Some Writing/Presentation Observations and Tips

J. Wooten, Jr., A/COPMEMS II

March 2013

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Points to Ponder

• MEMS II Work Plan Item (TBD)

• Your major concerns re. writing?• Open to feedback on your writing?• Practice mentally editing other people’s

writing and speech.

2

• Writing a report ~ Building a house• Writing tech reports ~ Building office complex• Our writing reflects our thinking processes

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Points to Ponder

Best Tools to Organize Thinking

• Sound knowledge in sentence construction (building blocks)

• Outline (for general reports• Annotated Outline (for complex tech reports)• Good “Presentation Eye” (??)

• Basic Knowledge of Target Audience (??)

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Sentences: Paragraph Building Blocks

Subject

Verb

Object

Prepositions/Conjunctions/

Adverb Adjective

Paragraphs: Report Building Blocks

Intro

Point #1

Point #2

Summary /Conclusions

UNIFYING ANALYSES,

JUSTIFICATIONS

Point #3

Common Writing Mistakes• Misplaced prepositional phrases

Ex: I am going to go to buy some shoes with John to the store in the morning.

Tip: Isolate the subject, verb and object first. Then slowly add to the sentence structure being conscious of placement options. Place prepositional phrases to maximize CLARITY rather than confusion

• Run-on sentences

Ex: The project was very successful and the trainees attended all the classes but 5 dropped out because of health reasons so as a result the number of participants who completed the class was reduced.

Tip: Isolate each sentence, then decide how best to combine the thoughts in order to maximize CLARITY, not confusion)

Common Writing Mistakes• Improper/inconsistent use of punctuation marks, e.g.,

comma, colon, semi-colon, period, dash, hyphen, parenthesis, quotation mark, bracket, apostrophe, stroke, ampersand, at sign, underscore, tilde…

Ex: In the morning I always go to the store the fish market and the bank but today because of the rain I was only able to go to the bank especially the one that has the canopy over the ATM.

• Improper/inconsistent use of spaces between words/paragraphs

Ex: I am going to the store tobuy some fruit. Will you come with me.

What will you buy ?

Common Writing Mistakes• Improper/inconsistent use of footnotes• Inconsistent use of fonts, font sizes, bold, italics,

underscoring in headers and body text - attracts the eye; distracts the mind

• Internal inconsistencies within a supposedly coherent document - the sections and/or attachments are contradictory

• Heavy, unchecked reliance on spell checker - using the spell checker without thinking

• Misplacement of the key sentence in a paragraph - paragraphs with no obvious key sentence

• Poor, inconsistent and disorderly use of bullets

Common Writing Mistakes• Excessive wordiness that signals a struggle to get out a clear,

succinct thought• Excessive use of adjectives and adverbs• Insufficient white space on a page: long sentences, long

paragraphs, small margins, tiny fonts• Failure to include/follow a clear, accurate outline• Acronyms - excessive use; undefined; failure to use once

defined• Failure to respect the need for parallelisms • Lack of agreement between nouns, pronouns and verbs

Common Writing Mistakes• Improper use of centering• Generally muddled thinking• Improper use of double subject or pronouns involving self -

me and you; him and me; he and me are; them and I went…Test: Strip away one pronoun

• Inconsistent use of spacing between lines and paragraphs– One space between words– Two spaces between sentences– One blank line between paragraphs– Consistent space between header and following text– Use global search and replace carefully

Common PowerPoint Mistakes:• Lack of a clear, consistent presentation “theme”

– Wrong background design for audience type – Inconsistent header font, size, color, placement, etc.– Poor consideration of header placement

Horrible use of bullets.Is this an appropriate use of a bullet?Better?And now.

What’s wrong here?

Common PowerPoint Mistakes• Excessive textLet’s see. What do I mean by excessive use of text in a PowerPoint

presentation? Let’s start with excessive use of COMPLETE SENTENCES! And to make matters worse, let’s READ the complete sentence ver-ba-tim to the belabored people in our audience who will be bored stiff out of their minds, probably thinking, “Hey there, I KNOW how to read!!!” And while we are reading to them, guess what? Our backs or at least the backs of our heads are facing our increasingly impatient audience. How rude.

