The Pursuit of Perfection: Editing Your Proposal 213 level one reader? You might even look for an opportunity to use humor or a bit of drama. Create a strong, compelling beginning for the cover letter and execu- tive summary. Provide a clear call to action at the end of the cover letter and executive summary. Include concrete examples, comparisons, or analogies to clarify your ideas. Focus on business outcomes and the function of what you describe, not just the technical or operational as- pects. Step Five: At the fifth level of revision a writer inspects the final copy for mechanical or typographical errors, the mistakes of carelessness or ne- glect. Errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and other small mis- takes can communicate to a reader that you are careless, hasty, ignorant, or disrespectful. Besides--such mechanical and grammatical mistakes are nothing but background noise, which can interfere with your mes- sage getting through. 1. Proofread carefully. Is the proposal free from mistakes in grammar, spelling, punctuation? Is it legible? Is the format consistent throughout? 2. Does the total package do the job it's meant to do? Is the proposal complete and thorough? At the same time, is it focused and concise? Are the contents accurate and well supported? Will it arrive on time? Measuring Readability Your car may be capable of going 150 miles an hour, but that doesn't mean it will benefit from continuous operation at that speed. Likewise, you may be capable of reading at the level of a college graduate, but that doesn't mean you'll want to all the time. Most people find it easier to read text that is a couple of grade levels below the level of reading mas- tery they have achieved. In a proposal, you want to focus your reader's energy on understanding your ideas, not on decoding the language. Write at a comfortable, easy level. Readability formulas measure how difficult or easy a given piece of writing is likely to be. Most of them measure sentence length, on the as- sumption that longer sentences are harder to decode, and vocabulary American Management Association www.amanet.org