Writing and Speaking at Work: A Practical Guide for Business Communication - Softcover

Writing & Speaking at Workdelivers practical insight and instruction to help readers become effective communicators no matter where their careers may take them.

What is Good Writing?; Developing a Good Style; Using Examples and Comparisons; Making Your Page Look Inviting; Making Your Main Point Easy to Find; Preparing Executive Summaries; Illustrating Your Ideas; Getting Beyond Periods and Commas; Learning Commonsense Rules; Making the Most of E-mail; Writing for the Web; Preparing a Resume and Cover Letter; Documenting Your Sources; What Is Business Speaking?; Using Good Techniques of Delivery; Developing a Clear Structure; Designing Visual Aids; Giving a Presentation Using a Computer; Rehearsing, Setting Up the Room, and Overcoming Nervousness; Preparing an Annotated Presentation

For anyone interested in polishing their professional writing and speaking skills.

A famous adventure writer once said, "When I write, I try to leave out the parts people skip."

I've tried to do the same thing in this book. You'll find this book is shorter than most other business communication texts, but it's full of practical advice. That advice comes from my years as a college teacher and as a frequent consultant to business and government.

Instead of dealing with various theories of communication, this book focuses directly on the two most important communication skills that people in business need: writing and speaking. The first half of the book covers writing; the second half, speaking.

While writing this book, I've pictured myself as actually talking to my readers, as though they were my students in the classroom. As a result, I've adopted a straightforward, spoken style with—I hope—an accessible tone.

My goal is to help students dramatically improve their ability to write and speak- so they can be confident rather than self-conscious or embarrassed. The target audience is anybody in college at whatever level. The majority of my students are graduates in our MBA program. They're successful adults who want practical help they can apply today and every day in the future. Most of the examples in the book are from their work.

But undergraduate students want the same thing graduate students do: a book that really helps them.

It's my hope, then, that students using this book will understand what good writing is—and can do it. And that they will understand what good speaking is—and they can do that, too!

If you want a quick overview of the book, Chapter 1 is a short introduction to writing and Chapter 12 is a short introduction to speaking. They're good places to start. WHAT'S NEW?

This new edition, in addition to updates throughout, has added two important new chapters: Chapter 11, "Making the most of e-mail" Chapter 19, "Preparing an annotated presentation"

Instructors may be interested in looking at the new final project (Appendix A). Edward P Bailey
Marymount School of Business Administration
Arlington, Virginia