Good writing has long been undervalued in the workplace. After all, business letters, memos, proposals, and the like are about communication, not literature. And, true, the readership probably couldn't care less about sentence structure or tone. Still, something inspires the recipient of such material to either read it or toss it, and that something is very often the quality of the writing. Words at Work is a practical guide by the founder of a company that offers writing services for businesses: Susan Benjamin. She believes that the average letter has to be "captivating within the first five words." She hauls away tired phrases ("I enjoyed speaking with you on the phone last week" and "Our company is committed to meeting your needs"), clichés, and jargon, encouraging businesspeople to be specific, fresh, anecdotal, and grammatical in their writing. Benjamin's analogies may make you cringe ("Go for ordinary, clean words, which your reader can glide across like a skater over ice"; or "'To whom it may concern' is as old and bland as Lawrence Welk reruns"), but her system won't. Her strategies are easy to follow and are sure to make for crisper corporate correspondence.

Ingram
ts fast and clearly. This guide is a handbook every office needs, covering new media like e-mail, avoiding common mistakes, and overcoming writer's block. Words at Work belongs at every desk beside the dictionary.

Book Info
Contains six-step process that can make your writing faster, forceful, and more fun. Gives you quick-and-easy recipes for the most important letters, reports and proposals and steers you around the potholes of punctuation, usage and grammar. Paper. DLC: Business writing.

The Word Hunter

Bad habits and working conditions get in the way of WORDS AT WORK. Writing is easier if you look at it as a process: listing what needs to be covered and when; writing and rewriting for an attention getting opening, a smooth main part, and a memorable ending; editing; getting feedback; and proofreading. Author Susan Benjamin also says to build a portfolio of regularly written documents, find mentors, make reading and writing comfortable habits, pay attention to budgets and deadlines, take classes, use common sense, and write what the boss wants. With her emphasis on appropriately personal or professional tone, lively word use and solid structure, her book works well with Cosmo Ferrara's WRITING ON THE JOB, Marcia Layton's THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO TERRIFIC BUSINESS WRITING, and Jeffrey McQuain's POWER LANGUAGE.