This book takes a top-down approach to writing that will teach you all the writing methods that you need for success on the job. What’s hard to believe is that most of these methods aren’t taught in high school or in college or in other books on writing.
In chapters 1 and 2, for example, you’ll learn how to use headings and subheadings to guide your readers and plan what you’re going to write. That’s a critical skill for any document of two pages or more, but you won’t find anything about headings in most writing books.
In chapter 3, you’ll learn how to write paragraphs that deliver one fully-developed idea at a time. That too is a critical skill because the paragraph is the primary unit of composition. But most writing books have precious little to say about paragraphing.
On the other hand, most writing books tell you far more than you need to know about writing sentences. In contrast, chapter 4 of this book uses a unique top-down approach to show you how to write sentences that are easy to read and understand. That way, you can start with the skills that matter the most, and then refine those skills one level at a time. Chapters 5 and 6 continue this top-down approach to writing. So, in chapter 5, you learn how to plan and use visual aids. And in chapter 6, you learn how to write the first draft of a document in record time… and how to edit that first draft into a final draft in a single editorial pass. With those skills in your skillset, you’re ready for chapter 7. It shows you when and how to use writing tools like ChatGPT that are driven by Artificial Intelligence. As you will see, these are powerful new tools, but you need all the other skills in this book to get the most from them. Last, chapters 8, 9, and 10 show you how to use the Microsoft Word features for writers: templates, styles, the outline feature, and the spelling and grammar checker. If you don’t already use these features, you’ll be glad you discovered them. And if you don’t already use Microsoft Word, these chapters will show you why you should.
