Write Better and Get Ahead At Work

Оглавление

Michael Dolan. Write Better and Get Ahead At Work

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

A Look at the First Example

A Look at the Second Example

A Look at the Third Example

A Look at the Fourth Example

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

Comment on Return Letters

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

Отрывок из книги

Being the author’s description of how the basic ideas and exercises of the book fit together, punctuated with snappy remarks and colorful metaphors, opening with a scene from a typical day at work

Terry Johnson comes to work in the morning with a pretty good idea of what she has to do. She has an electronic calendar to keep her schedule. She knows what to do next on her main project. And she is working on a new idea to pitch to her boss.

.....

Many people who write at work are curious about the public relations trade, especially writing news releases. Needlessly complicated in most places, the news release can be an effective tool for communicating to the general public. The basics shown here include a sample news release and a sample broadcast public service announcement.

You may have noted that I refer to writing at “work” without limiting our scope to the “office.” Much writing at work gets done away from a desk by people who do not consider themselves office workers. The Write Better and Get Ahead at Work guidebook applies to them as much as it does to the desk bound. This book, however, limits itself to work writing. It helps people write memos, letters and reports. Work writing differs from such writing as short stories, poetry and diary writing in certain ways. Primarily, as the beginning of this chapter explains, we write at work to get something done. Yet the principles you practice here, especially the “Questions to Ask Yourself,” will have nothing but beneficial effect on whatever writing you do away from work.

.....