My first real project

I encountered my first real challenge about a week into my internship. The challenge was my writing style. After years of working for police departments and writing incident reports my style of “Just the facts ma’m” writing is not the best style used for writing a council communication. I normally write the facts in sequential order with no story or filler. I reported the facts and only facts. For my first large project however, I needed to change that. My first draft went to the Management Analyst who is my mentor, to whom I report to daily. She said it was a fine first attempt and that all of the information needed was there, but it needed to flow better. She explained that although council has been presented this project before I needed more background information and why staff is looking at the situation again.
Because Council members are very busy information is better conveyed when it flows like a good story. This is a difficult balance between presenting options for them to consider while maintaining a flowing structure. I had to try to step back from the information (which I had spent a week gathering and knew by heart), and think to myself “If I was being presented with this for the first time how would I think about it? In what order would questions come?” I tried to think of what kinds of questions might come to mind first, and then I tried to answer those questions in the writing as quickly as possible.
After several revisions and much help from my mentor and another intern who has been here for about a year and a half, I had an acceptable draft to present the Town Manager. To be honest I was nervous sitting across from him. I have never had my writing analyzed by a manager professionally. I have had my writing graded academically by teachers who had been city managers previously, but this is my first time working for a city/town and thus this was my first formal review of my work. He sat across from me and my mentor next to me. He had a silver metal pen to scan the pages. My mentor told me he has a reputation for editing communications repeatedly. I could not follow along reading on my own page as I was far more concerned watching his pen glide over my words. I could hear him mumble the sentences as he turned the first page. I had made it through an entire page without any corrections. One down, two to go I thought to myself. He finished another page with no marks. With the final page finished he sat back and looked at me. I knew that his next words would carry a lot of weight.
My mentor had previously warned me that he did not give many “atta boys” and neither did she. She said that if I did my work and I did not hear anything back from them, it meant I was doing well. As I sat breathlessly waiting for his report he looked at me and said, “It’s good. Here’s what we are going to do. You have a lot of good information and you obviously did your research. We are going to remove a few paragraphs and then present it to Council. This communication still has more questions that require more research, so we are going to give the Council the general information and let them take it from there. Rather than spend another week gathering small details I want to know if this project is something they want to pursue further. Since you have done so much research on this already if the Council does choose to move forward half of your work is already done.”
I was relieved. I had struggled with constantly revising my words and it passed the first test. I admit I had a lot on help from my mentor and fellow intern. I have learned my first real world lesson and I look forward to mastering the best writing style for Councils. However this is just the beginning for this project. If Council moves forward then not only will I have more writing and researching to do, but I will also have to present it. I will keep you posted.