How to Write: Communicating Ideas and Information

by Herbert E. Meyer

Describes the writing process, explains what skills one must develop to become a good writer, and discusses the organization, first draft, and editing of a document

Genres: Writing

110 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Noah Oanh · Rating 4 out of 5]

good one even though it was from 1993 (when you still have to access Internet through telephone lines!). But it still gave me some very useful tips on writing. Firstly, the writing process could be divided into 3 parts:
- Organizing for the Job: it would have 3 steps: choose your category, pick your points and collect your details. Make sure that your piece of writing will be anticipate, energetic, dogged and imaginative.
- Turning out a draft. This part will include figuring out your theme, making your outline, writing your draft. Have an imaginary conversation with whomever is the intended reader so you can put yourself on their shoes and it would help you to figure out what they want to read.
- Polishing the Product to make sure the final product will be accurate (of fact and description - use non-opinionated words), precise, consistent, brief (don't keep repeating things), fair (never be afraid to include a relevant fact just because it does not support your argument), have steady depth and tone, have an established layout and use a good grammar.

And last but not least, don't worry about how long it should be - should be just as long, and no longer than it takes to say whatever you need and want to say.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative book. However, I did find "The Elements of Style" a bit more suited to my purposes.