Writing at Work: How to Write Clearly, Effectively and Professionally

Is there an evolution or progress in the Philosophy of Documentation and Professional Writing? Yes, there definitely is! How do I know? – Because during the past four decades I was involved in various aspects of scientific and humanity‐related documentation (e.g. creation of data bases), writing reference and text books, editing of books and several international journals, and publishing of hundreds of articles, essays, book reviews, and reports – as part (or better as a sideline activity) of my pragmatic/practically applied scientific work and university teaching and research. Having checked many books, and bought over 20, on writing (aside from those on linguistics, …) I am able to do some comparing/contrasting. The book by James (being Executive Director of the Plain English Foundation) is indeed one of the better ones, and thus highly recommended. However, one must realize that some of the older books still have some appeal, exemplified by Tichy (1966).

The Contents list is merely an extremely meager overview of the book, so that only by examining the book from cover‐to‐cover does one get a clear impression of the author's excellent presentation of really all important aspects of writing. In many of my book reviews I had to suggest that all sub‐ and subsub‐headings within the text ought to be part of the main Contents precisely because the Index being very inadequate. This would have been impossible in the present case because of the unusually large number of sub‐headings utilized to offer logically‐divided shorter sections; a very welcome approach.

So here are the concise Contents – Introduction, followed by Planning: 1. Readers, 2. Content, 3. Structure; Structure: 4. Focus, 5. Persuasion, 6. Coherence, 7. Design; Expression: 8. Tone, 9. Grammar, 10. Words, 11. Clutter, 12, Verbs, 13. Sentences; Review: 14. Punctuation, 15. Style, 16. Editing. 17. Proofing. Then follows: Further reading, Chapter notes, Acknowledgements, and Index.

Further to the credit of the author, and related to his well‐structured format: each major section has a “Tools covered in this section”; each chapter (i.e. 1 to 17) has its own contents list, comprising the sub‐headings, entitled “At a glance”; and many numbered lists, tables, and pictorial illustrations plus flow‐chart‐like and model‐like diagrams of information‐to‐be‐highlighted are used instead of long‐winded sentences and paragraphs. I also like in particular his willingness to ignore the widespread public's ‘aversion to Plato's and Socrates philosophies’ by suggesting classical rhetoric (logic, thinking styles/patterns, argumentation, persuasion, proof analysis, fallacies, etc.) as part of rational/systematic research methodology – naturally, in support of good writing.

This subject being a long‐time hobby horse, allow me to list a few relevant books I have had for years to support those ancient thinkers listed by James:

• Blaxter, L. (2001), How to Research, 2nd ed., Open University Press, Buckingham.

• Wycloff, J. (1991), Mindmapping: Your Personal Guide to Exploring Creativity and Problem Solving, Berkley Books, New York, NY.

• Fogelin, R.J. (1982), Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, 2nd ed., Hartcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, NY.

• Fearnside W.W. and Holther, W.B. (1959), Fallacy: The Counterfeit Argument, Prentice‐Hall, Englewood, Cliffs, NJ.

• Engel, S.M. (1982), With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies, 2nd ed., St Martin's Press, New York, NY.

Here is just one exemplar of a chapter divided in this neat way by sub‐headed sections (see pp. 12‐9): 1. Readers. At a glance – The toolbox: Work at cooperatively with your readers, Understand the communication process, Apply the reader checklist; The living language: Why audience was the focus of classical rhetoric, How we lost sight of the reader, Restore the reader to your writing; Power tools: Test how well your documents work, Record your readers' responses, Review your reader's needs, Assess your text against standards, Run reader surveys and focus groups, Conduct usability testing, Run some field tests.

The reader may agree that each chapter having such a detailed complementary (secondary) contents' list would have been too cumbersome as part of the main contents.

Finally, here are exemplars of James' excellent style in presenting the well‐selected information – nearly all as point‐by‐point lists and tables (some comparative/contrastive):

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  reader check‐list (pp. 16‐19);

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  10‐scale levels of document testing (23‐4);

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  selection of document tests (25‐6);

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  three types of Contents (judicial, deliberative, ceremonial (38‐9);

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  list of proofs (40);

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  list of evidence (41);

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  six contemporary creative content‐techniques (43);

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  mind map (46, 48);

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  seven common document‐architecture models (51);

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  structure check‐list (65‐6);

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  thinking structure: The Scientific Method (89);

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  key parts of an argument (98);

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  value analysis check‐list (102);

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  three modes of persuasion (105‐6);

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  proof analysis check‐list (108‐110);

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  fallacies (115);

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  elements of coherence (117‐133):, e.g. paragraphing;

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  unifying text (125);

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  checklist of paragraph structure (126);

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  subsection check‐list (131);

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  transitional words (132);

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  graphics check‐list (design) (148‐9); and

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  tone scale (155) and check‐list (164‐5).

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  tables of officialese (191‐4);

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  readability (i.e. Fry graph) (198‐204);

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  grammar check‐list (215‐245);

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  rhetorical touch to sentences (245);

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  types of sentences (252‐258);

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  comma check‐list (263);

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  guide to hyphenation (273);

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  four principles to guide style choice (281‐4);

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  capitalization 20‐part check‐list (285);

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  four elements of editing (299) and check‐list (301);

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  editing 20‐part spectrum (302);

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  seven‐part scope of editing tasks (306);

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  proof check‐list (316); and

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  top 10 proof‐reader's tips (323).