Book description
The book that has taught thousands of students how to write winning business reports
For more than 30 years, Carter A. Daniel has been teaching MBA students at Rutgers University the art of effective business communication with the aid of his eminently practical guide Reader-Friendly Reports.
Now available to the public for the first time, this beloved resource gives you everything you need to translate your hard-won figures, conclusions, and insights into concise and powerful reports. No definition of communication, no history, no theory, no diagrams Reader-Friendly Reports simply shows you how to:
- Target your audience
- Determine your purpose
- Develop your points
- Organize your ideas
- Make smooth transitions
- Conduct research
- Illustrate with clear graphs and charts
Reader-Friendly Reports (the “Daniel Manual”) is the A to Z guide to ensuring you meet your first priority: making sure people can understand and remember your report from beginning to end.
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Reader-Friendly Reports: A No-nonsense Guide to Effective Writing for MBAs, Consultants, and Other Professionals
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- I. Planning a Reader-Friendly Report
-
II. Writing a Reader-Friendly Report
- Understandability
- Organized Paragraphs
- Strong Sentences and Clear Style
- Sentence Connectives
- Numbers and Words
- Possessive Apostrophes
-
Commas
- Rule 1. Use a Comma with and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet to Separate Two Complete Sentences
- Rule 2. Use a Comma to Separate a Long Introduction from the Rest of the Sentence
- Rule 3. Use Commas to Separate Items in a Series
- Rule 4. Use Commas—One Before and One After—to Separate an Interrupter from the Rest of the Sentence
- Rule 4½. Use a Comma to Separate Elements That Could be Misunderstood If Read Together
- Semicolons and Colons
- Dashes and Hyphens
- Spelling
- Graphs and Charts
- A Note on a, an, and the, for Non-Native Speakers of English
- III. Research Techniques
-
IV. Other Things
-
Letters and E-mail
- Rule 1. Write as if You Were Speaking
- Rule 2. Identify the Purpose of the Letter as Close as Possible to the First Sentence
- Rule 3. Don’t Give Any Information You Don’t Have To
- Rule 4. Do Give All the Information You Have To
- Rule 5. Be Absolutely Clear about What Response You Expect, or What Steps Are to Be Taken, and When, and by Whom
- Rule 6. In E-mail, Have a Subject Line, and Be Sure It Says Something Specific
- Rule 7. Plan before You Start Writing
- Rule 8. Proofread!!!
- Rule 9. Be Specific about Dates
- Rule 10. Pause before You Send
- Résumés
- Interview Questions
-
Talks
- Rule 1. Know What You’re Talking About
- Rule 2. Don’t Read and Don’t Memorize
- Rule 3. Begin by Telling Us WHAT You’re Going to Say and WHY We Should Care
- Rule 4. Establish a Structure That You Will Follow
- Rule 5. Tell No Jokes
- Rule 6. Think of Visual Aids as Evidence to Be Commented On
- Rule 7. Know How (and When) to Use the Projector
- Rule 8. Keep It Simple
- Rule 9. Anticipate Questions and Objections
- Rule 10. End by Asking for Questions
- Rule 11. Rehearse
-
Letters and E-mail
- V. Sample Reports
- VI. The Appearance of the Finished Document
- Appendix: Checklists
- Index
- Footnotes
Product information
- Title: Reader-Friendly Reports: A No-nonsense Guide to Effective Writing for MBAs, Consultants, and Other Professionals
- Author(s):
- Release date: January 2012
- Publisher(s): McGraw-Hill
- ISBN: 9780071782869
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