Business Writing
Training Resources
 |
|
|
Explicit Business Writing Training Book
|
|
|
|
Since 1997, The Business Writing Center has trained thousands of business writers from around the world. During that time, we have identified and refined a list of the best practices businesses are using today that create clear, concise, correct business writing. Robert Craig Hogan, Ph.D., director of The Business Writing Center, with 35 years of experience in teaching writing, has compiled the best practices into a valuable guide for business people: Explicit Business Writing: Best Practices for the Twenty-First Century. It contains the best practices, explanations of how to apply them, and examples of their use in e-mail, memos, letters, and reports.
We will send a complimentary copy of the book to any organization considering having us customize it to their use.
|
Creating a Paperbound Customized
Version of the Book
|
|
The Business Writing Center will create a published, paperbound customized book for your company, agency, or association. All employees will then have the same standards for writing in a desk copy of the training manual. You or the Business Writing Center can conduct business writing training based on the book. If you are an association, you may have your constituents purchase the books and cover your costs with a markup you believe is appropriate.
The first customized book we completed was for crime laboratory directors. It has been a very successful experience. This is from the foreword to the book written by the Director of a Forensic Science Services Division of a state Sheriff-Coroner Department:
|
|
|
The suggestions and recommendations offered in this book by Dr. Hogan give us an opportunity to further improve our field. This is a wake-up call for us to reconsider how we present our written information. Explicit writing gives us another opportunity to build better relationships and trust with those we serve—both our employees and our community. We cannot be misunderstood if we are taking the time and effort to write explicitly.
We should set goals to expect and deliver explicit writing in all our written work, resulting in 100 percent comprehension by 100 percent of the readers 100 percent of the time.
This book is an excellent resource for any forensic manager or supervisor. Dr. Hogan’s experience in the area of explicit business writing will undoubtedly raise the bar in effective communication within our field. The concepts are new for us and may be uncomfortable for some. However, this information serves as a wonderful addition to any forensic laboratory by helping us to improve our communication. When put into practice, the recommendations also serve as a tool to further build our relationships with those we serve.
Process of Creating the Customized Book
This is the process we go through. Someone at the company, agency, or association makes any changes necessary in a Word copy of the book. For example, for the crime laboratory directors, we changed "businesses" and "companies" to "agencies" and "laboratories." The person adds example documents that fit the company or industry. We fine tune them to make them fit. As necessary, we rewrite to make the book fit the organization's unique needs. For example, we reorganized the forensic laboratory directors book so forensic reports were the first part of the book and other documents such as e-mail, memos, and letters were placed in the second half of the book because of the importance of forensic reports to the directors.
We have our designer create a book cover with the company, agency, or association name or logo on the front and change the title. For the crime laboratory directors, the title is Technical and Business Writing for Forensic Managers. Someone from the organization writes a foreword to the book.
We create a new version of the book based on the comments and incorporating the samples. We submit it for review and changes as necessary. When the text is approved, we prepare the masters and print a run of perfect-bound (paperback) books with all the quality of the original.
We do not charge a fee for producing the book. Instead, we change the pricing to allow for our time and the costs of publication. Shorter runs of 300 or 500 books are more expensive to publish than runs of 3,000 to 5,000. For a short run of 300 books, we ask the company, agency, or association to agree to purchase 300 copies at $23.95 apiece. The $23.95 is the price that appears on the book cover also. However, the fee per book we ask from the company, agency, or association decreases from the cover price depending on the size of the run. For a run of 2,000 books, the fee lowers to around $14.50 per book. For 5,000, it can be around $10 per book or lower, depending on the number of pages the book ends up being. The company, agency, or association agrees to purchase the entire run of books and may charge any fee to the constituents purchasing them.
Allowing You to Create a Customized Microsoft Word Version of the Book
Another alternative for using the materials in your business writing training is for you to customize the original Microsoft Word text to fit your organization's needs. You may add a style manual, alter the content, add examples relevant to your organization, include instructions for writing specific reports, and any other content unique to your organization. You may then print copies in-house in a spiral-bound or three-ring format. The charge for doing so is the same as the price of the paperbound books we sell: $12.95 per copy you make.
For more Information
For more information, contact the Center at center@writingtrainers.com asking about customizing the book. Include your mailing address so we can send a complimentary copy to review.
|