The Plain English Approach to Business Writing

by Bailey, Edward P.

• ISBN13: 9780195115659
• ISBN10: 0195115651
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-08-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In offices across America, the Masters of Gobbledygook are hard at work. They're bombarding in-boxes with those long, confusing memos that colleagues don't have the patience to read--and bosses don't have the time to rewrite. They use words like "commence" or "prior to" instead of "begin" or "before." They bury their main point somewhere in the last paragraph--and take two pages to get there. Everybody knows one of them; in fact, you may even be one of them. But now there's help for anyone who's ever fallen prey to businessese, academese, legalese, or any other "ese" when faced with a blank memo pad. In The Plain English Approach to Business Writing, Edward Bailey--who spent twenty years working in the bastions of bureaucratese--offers readers a powerful new communications tool. Written for busy professionals who want to improve the quality and clarity of their own (or their staff's) writing style, this no-nonsense guide is an indispensable office companion. Bailey's approach is 5urprisingly straightforward: just write as you would talk. Plain English is not only easier to read; it's also easier to write. And it's so effective that many large organizations are endorsing, if not demanding, its use in the work place. Pithy and entertaining, Bailey points out all the dos and don'ts of plain English. He then illustrates them with examples drawn from a wide array of sources, including business documents, technical manuals, trade publications like Consumer Reports, and the works of writers such as Russell Baker and John D. MacDonald. From the basics to the fine tuning, he offers practical advice on clarity and precision, organization, layout, and a host of other important writing topics. A delightful, down-to-earth guide, The Plain English Approach to Business Writing is for professionals of all backgrounds (government, military, legal, financial, technical, corporate) and staff at all levels (from the company CEO to the ambitious secretary). The Plain English Approach to Business Writing can be read in an hour--and used for the rest of one's life.

Author Biography

Edward Bailey has a national reputation as an expert in writing. He is Professor of Business Communications at Marymount University near Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Plain English Approach to Business Speaking (OUP) and serves as a consultant in business and government.

Table of Contents

THE NEW WAY TO WRITE	3	(44)
1. What is plain English?	3	(6)
2. Style: writing a readable sentence	9	(16)
3. Organization: getting to the point	25	(6)
4. Layout: adding visual impact	31	(8)
5. A model for writing	39	(8)
MORE ABOUT STYLE	47	(22)
6. Passive voice	47	(7)
7. Abstractness	54	(6)
8. Punctuation	60	(9)
MORE ABOUT ORGANIZATION	69	(12)
9. Blueprint	69	(4)
10. Executive summary	73	(8)
MORE ABOUT LAYOUT	81	(36)
11. Typefaces	81	(13)
12. Headings	94	(9)
13. Bullets	103	(7)
14. Graphics	110	(7)
FINAL WORDS	117	(10)
15. The writing process	117	(5)
16. Supervising writers	122	(5)
Appendix: Simpler words and phrases	127	(4)
Index	131