Into Books

I often encourage people to read as much as they can because good writers read a lot. Occasionally, participants in my writing classes will respond to this suggestion by asking, “What do you read?” I usually answer with the obvious. The New Yorker obsessively adheres to grammatical conventions, and its in-depth articles are usually provocative and revelatory, regardless of one’s political proclivities. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal remain exemplars of literary excellence, if not always journalistic precision. I also encourage them to read books on topics that interest them because of the singular intellectual or emotional journey that books of all sorts can take their readers.

My own reading taste varies, tending toward themes. For instance, the terrorist attack of September 11 compelled me to read about the Western world’s relationship with Islam. During that time in late 2001, I read Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God, Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem, Bernard Lewis’s Islam and the West, Judith Miller’s God Has Ninety-nine Names and Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, and Edward Said’s The Politics of Dispossession, and I reread Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. A conversation with a friend about dialogue theory led me to David Bohm’s On Dialogue, Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard’s Dialogue: Rediscover the Transforming Power of Conversation, William Isaacs’s Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, Daniel Yankelovich’s The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming Conflict into Cooperation. My desire to offer students tips on creativity brought me to Bohm’s On Creativity, Tony Buzan and Barry Buzan’s The Mind Map Book, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow and Creativity, Edward De Bono’s De Bono’s Thinking Course and Parallel Thinking, and Michael J. Gelb’s How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. My sister, interested in my spirituality, recommended me to Kathleen Norris’s works, so I read her Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, The Cloister Walk, and Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. A video course on argumentation inspired me to read Chaim Perelman’s The Realm of Rhetoric, Stephen E. Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument, and Douglas Walton’s Ad Hominem Arguments. This year, my involvement in semantics has sent me to Jean Aitchison’s Linguistics, Roland Barthes’s Elements of Semiology, Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics: The Basics, and Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics. My never-ending fascination of other viewpoints on the meaning of life prompted me to read Hannah Arendt’s The Life of the Mind, Bohm’s Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Albert Einstein’s Ideas and Opinions, Norman Geisler’s four-volume Systematic Theology, Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer and The Passionate State of Mind, Robert Nozick’s The Examined Life, Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy, Religion and Science, and The History of Western Philosophy, and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Many more books are waiting in the wings, including Theodor Adorno’s Reader, Mikhail Bakhtin’s The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Noam Chomsky’s On Language, Jacques Derrida’s Writing and Difference, Michel Foucault’s The Foucault Reader, Antonio Gramsci’s Reader, Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, Jurgen Habermas’s two-volume The Theory of Communicative Action, Martin Heidegger’s Basic Writings, Edmund Husserl’s two-volume Logical Investigations, Jacques Lacan’s Ecrits, G.W. Leibniz’s Philosophical Essays, Georg Lukacs’ Reader, Nozick’s Philosophical Explanations, Charles Peirce’s Selected Philosophical Writings, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, and James D. Watson’s Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Thrown into the mix is always a smattering of English and American poets as well as foreign language poets in translation. While I strongly recommend reading fiction, my own coverage of short stories and novels has been sadly limited in recent years—a reason for yet another reading goal and journey of the imagination! Preparing for my work with clients, I might be drawn to certain business books by the likes of John K. Clemens, Robert Greene, Peter Krass, John C. Maxwell, and Tom Peters, or to engineering, insurance, investment banking, military, and science periodicals.

I will devote the next few installments of WORDS ON THE LINE to snippets of my current reading. My intent is not necessarily to endorse these books (I think some are helpful and others less so) but to suggest connections between reading and my life as a writing consultant. For all readers, making those connections undoubtedly should improve their writing performance at work.


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: https://www.firstbooks.com/product_info.php?cPath=14&products_id=144

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This BLUF Is No Bluff!

I had the honor of training Navy SEALs in a recent writing class at Virginia Beach. One of the course participants has a habit of beginning his drafts with the acronym BLUF, which means “bottom line up front.” Example:

Special Operations requests three Toughbook laptops to facilitate communication during the Code X deployment.

