that can be filed, and a body that can be acted on.
5. Incident reports
   40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
   Facts a later reader could use, without blame, guesses or a storyteller's ending.