Business Writing What Works, What Won't

by Davidson, Wilma; Emig, Janet

• ISBN13: 9780312109486
• ISBN10: 0312109482
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-08-15
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Summary

A thorough, accessible, and results-oriented guidebook intended for today's business environment, Business Writing: What Works, What Won't offers the first and last word on writing memos, business letters, reports, and all other kinds of business documents. Wilma Davidson, a veteran corporate writing coach whose clients have included M&M Mars, Johnson & Johnson, Anheuser-Busch, and several other, Fortune 500 companies, uses clear and memorable examples, charts, cartoons, and anecdotes to convey exactly what succeeds'”and what fails'”in written business communication. This new edition of Business Writing has been fully revised and updated to cover e-mail, Palm Pilots, and the latest in word processor technology. It will be an indispensable reference for all students of business and management'”a book that answers questions about style, provides guidance in matters of grammar, and reveals countless insights about writing with precision, confidence, humor, and eye-catching effectiveness.

Author Biography

Wilma Davidson, Ed. D., is a writing and presentation-skills coach. Her clients include corporations throughout the Fortune 500. She lives in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and Longboat Key, Florida.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION: Why I Wrote This Book

PART 1: What This Book Can Do for You

1. From Procrastination to Power: Writing Painlessly and Well
2. Where to Begin to Improve
3. Qualities of Powerful Writing

PART 2: Getting the Writing Going

4. Overcoming Page Fright
5. Getting Started: Strategies that Work

PART 3: Showcasing Your Ideas and Information Through Organization, Format, and Sentence Structure

6. Organizing Your Message
Get to the Bottom Line!
How to Tell a Bottom-Line Statement from a Purpose Statement
Bottom-Lining Exercises
When Not to Bottom-Line
Organizing the Rest of the Document
7. Formatting Ideas to Clarify Your Message
Write Headlines That Help
Use "Chunking" to Organize Your Thoughts
Chunking Exercises
Use Tables, Graphs, and Other Visuals to Give the Big Picture Fast
Use PowerPoint Slides to Aid Your Oral Presentations
Summary of Techniques That Showcase Your Ideas and Reveal Your Knack for Organizing
8. Structuring Your Sentences—to Clarify Your Intent and Add Style
Combine Sentences to Create Emphasis and Eliminate Wordiness
Combine Sentences to Present Ideas of Parallel Importance
Focus on Emphasis
Focus on Eliminating Wordiness
Vary Sentence Length to Create Rhythm
Eight Ways to Add Emphasis and Elegance to Sentences

PART 4: Choosing Your Words Wisely for Conciseness and Consideration

9. Getting Rid of Sentence Clutter
Cutting Out Ten Forms of Clutter
10. Tempering Your Tone
Considering Your Reader, Yourself, and Tone
Avoiding the Negative by Accentuating the Positive
Delivering Unpopular Messages
Using Humor
Banishing Bias

PART 5: Getting It Right: The Basics of Grammar and Spelling

11. Grappling with Grammar
The Seven Deadly Sins of Grammar
Bungle Rules
Frequently Asked Questions About Grammar . . . And Their Answers
Formal Grammar Rules You Can Bend
12. Spelling
What if You're a Lousy Speller?
Easily Misspelled Words
Forming Plurals from Our Strange Language

PART 6: Writing Quickly and Well

13. Deadline Writing: A Process for Getting It Started, Keeping It Going, Getting It Right
Phase One: Helter-Skelter Writing—the Zero draft
Phase Two: Hocus-Pocus Organizing
Phase Three: Ruthless Editing

PART 7: Talking to Other Writers—and to Your Micro Recorder

14. An E-mail Quick Guide
15. Collaborating
Giving Feedback to Others
A Word to the Wise Manager: How to Encourage Employees to be Responsible for Their Writing
16. Dictating
Can I Convince You to Try It?

pard A Process for Productive Dictating

APPENDIX: Guidelines and Model Letters
Customer Follow-up/Recap/Thank you
Confirming/Directive Memos
Encouraging the Team/Team Update
Meeting Minutes
Proposals/Recommendations
Providing/Requesting Information

Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

Business Writing

Part 1

What This Book Can Do for You

Scribendo disces scribere. "You learn to write by writing."

Samuel Johnson

1

From Procrastination to Power: Writing Painlessly and Well

Good writing is good business. Bad writing isn't. To be successful in sales, marketing, finance, engineering, law, personnel, and in virtually every field, you need to write well. In fact, your business writing can serve as persuasive evidence of your competence, your personality, your management style. It's as plain and simple--and frightening--as that.

And, undoubtedly, that fright (those panicky waves in your brain that light out in all directions each time you have to write) has put this edition in your hands. I wrote it as I did the first edition, to do away with your discomfort, to demystify writing and editing, to help you write easily and well. While I can't promise that you'll finish the book loving to write, I do promise that you'll hate writing less--and distribute a better memo, letter, or report as a result of using this practical guide. Whether you are writing an e-mail to a coworker or a proposal to an international client, this book will help.

It offers up-to-date examples and answers, and because it's arranged in units, you can pick it up, do a little work, put it down, and return to it later without having to start over. It doesn't treat improving your written work as if it were a moral issue; nor does it assume that the fate of the world hinges upon your perfect prose. But, with wit and wisdom, it does encourage you and show you how to write better. It will sustain you from your first to your final draft.

For more than twenty years, in one-on-one consultations, in seminars and talks, and in published articles, I've worked to help clients be competent in and feel confident about their writing. Clients who admit their negative attitude about the task. Clients who get stuck at the sight of a blank page orscreen. Clients who are disorganized and fuzzy about what to write and what tone to take. Clients who are wordy because they don't know how not to be. Clients who retreat behind a desk in embarrassment--and anger--after their manager has red-penned their grammatical and mechanical errors and, possibly, their career.

If these clients and their writing sound familiar, you've found the book you need. Its advice, anecdotes, and exercises have proven successful in corporate classrooms across the globe and have improved the business writing of countless clients. And those results have encouraged me to encourage you in this newly updated edition.

BUSINESS WRITING: WHAT WORKS, WHAT WON'T: REVISED EDITION. Copyright © 2001, 1994 by Wilma Davidson, Ed.D. Illustrations copyright © 1994 by Durell Godfrey. All rights reserved. Most of the illustrations in this book are based on sketches drawn by Tom Kish and copyright © Davidson & Associates. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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