Effective Writing

Front Cover
W. W. Norton & Company, 1999 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 266 pages
Whether it's a Web page on the Internet or a chapter in an annual budget report, readers today have less time to spend wading through text-they want the writing they read to be articulate and to the point. Effective Writing will help writers at any level of proficiency produce clear, concise writing structured around the messages they want to convey to their audience, and supported with strong, well-developed paragraphs and sentences. Written in plain language and a relaxed style, this book is easily adaptable to a wide variety of writing styles and tasks, and will be helpful at any stage of the process: conceptualization, writing, or editing.
 

Contents

AN APPROACH TO SENTENCES
23
COMMON FORMS
27
OCCASIONAL SHORT FORMS
32
DRAMATIC FLOURISHES
36
ELEGANT REPETITIONS
46
CREDIBLE QUOTATIONS
51
CONVERSATIONAL INJECTIONS
55
STARK ATTACHMENTS
60
UNIFY YOUR PARAGRAPHS AROUND
114
MAKE YOUR POINTS IN COMPELLING WAYS
130
LINK YOUR PARAGRAPHS
156
AN APPROACH TO PLANNING
201
SPELL OUT YOUR MAIN
218
DECIDE HOW LONG EACH SECTION WILL BE
229
TAPE YOUR DRAFT ON A WALL TO APPLY
244
SOURCES 267

DEFT CONNECTIONS
64
POWERFUL PARAGRAPHS
101

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1999)

Bruce Ross-Larson lives in Washington, D.C.

Bibliographic information