Ultimate Guide To Business Writing: All The Secrets Of Creating And Managing Business Documents

Description

The Ultimate Guide to Business Writing is a comprehensive guide on how to write any kind of business document. Written clearly in an engaging voice, it explains in depth the whole process: from determining objectives to establishing readers’ needs, conducting research, outlining, and designing a template; to writing the first draft; to editing for meaning, accuracy, concision, style and emotional impact; to creating glossaries and indices; to proofreading and working with reviewers. The book also explains how to exploit the psychology of perception and motivation, collaborate effectively with business colleagues, manage documents holistically across an organisation, and deal with the other everyday practicalities of managing knowledge in a corporate environment. Every section of the book is packed with questions to stimulate thinking and generate meaningful answers, and dozens of examples of what works and why. The book’s also rich in practical examples drawn from real life, anecdotes, humour, and visual aids. But the advice isn’t just practical and anecdotal: it’s also rigorously supported by scientific evidence from notable linguists and psychologists such as Steven Pinker, Daniel Goleman and Yellowlees Douglas. And anyone keen to explore further will benefit from the bibliography and links to videos and other online resources. The book is ideal not just for professional business writers, such as editors, technical writers, copywriters and creative directors; it’s also suitable for anyone whose job requires them to write, whether it’s something as simple as an email or as complex as a set of policies or a handbook. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Table of Contents......Page 6 Preface......Page 8 About the Author......Page 9 Consider what outcomes you want......Page 10 Research your readers......Page 11 Gather your information......Page 19 Select/adapt a template......Page 23 Pick a filename......Page 31 Design the structure......Page 32 Write the first draft......Page 38 Revise for meaning......Page 54 Trim verbosity and clichés......Page 81 Simplify your sentences......Page 96 Revise for style and emotion......Page 105 Fix your punctuation......Page 125 Check your grammar......Page 143 Check your spelling and capitalisation......Page 154 Fix your formatting......Page 158 (Optional) Add a glossary......Page 162 (Optional) Create an index......Page 164 Proofread......Page 165 (Recommended) Get reviews......Page 168 Organise across everything......Page 172 Shorten the reader’s journey......Page 174 Share knowledge across projects......Page 175 Avoid duplication......Page 176 Design for obviousness......Page 177 Pull rather than push......Page 178 Run a knowledge ‘health check’......Page 179 Provide ‘knowledge about the knowledge’......Page 180 Choosing images......Page 181 Printing documents......Page 182 Creating slideshows......Page 183 Free writing tools available on the web......Page 186 Final thoughts......Page 188 Bibliography......Page 190 Index......Page 192