Write Better and Get Ahead At Work
Published on 6. September 2014
143 pages
978-0-9710182-0-4 (ISBN)
Description
Make them take notice when you write. You can write better - whether you are a beginner or the office pro. Learn the universal format for writing anything. Featuring favorite New Yorker cartoons.
- This updated edition features a new chapter on Social Media
- The fun writing guidebook that helps you improve right away.
- See how business writing can be fast and easy.
- Build on your style to become a better writer.
- Come across as a professional.
- Learn how to start, what to say, and when to stop.
- Get your message across quickly and easily.
It's worked for hundreds of people in the Writing for Action Workshops. Now let it work you.
This fun-to-read book is easy-to-follow and understand. It removes the inhibitions that make it difficult for you to write.
- This updated edition features a new chapter on Social Media
- The fun writing guidebook that helps you improve right away.
- See how business writing can be fast and easy.
- Build on your style to become a better writer.
- Come across as a professional.
- Learn how to start, what to say, and when to stop.
- Get your message across quickly and easily.
It's worked for hundreds of people in the Writing for Action Workshops. Now let it work you.
This fun-to-read book is easy-to-follow and understand. It removes the inhibitions that make it difficult for you to write.
More details
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- 1. How This Book Makes You a Better Writer
- The Introductory Essay
- More Joyful Writing
- My Challenge to You: Everything You Think about Writing is Wrong
- People More Than Paper
- Using This Guidebook
- Making a Universal Format Your Own
- Thinking about Reading
- Swing Naturally
- Ruling the Rules
- About Reference Books
- A Final Word
- 2. How to Create Reading
- Freewriting
- Defining Terms
- Writing for Action
- What I Like
- Reader Point of View
- Writing from the Reader Point of View
- From the General to the Specific
- Using Technical Terms
- About EMail
- 3. What Readers Want from You
- The Format for Writing Effective Memos, Letters and Reports
- 1. Lead
- 2. Explanation
- 3. Background
- 4. Examples
- 5. Summary
- Adapt the format to your needs
- You Are in Charge: Variations on a Format
- My Writing Process
- Other Approaches for Capturing Your Words on Paper
- 4. Deciding What to Say
- Shared Experience is the Basis of all Communication
- Questions to Ask Yourself before Writing the First Word
- Use the English Language, or CC Ya' Later
- Where Are We Now? A Brief Review
- 5. Social Media: Written Conversation
- Social Media Distinctions
- Blogging
- The Huffington Post's 8 Tips for Great Blogging
- Online Forums
- Social Media Exercise
- 6. Learn Less About Writing
- Focused Freewriting
- Step one: the topic
- Step two: the first loop
- Step three: the second loop
- Step four: the third loop
- Step five: capture your experience
- Building on Fundamentals
- George Orwell's Simple Rules for Writing
- Using Active Voice
- More on active and passive
- Stages in Writing, or the Only Work People do at the Keyboard Is Type
- Revision
- 1. Revise for Content
- 2. Revise for Order
- 3. Revise for Language
- 7. Better Letters
- A Look at Your Letters
- Letters are More Personal than Memos
- Persuasive Letters
- Attract the reader's attention
- Show why the reader has an interest
- Appeal to your reader's desire to reach a goal
- Describe exact action
- Successful Sample Letter
- "Ms"taken Identity
- Know Your Reader
- Options for the Opening Salutation
- He or She or What?
- Know Yourself
- Collection Letters
- The "No" Letter
- 8. Your Own Style
- Develop Your Own Style
- Measuring Readability
- 9. Resumes for Everyone
- A Step-by-Step Way to Do It
- 1. Write down what you want to do in life.
- 2. List everything you are good at.
- 3. Prove you are good.
- 4. Tie it together.
- 5. Describe work experiences.
- 6. Catalog education, formal and informal.
- 7. Record military experience.
- 8. List awards, community services and professional organizations.
- 10. Reports Without Boredom
- Stage 1: What Am I Doing?
- Stage 2: What Are They Doing?
- Stage 3: LEB123S Format Expands to Cover Reports
- Stage 4: Types of Reports
- 1. Affecting Management Decisions
- 2. Reviewing or Changing Operations
- 3. Proposing New Business or Support
- 4. Documenting Work
- 5. Showing Compliance with Requirements
- 6. Establishing Policies or Procedures
- Stage 5: Discovery
- Stage 6: Present It
- Let's Do It
- Making Your Reader's Work Easier
- Headings and Stuff Like That
- Heavy Lifting: Defining Terms, Attributions, Citations, Appendices
- Visual Aids
- Teamwork
- Performance Review
- Time To Be Precise
- Use Format Variation to Organize
- Subjects to Cover
- 11. Achieving the Next Level
- Signs of Excellence
- Parallelism
- Guarantee of Excellence
- Sentence Variety
- Sentence Variety Keeps Readers Interested
- 12. Sensible Mechanics Without a Bunch of Useless Theories and Rules
- Usage Overview
- A Quick Look at the Rules
- Grammar and Punctuation: The Real Problem
- Parts of Speech and Other Terms
- Two Systems of Punctuation
- Comma Sparingly
- Commas and No Commas
- Restrictive or Non-Restrictive
- Quotation Marks
- Double Verbs
- Semicolons, Love 'Em or Leave 'Em
- Introducing the Colon
- Number Agreement
- Dangling Modifiers
- Vague Pronouns
- Hyphens
- Dash, Parentheses & Ellipsis
- Capitals
- People Who
- That Is Important
- Keep Words, Phrases and Clauses Parallel
- Be Positive
- Beware of Sentences Beginning "It" or "There."
- Spell Out Numbers One to Nine
- If Possible, Substitute "Since" or "Because" for "As."
- The Right Form of the Possessive, or Where does the Apostrophe Go?
- Contract Words to Sound More Personal.
- Correct: 8 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. or 8 P.M. and 8:15 P.M.
- Parts of the Sentence Example:
- 13. Public Relations for the Shy
- Public Relations Writing
- Newsletters
- Brochures
- 14. Action Summary
- Appendix I
- Sample responses
- Reader Point of View
- Comments on the Stockroom Memo
- Passive to Active
- Talkability Exercise
- Appendix II: What Other People Liked
- Appendix III: Follow Up Resources
- Appendix IV: For Your Writing Library