• Answers?How about using bullets to capture the main points?How about glancing at the computer screen rather than the presentation screen ? Do you think this would make a difference?

What’s wrong here?

Common PowerPoint Mistakes• “Jumpy” repetitive or successive titles• How are your eyes affected by successive

slides with the same titles, but the titles are not consistently placed?

What’s wrong here?

Common PowerPoint Mistakes•“Jumpy” successive bullets • How are your eyes affected by slides with a

series of similar bullets, but the bullets are not consistently positioned while moving from slide-to-slide?•What about the headers?

What’s wrong here?

Next Generation Indicators Training

PEPFAR Nigeria

What’s could be improved here?

HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT)

What’s could be improved here?

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# of HIV positive pregnant women who received anti-retroviral to reduce the risk of mother - child transmission

i) SD-NVP only

ii) Maternal AZT(WHO option A -AZT from 14 weeks +SD-NVP at labor

iii) Prophylactic regimen using combination of 2 ARVs (AZT+3TC +SD-NVP at labor)

iv) Prophylactic regimen using combination of 3 ARVs excluding SD-NVP

v) HAART for HIV positive pregnant women eligible for treatment

What’s could be improved here?

# of HIV-positive patients screened for TB in HIV care or treatment setting

MaleFemale

<15 years15 years and above

TB StatusActive TB

No TBLatent TB 19

What’s could be improved here?

# of TB patients who received C&T for HIV and received their test result at USG supported TB service outlets (including suspects)

MaleFemale

<15 years15 years and above

StatusHIV positiveHIV negative

20

What’s could be improved here?

# of TB patient co-infected with HIV

MaleFemale

<15 years15 years and above

21

What’s could be improved here?

Total # of PLHIV placed on isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT)

MaleFemale

<15 years15 years and above

22

What’s could be improved here?

# of TB patients with HIV receiving ART

MaleFemale

<15 years15 years and above

23

What’s could be improved here?

PMTCT VI (EID)

# of HIV exposed infant provided with ARV prophylaxis

SD-NVP within 72 hours

SD-NVP plus one week of AZT

SD-NVP plus 6 weeks AZT

NVP only for 6 weeks

NVP only up to one week after ceasation of brest

feeding24

What’s could be improved here?

MARPS # of MARPS reached with individual and/ or small group level HIV

preventive intervention that are based on evidence and/or meet the minimum standard required by sex and type

Male

Female

CSW

IDU

MSM

Prisons

Distance transport drivers 25

What’s could be improved here?

Blood safety

Number of units of blood collected and screened for transfusion transmissible infection (HBV, HCV, HIV, Syphylis)

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What’s could be improved here?

# of laboratories accredited according to national and international standard

# of laboratory with capacity to provide HIV serology, hematology, chemistry, CD4 count, AFB and other TB test and syphylis test

# of laboratory with capacity for viral load and PCR Viral load

PCR

# of individuals trained in the provision of laboratory related services(in-service training Male

Female

27What’s could be improved here?

Waste minimization/recycling and waste handling: segregation of HCW from general waste

Waste collection and transportation in different label containers: use of 3 bin system

Onsite storage of HCW not >24hours in a protected location from animals and insects

Off-site transportation of waste: of site location approved by an authority

Treatment of hazardous waste and final disposal 28

Target Criteria

29What’s wrong here?

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Target Criteria

Better? How?

31What’s wrong here?

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EPI National Target 80%State Population % Children < 1 Year

X 8,0002,01 2.5%

Y 3,500,000 3.0

Z 4,500,000 3.5

National Target

What’s could be improved here?

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EPI Feasible Target “X” state• No. of under 1 children (@2.54%) = 51,257 (Upper

Band)(.0254x2,018,000)• 80% of <1 year children = 41, 005 (Lower Band)(.80x51,257)• Thus, yearly target for full immunization = 41,000 to

51,000 of <1 year childrenOne figure between upper and lower band

National Target

What’s could be improved here?

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Questions, Comments and Discussion

What’s could be improved here?