HBR Guide to Better Business Writing (HBR Guide Series): Engage Readers, Tighten and Brighten, Make Your Case

This is one of the best books around - Ones that you get to the end of and realize rereading it will never provide the same sense of pleasure. And it covers what most would consider a fairly dry topic. For me, the book was more than worth its money. As a consultant, writing is a significant area of my job and i found atleast three a-ha moments: 1. There is process to writing. I would often merge content creation with edit. As the book argues, this tends to slow you down. The 4 Phases process of writing is great. It helps you go past the writer's block. An it lets you do this efficiently and comprehensively. 2. Grammar is very well covered. There are always those little things that confuse you even if your basics are clear. This book does a great job covering a lot of basic rules that you need to get right. 3. We get a definitive opinion on writing style. Ever wondered why NYT articles are a breeze? so did I. Reading the transitions chapter answered the question for me. Now, editing is about trying to make sentences flow together. Cannot really fault the book in any way - it will be on my Kindle PC application handy for when I write the next proposal or report!

Each corer is like a nugget of a point without elongation or over emphasising. Just as well given the subject matter. I may not absorb all of it but I have absorbed enough and expect to retread it to keep refining

I really enjoyed reading this straightforward and helpful volume, in the most part. I especially liked the Betty S. Flowers' model quoted and described in Chapter 3: Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge. That made so much practical sense to me. I qualified my first sentence with the phrase: "in the most part". That is because the book seemed to break its own guidance on language. Chapter 2 focuses on understanding your readers: they may not have technical understanding. That understanding of language was a major block to me when it came to Appendix B concerning grammatical rules. I regard myself as being a literate person with a reasonably sound knowledge of English grammar. This appendix demonstrated to me that there is a lot of technical language concerning grammar that I do not understand. Some examples are: "appositive","correlative conjunctions", and "illusory compounds". To be fair to the author, the terms are defined, but for me the flow of the book dried up at this point. A pity. I still com

I’ve been working on communication training and I bought this book. I’ve skimmed through it and I’m so impressed this is exactly what I’ve been personally looking for and what I mean when someone is trying to develop effective comms skills. This is brilliant! LOVE IT!

Excellent read. Easy to comprehend. Not filled with meaningless words. Easy to carry around. I highly recommend.

Sadly way fluffier than I expected from HBR. A quick skim and I was done.

Well received. Concise and useful, thank you.

great book!