Reading for Writers, Part 7: From Process to Product

In "How to Improve Your Business Writing" by Carolyn O'Hara for the Harvard Business Review, you will find a practical summary of the writing product (your completed emails, analyses, reports, and proposals) and the writing process (the method you use to transfer ideas from your brain to your computer screen or paper). 

Even though the article appeared nine years ago, it covers enough ground to serve as a primer for developing business writers. O'Hara concludes with two relatable case studies to reinforce the principles she raises, such as planning messages thoroughly, writing clearly and concisely, practicing continually. For a five-minute read, that's a heap of worthwhile information.  

Reading for Writers, Part 6: The Writing Process and Product

In addition to reading my article on writing in the sciences for the Amrrican Chemical Society, "Crafting Articles: Guidance ot Authors for ACS Chemical Health and Safety," develooing writers would benefit from reading "The Skill of Writing" by Bryan S. Judge, available to readers on PubMed. While my article is primarily product-oriented, Judge's is primarily process-oriented.  

I would recommend starting with Judge's article, as it focuses on the psychological aspects of writing from conception to completion. I cover that aspect as well, but my main focus is on improving the quality of the finished product. If you are not a science writer, you will still benefit from reading the universal approach of both authors.

Reading for Writers, Part 5: The Reading-Writing Connection

My insistence over the years on this website about the powerful, indispensable link between reading and writing finds support in Lisa Fink's brief article "The Relationship Between Writing and Reading," for the National Council of Teachers of English website and in a more extensive essay, "The Reading-Writing Connection," by the International Literacy Association (formerly International Reading Association), appearing in the Electronic Registration Infomation Center (ERIC) website.

If you overlook the emphasis of these articles on elementary and secondary school students, you will see how much their ideas and suggestions apply to business and technical writers as well.

Reading for Writers, Part 4: Tutorial

If you want to test your knowledge of commonly confused words, sentence structure problems, and punctuation, visit Effective Writing Practices Tutorial, courtesy of Northern Illinois University. You will have numerous opportunities to take automatically graded quizzes that challenge your command of a broad range of writing-related issues.

This post is the fourth in a row that features a university writing center. That fact alone might keep away people who consider themselves serious business or technical writers. They would be mistaken. In fact, they might be hard-pressed to ace all the quizzes. Try them and see if they help. These exercises for writers are no different from a professional athlete's warmup or a musician's playing scales. Practice!