Customer Reviews

The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One of the first steps in building an effective business presentation or document is getting your thoughts organized. I found the Pyramid Principle head and shoulders above any other book I've read.

Barbara's concepts are simple and intuitive, but take a bit of practice to master. Once you do, you find yourself organizing all your communications -- emails, PowerPoint decks, blog articles -- along her principles. The effect is clearer and more interesting writing.

I recommend this book to all my workshop participants. It's a must-read for business managers.

In this book, Babara Minto uses easy to understand principle and clear text to explain how an author should organize his thoughts so that the reader can easily comprehend them.

The principle of the structure is a concise abstraction of all the good practices that I've seen. Because of it's simple structure the Pyramid Principle is also easy to remember and attempt to apply.

This book takes the mistery out of good technical writing for me. A well writen article is about well organized thoughts with good supporting points that answers the one central question in readers mind.

The difficulty of writing elegantly will still be in the detailed organization of the points (introduction, question and answers) into the structure. Babara has provided fine points to help guide those activities in her book as well.

This has become a reference book in my backpack next to my laptop.

Nothing like taking a perfectly simple concept, make it sound as complex as possible by adding enough buzz words like "time order" or "sequential analysis" and shoe-horned them into some sort of generic S-C-Q order, brand it a mystique name like "Pyramid Principle", then package it into a consulting "methodology". The whole concept can be summarized as follow,

- Start with a broad summary, tell a story to set the scene.

- Arrange ideas into related groups.

- Provide supporting evidence, dig deeper into details.

Most people learn that in college if not high school, nothing special really.

NB: my copy is a revised 2009 edition.

Great logic ideas how to structure your notes, mails or long essays! However language used and complicated examples given to explain ideas make getting the concepts very frustrating.

The book describes very good basics how to structure your ideas - starting with story telling concepts, putting ideas first, applying pyramid concept to summarize your points and support main ideas etc.

On the other hand the author loves using not frequently used words and jargon combined with excessive use of passive voice. This makes comprehending the ideas very difficult, especially for me, non-native English speaker. On top of these difficulties, examples used in the book are mostly way too technical that just understanding what is it all about completely distracts from absorbing the idea. I think if the ideas of the book is targeted to general public, language and examples should be so understandable that the reader easily focuses just on the main concepts.

In summary, the book is full of great ideas very useful for any writer. Just the difficult wording makes you re-read the text couple of times to get to the roots. And be prepared for tough examples...

Like a lot of other authors, a good idea that would make a great 1 hour presentation has been stretched into a book.

Minto's pyramid principle is essential for good writing - it's helped me out enourmously. Easily written book that you can read in full, or just focus on the main chapters.

This book gives you an excelent base for improving the structure of your presentations, letters and speeches.

The core concept of how to set up a good story is explained very clearly in the first pages. The remainder of the book helps you to apply the core concept.

Currently I am carrying the book with me and continuously checking and improving my communication.