Writing well is for school. Writing effectively is for life. Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink offer the most valuable practical writing advice today. Building on their own research in behavioral science, they outline cognitive facts about how people actually read and distill them into six principles that will transform the power of your writing: Less is more Make reading easy Design for easy navigation Use enough formatting, but no more Tell readers why they should care Make responding easy Including many real-world examples, a checklist and other tools, this guide will make you a more successful and productive communicator. Rogers and Lasky-Fink bring Strunk and White’s core ideas into the twenty-first century’s attention marketplace. When the influential guides to writing prose were written, the internet hadn’t been invented. Now, the average American adult is inundated with digital messages each day. With all this correspondence, capturing a busy reader’s attention is more challenging than ever. This is how to do it.

This book takes the confusion and uncertainty out of writing a non-fiction book. It's a step-by-step guide to clarifying the message, organizing the material and writing in ways that work for the reader's goals and lifestyle. Writer's coach Cynthia Morris gives you a map to help you design and enjoy your own writing practice.

Writing That Works is a concise, practical guide to the principles of effective writing. In this revised and updated edition, Roman and Raphaelson reveal how to improve memos, letters, reports, speeches, resumes, plans, and other business papers. Learn how to say what you want to say with less difficulty and more confidence.

As the digital economy changes the rules of the game for enterprises, the role of software and IT architects is also transforming. Rather than focus on technical decisions alone, architects and senior technologists need to combine organizational and technical knowledge to effect change in their company’s structure and processes. To accomplish that, they need to connect the IT engine room to the penthouse, where the business strategy is defined. In this guide, author Gregor Hohpe shares real-world advice and hard-learned lessons from actual IT transformations. His anecdotes help architects, senior developers, and other IT professionals prepare for a more complex but rewarding role in the enterprise. This book is ideal for: Software architects and senior developers looking to shape the company’s technology direction or assist in an organizational transformation Enterprise architects and senior technologists searching for practical advice on how to navigate technical and organizational topics CTOs and senior technical architects who are devising an IT strategy that impacts the way the organization works IT managers who want to learn what’s worked and what hasn’t in large-scale transformation

Developed for use by non-native speakers of English enrolled in Technical Writing and Communication courses. Technical Writing and Professional Communication, 2/e, places technical writing in its context, showing students how to consider their purpose and their audience when writing reports, memos, and correspondence. Formerly titled Technical Writing and Professional Communication: A Handbook for Nonnative Speakers, the new edition features a case running throughout seven chapters, dynamically illustrating the writing process. The revision also provides complete coverage of the new computer technologies and the new attention to the intercultural concerns in today's business world.

This brief guide provides useful principles for making effective decisions when writing and revising business and technical documents.

Businessese, academese, legalese--these painful eses appear all too often in memos, letters, reports, and papers. You have probably fallen victim to them yourself, writing "commence" and "prior to" instead of "begin" and "before," burying your main point somewhere in the last paragraph. Now Edward Bailey offers help in The Plain English Approach to Business Writing . Bailey has spent twenty years working in bastions of bureaucratese, helping businessmen and government workers write in direct, effective plain English. This no-nonsense guide is an indispensable office companion. Bailey's approach is surprisingly 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 workplace. Pithy and entertaining, Bailey clearly lays out the dos and don'ts of plain English, illustrating them with examples drawn from such sources as business documents, technical manuals, trade publications, and the works of such writers as Russell Baker and John D. MacDonald. From the basics to the fine tuning, he offers practical advice on clarity, precision, organization, layout, and a host of other topics. This is a book that can be read in an hour--and used for the rest of your life. Features Shows readers how to improve the quality and clarity--and increase the speed--of their business writing Provides a practical model that helps writers get started and stay organized Includes dozens of real-life examples drawn from business documents, technical manuals, trade publications, and the works of well-known writers

Everyday we write countless memos, letters, and reports without a second thought. Likewise, we give presentations, both formal and informal. Often this writing and speaking gets criticized for being jargon-ridden, obscure, or long-winded--in short, for not being in "plain English." But what is plain English, and how do we go about writing and speaking it? In Plain English at Work, Edward Bailey gives the answer, with down-to-earth tips and practical advice. Bailey, an expert in business communication, gives us a simple model for writing: BL Style: write more the way you talk. BL Organization: make your point easy to find. BL Layout: use headings, lists, and other white space so readers can see the structure of your writing. Psycholinguists, Bailey points out, have proven that the techniques of plain English writing are far easier on your readers; experience has proven that writing in plain English is easier on you--the writer, too. Bailey also gives you a wealth of practical advice for presentations including: BL How to remember your talk. BL How to design visual aids. BL How to design computer presentations. BL How to set up the room you'll be speaking in. BL How to develop a successful delivery style. Perhaps most impressive are the many detailed tips he gives here. For instance, when using a pointer, hold it in the hand closer to the screen (otherwise, you turn your back on the audience, making it harder to hear you). When designing a visual aid, use at least 28-point type, and seldom use all capital letters (which are harder to read). And when presenting a bar chart during a computer presentation, build it--a bar at a time--to focus your audience's attention. Drawing on two earlier and popular books, The Plain English Approach to Business Writing and A Practical Guide for Business Speaking, this new volume has been significantly updated. It includes up-to-the-minute information on using computers, computer graphics, and typography for your writing, and on using the same technology for designing your presentations. The result is an authoritative and comprehensive single volume that will be the essential guide for everyone wishing to communicate more easily and effectively at work.

Anyone can build a blog. It’s quite easy. The difficult part is keeping it relevant, technically sound, and popular. Bloggers Boot Camp shows you how to blog for success. It teaches you how to find a niche, find your unique voice, and how to hold a conversation with an audience. It provides information on all the right tools for the blog, and it offers best ways to promote your blog and content for maximum success and a profitable life. Though rules in creating compelling content haven’t really changed, ways in which the world blogs has since the last edition. The authors have learned a lot about social media since writing the previous edition’s manuscript. They understand and know how social media can make or break a blog. Microblogging is a new trend brought on by the wide utilization of social media. To that same end, networking with other bloggers and content creators on the web is another form of building one’s blog and one’s reputation as a writer.