Writing and Speaking at Work: A Practical Guide for Business Communication [Paperback]

Edward Bailey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0130807311 | ISBN-13: 978-0130807311 | Edition: 1

This book emphasizes the practical aspects of writing and speaking for the world of work. It avoids unnecessary theoretical matters, giving useful, concrete advice that both undergraduate and graduate students can apply immediately.*Recognizes the computer has revolutionized business writing and speaking*Focuses directly on the two most important communication skills that people in business need - writing and speaking*Teaches students how to write with a straightforward, plain-English style

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

This book emphasizes the practical aspects of writing and speaking for the world of work. Focuses directly on the two most important communication skills that people in business need—writing and speaking. Emphasizes how to write with a straightforward, plain English style. Recognizes the computer has revolutionized business writing and speaking.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (July 14, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130807311
• ISBN-13: 978-0130807311
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,040,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost perfect, March 13, 2000

By 

David Robinson (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing and Speaking at Work: A Practical Guide for Business Communication (Paperback)

Edward Bailey commands the field of "plain English" applied to business writing. This is a complete, modern--and highly readable--summary of everything you need to know about writing memo's letters and resumes and doing oral presentations. It lacks a section on e-mail. The resume and cover letter sections use examples which may not match for all industries, and the letter format (showing "Writer/typist") is outdated in the Internet Age.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The communication doctor, December 2, 1999

By 

Mike Benshoof (Washington DC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing and Speaking at Work: A Practical Guide for Business Communication (Paperback)

Want to improve your writing? Want to improve your presentation skills? There's not a better book on the shelves! A must if your serious about your career. In only hours, your writing will improve -- colleagues will notice.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Only the basics, January 2, 2008

By 

John Meyer (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing and Speaking at Work: A Practical Guide for Business Communication (4th Edition) (Paperback)

I found this book to be very basic and not worth the high price. It was recommended for a graduate level business course, which I think was not appropriate. If you are new to writing reports (high school or early college), this might be written to your level of experience. However, even in my undergrad studies, I used other writing and presentation books that seemed to have much more valuable content. One example is the presentation chapter which starts at the absolute basics for creating a PowerPoint presentation. The average working professional should know this basic information after using PowerPoint only a couple times.