Writing High Scoring Answers Notes

Guidance notes on simple, effective writing techniques for Writing High Scoring Answers.

Train your bid writing team to write consistently high quality answers, through, clear, structured process for analysing each question, creating placeholders for the required information with:
o    Easy-to-read, customer-focused writing
o    Ways to create answers that are easy-to-evaluate and score
o    Effective use of graphics and captions.

To help your bid writing teams’ answers to score highly, and be easy-to-read and evaluate, they need to learn how to write using the “inverted pyramid” style of writing, which is taught to journalists. It is also the approach used to ensure fast comprehension when scanning pages on a web site.

The Lead: Most important information
Who what where when why how (30 words 1-2 thin paragraphs) and may include a hook, provocative quote or question.

The Body: The crucial information
Argument, controversy, story, issue, evidence, background, details, logic.
(May include quotes, photos, video and audio that support dispute or expand the topic)

The Tail: Extra info
Interesting related items (May include extra content in blogs, columns, editorials, the assessment of the journalist). Writing for fast comprehension is a very specific way of writing. Every news story is structured in this way.

The Inverted Pyramid – Writing for fast comprehension using news’ report method emphasising the main story, followed by the information and then the details

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The Inverted Pyramid – Writing for fast comprehension using news’ report method emphasising the main story, followed by the information and then the details

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The latest findings from the real neuroscience of creativity suggest that the right brain/left brain distinction does not offer us the full picture of how creativity is implemented in the brain.*

Creativity does not involve a single brain region or single side of the brain.

Instead, the entire creative process consists of many interacting cognitive processes (both conscious and unconscious) and emotions.

Depending on the stage of the creative process, and what you’re actually attempting to create, different brain regions are recruited to handle the task. These brain regions work as a team to get the job done, recruit structures from both the left and right side of the brain.

What does this mean for you, as you begin to answer the proposal questions?

Draft First Then Edit – You can’t do both at the same time!

Network 1: DRAFT – RED – The Imagination Network

involved in

• Thinking up the answer – constructing dynamic mental simulations – based on personal past experiences such as used during remembering
• Relating it to the reqt – Thinking about the future
• Imagining alternative perspectives and scenarios – to the present

The Imagination Network is also involved in social cognition. For instance, when we are imagining what someone else is thinking, this brain network is active

The Imagination Network involves areas:

• deep inside the prefrontal cortex and temporal lobe (medial regions)
• communication with various outer and inner regions of the parietal cortex.

Network 2: EDIT GREEN – The Executive Attention Network

recruited when a task requires focused attention
This network is active when you’re:

• Trying to understand
• Engaging in complex problem solving and reasoning
• Heavy demands on working memory

This neural architecture involves efficient and reliable communication between:

• lateral (outer) regions of the prefrontal cortex
• areas toward the back (posterior) of the parietal lobe

Different parts of the brain network are recruited

Align with the way your brain works

The Imagination Network – Draft first then edit, you can’t do both at the same time!

Why Choose Us =goes best in the summary at the top

You can get away with it there

Copy and paste ideas from key SWOT messages into the appropriate places

Keep all your draft versions

Save each new draft with a date and version number – sometimes you will have many versions on the same day,

and you may find, that, after all the changes that the earlier version was better

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