Organizing Ideas: The Key to Effective Communication

Whereas most books on business writing focus on correcting errors in grammar and usage, Organizing Ideas shows how to apply the principles of effective communication to organize and express your ideas. The approach explained in Organizing Ideas has been used for over 60 years to teach communication skills to professionals at leading American companies. The book shows how to identify your key message in any communication and develop a persuasive argument to support it. You will learn to tailor any message to the needs of your audience. Special chapters show how to compose effective e-mail, prepare presentations that are conceptually clear and visually appealing, and write documentation that people actually read. Organizing Ideas also presents nine simple principles for editing—all you need to ensure that your paragraphs and sentences are easy to read and understand. A companion volume, Business Writing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, illustrates with before-and-after examples how to apply the principles in Organizing Ideas to improve the clarity of all types of business documents.