Business Writing: What Works, What Won't [Paperback]

Wilma Davidson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

A thorough, accessible, and results-oriented guidebook intended for today's business environment, Business Writing: What Works, What Won't offers the first and last word on writing memos, business letters, reports, and all other kinds of business documents. Wilma Davidson, a veteran corporate writing coach whose clients have included M&M Mars, Johnson & Johnson, Anheuser-Busch, and several other Fortune 500 companies, uses clear and memorable examples, charts, cartoons, and anecdotes to convey exactly what succeeds--and what fails--in written business communication.

This new edition of Business Writing has been fully revised and updated to cover e-mail, Palm Pilots, and the latest in word processor technology. It will be an indispensable reference for all students of business and management--a book that answers questions about style, provides guidance in matters of grammar, and reveals countless insights about writing with precision, confidence, humor, and eye-catching effectiveness.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Business writing manuals tend to fall into two traps. One is dwelling on how much business people hate to write because of bad teachers in school (no one wants to admit that writing takes thinking). The other is inconsistency in tone-trying to use everyday business language but lapsing into quoting Shakespeare in Latin. This book avoids both traps. It has a good format for use in seminars and classes: Chapters are short and contain exercises and examples, humor, and illustrations to make their points clear and memorable. This book suggests some useful activities that don't often appear in similar manuals, such as clustering and writing dialog to get started, and wisely emphasizes getting the first draft done before doing any editing. Davidson is a 15-year veteran of teaching writing seminars in the corporate world for such companies as AT&T and Johnson & Johnson. Her manual is appropriate for public, academic, and corporate libraries.
Nancy Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, N.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Wilma Davidson, Ed. D., is a writing and presentation-skills coach. Her clients include corporations throughout the Fortune 500. She lives in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and Longboat Key, Florida.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Revised edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312109482
• ISBN-13: 978-0312109486
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Business & Investing > Skills > Business Writing

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars What Works "Works"! March 30, 2000

By Eric P. Batterson

Format:Paperback

With business people today spending an average of 30% of their work time writing, this book offers simple techniques (along with practice situations) to make your message more clear and powerful. This book was helpful to me because most writing skills taught in business schools today are not comparable to the writing demands faced by these same students in the business world. This book also helped me discard my academic view that writing features lengthy paragraphs and big words and taught me to use concise paragraphs to get the job done. Look at me now! This review was originally five pages!

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hits the mark--and helps you hit it, too July 28, 2007

By Daniel L Edelen TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Wilma Davidson's _Business Writing: What Works, What Won't_ is that rare book that fully addresses its title's premise. This book will have you writing more effective business correspondence and documents right away.

As a freelance commercial writer, my work depends on skillfully communicating on point. This book shows how to do just that. Davidson minces no words, either. She finds the current state of business writing deplorable, filled with pointless buzzwords, passive voice, data overload, and too much pomposity. She gears her book to addressing those major problems and does so effortlessly.

You'll learn how to

* Restructure documents for quick reading
* Tighten sentences and paragraphs by eliminating extraneous words and phrases
* Use "real English" instead of business buzzwords that hinder communication
* Move from dull, passive voice to a more natural active voice that holds readers' attention
* And much more.

Best of all, the author provides numerous outstanding examples of the distinctions between poorly written documents and their more professionally written counterparts. The book includes quizzes, asking readers to fix broken paragraphs and sentences. Unlike some other books that test readers, Davidson provides her suggestions for those fixes so the reader isn't left to wonder what the repair might be. Her section on switching from passive to active voice may be one of the best I've ever read, offering illustrations and clever examples that help beginning business writers grasp the concept.

Considering I work as a writer and have read on the topic widely, it's a rarity for me to pick up a book on the subject of writing and say, "What a superlative book!" _Business Writing; What Works, What Won't_ is just that, and I recommend it without hesitation. If business writers read this book and put its recommendation into practice, we'll have a whole lot less of "It is suggested that we leverage a paradigm shift" and more of "Let's try a new direction."

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Book Does Work November 30, 2006

By Glenn Gallagher VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Business Writing: What Works, What Won't is a business writing book that indeed does work very well. The author gets right to the point and gives just the right amount of information on most business writing aspects, with a terrific section on e-mail and letters. She uses humor throughout the guide, making an otherwise dry subject more entertaining. More importantly, the book is full of useful examples that illustrate the rule, technique, or principle discussed. For example, she doesn't just urge the reader to use the active voice, she includes almost a dozen examples of the proper way to use the active voice (and avoid the passive voice). Highly recommended.