Such statements establish the purpose of the document and immediately put the reader to work. The Navy has this concept down pat; business writers should follow its lead. Remember BLUF to focus your reader!


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: https://www.firstbooks.com/product_info.php?cPath=14&products_id=144

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St. Cloud’s Concise Online Resource

Need some quick grammar, style, or structure tips? St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota may have just the resource for you. Its Literacy Education Online website, also known as LEO (http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/catalogue.html), addresses these issues and more. I found the points about using online resources and developing specific ideas helpful for novice writers, and the “Résumé and Cover Letters” section seems sufficient for setting up basic job application documents.


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: https://www.firstbooks.com/product_info.php?cPath=14&products_id=144

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Check Out UNC Writing Center

The “Handouts and Links” page at the Writing Center at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill website (www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/index.html) offers helpful hints to beginning writers, whether they are composing basic business letters, application essays, scientific reports, grant proposals, or a whole host of other documents. The tips in the “Writing a Paper” section may prove especially useful since I found answers to many questions my students typically ask. There you’ll also find some points on the writing process (e.g., brainstorming, procrastination, writing anxiety). This website is definitely worth a look.


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: https://www.firstbooks.com/product_info.php?cPath=14&products_id=144

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The Art of E-Mail Writing, Part 6

This final posting of excerpts from The Art of E-Mail Writing appears in Chapter 6. In this concluding chapter, the book steers from writing quality to e-mail management. It covers 37 tips for filing, attaching, copying, forwarding, and other e-mail moments. Three of those tips, separated by daggers, appear below. The Art of E-Mail Writing is available from First Books (www.FirstBooks.com)


CHAPTER 6: MANAGING THE E-MAIL CHALLENGE

Don’t copy everyone. Many people do not always need to be in the loop. Transmit group messages sensibly (e.g., blind copy group messages to spare your readers the wasted time of scrolling past the entire list of recipients).

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Attach documents thoughtfully. Attaching lengthy unsolicited documents can frustrate your readers by requiring them to print numerous pages—many of which they might not need. Use non-electronic means of transmitting lengthy documents when the situation calls for it.

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Help your reader understand forwarded e-mail. A reference to the part of a forwarded message to relate it to your purpose and your readers’ needs will quicken the communication process. Mention why you have forwarded the message.


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: https://www.firstbooks.com/product_info.php?cPath=14&products_id=144

Coming Soon! The Art of E-Mail Writing by Philip Vassallo, also through First Books: http://www.firstbooks.com/.

The Art of E-Mail Writing, Part 5

Chapter 5 of The Art of E-Mail Writing is concerned with writing style: issues of courtesy, clarity, conciseness, and correctness. These two excerpts from that chapter, separated by daggers, provide tips on clarity and conciseness. The Art of E-Mail Writing is available from First Books (www.FirstBooks.com)


CHAPTER 5: STYLE—COMING ACROSS PROFESSIONALLY

Keep the subject and verb closely connected.

Unclear: When an employee applies for a new position in the Company, factors such as professional credentials, employee appraisals, manager and peer recommendations, project involvement, training completed, educational achievement, and interview responses must be considered.

Clearer: When an employee applies for a new position in the Company, management must consider all factors, including professional credentials, employee appraisals, manager and peer recommendations, project involvement, training completed, educational achievement, and interview responses.

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Keep sentences as short as practical.

Unclear: Marie’s position is that, while her manager has the primary responsibility of making purchasing decisions for her unit, she, as the assistant manager, is obligated to conduct adequate product research, including the identification of the most suitable model of the product, best purchase price, and most qualified product vendor and service contractor. (1 sentence, 52 words)

Clearer: Marie’s understands that her manager is responsible for ultimately deciding on purchases. She also believes that as the assistant manager, she should do product research. Her criteria should include the most suitable model, best purchase price, and most qualified product vendor and service contractor. (3 sentences, 44 words)


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: https://www.firstbooks.com/product_info.php?cPath=14&products_id=144

Coming Soon! The Art of E-Mail Writing by Philip Vassallo, also through First Books: http://www.firstbooks.com/.