A reference site for working writers and editors
Write clearly. Format cleanly. Ship documents that win work.
Wordsworth Writing is a free reference site about the unglamorous craft that keeps businesses running: technical writing, editing, document formatting in Microsoft Word, and the government forms — like the SF330 — that architecture, engineering, and environmental firms live and die by.
The SF330, explained
What Standard Form 330 is, how Parts I and II fit together, and how to manage it sanely in Microsoft Word.
Templates in Word
How to build report, proposal, and resume templates that survive contact with real projects — styles, sections, and fields.
Technical editing
The levels of edit, how professional editors price work, and what to ask for when you hire one.
Writing tips
Short, practical notes on style, grammar, abbreviations, citations, and the habits that make documents readable.
The law behind the SF330
The Brooks Act, FAR Subpart 36.6, and the protest decisions that show exactly how qualification packages get downgraded.
Settlement documents
Structured settlement paperwork, document by document — the agreement, the qualified assignment, the annuity, and the transfer stack.
Why these topics?
For more than twenty years, this domain was home to an Alaska-based technical writing and editing practice whose most-visited pages were about exactly these subjects — the SF330 form in Word, templates for A/E/C firms, and technical editing. That business has moved on, but people still arrive here from old links, bookmarks, and citations looking for the same answers. This site keeps those answers available: the guides are newly written, plain-English treatments of the topics the old site was known for.
Start with the fundamentals
Most business and technical documents fail in the same few ways: they bury the point, they mix formats until the reader loses trust, and nobody edits them before they go out the door. The fixes are boring and reliable:
- Lead with the conclusion. Reports and proposals are not mystery novels. Put the recommendation, the price, or the finding first, then support it.
- Use styles, not formatting. In Word, every heading, caption, and body paragraph should carry a named style. Direct formatting is how documents rot. Our templates guide shows the pattern.
- Separate editing passes. Structure first, sentences second, typos last. A single "read it over" pass catches almost nothing. See the levels of edit.
- Respect the form. Government solicitations mean what they say. If the RFP says 10 pages, page 11 does not exist. The SF330 guide covers the strictest example.