Format your document. Use bold headings and section subheadings as well as white space to make your note more readable.
State the purpose of the briefing note. Introduce the issue and why it concerns the reader in two lines or fewer. Provide a brief historical background for the issue. Trace the path of the issue's development up to the current status.
Describe the current status of the matter. Explain exactly how the issue looks at the time of authoring the note. Include key considerations, facts or developments that the reader must know immediately.
Analyze potential actions and their consequences. Conclude with a summary of what you want the reader to take away from the note. Include any recommendations or advice for further action in this final section.
Reread the document. Look for any sentences that provide the same or similar information as presented elsewhere in the document and remove them. Delete any sentences that do not give a fact, explain a fact or recommend an action. Pay particular attention to your conclusions and recommendations section.
Review the document for any grammatical or syntactical inconsistencies from your editing. Save and print the document for distribution.