Oxford Guide to Plain English - Martin Cutts

Plain English is an essential tool for effective communication. 
 Information transmitted in letters, documents, reports, contracts, and forms is clearer and more understandable when presented in straightforward terms. 
The Oxford Guide to Plain English provides authoritative guidance on how to write plain English using easy-to-follow guidelines which cover straightforward language, sentence length, active and passive verbs, punctuation, grammar, planning, and good organization.
This handy guide will be invaluable to writers of all levels. 
It provides essential guidelines that will allow readers to develop their writing style, grammar, and punctuation. 
The book also offers help in understanding official jargon and legalese giving the plain English alternatives.
This guide gives hundreds of real examples and shows 'before and after' versions of texts of different kinds which will help readers to look critically at their own writing. 
It is organized in 25 short chapters, which each cover a different aspect of writing. 
Clearly laid out and easy to use, the Oxford Guide to Plain English is the best guide to writing clear and helpful documents.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.22 out of 5 (82 Ratings; 2 Reviews - As on November 19 2016)
My Rating:  3 out of 5
My Comments: A pretty useful guide to tone down one's pompous, confusing & verbose English writing. Written with a subtle sense of humor.


Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in Buy the Kindle Version

Persuade People with Your Writing - Karen Mannering

The ability to persuade people to agree with you can be crucial to your working life. 
This book will help you apply the psychology of persuasion to your writing. Persuasion expert Karen Mannering guides you through all aspects of business writing, from adverts to business plans, emails to Twitter Feeds, and letters to reports to produce sharper and more productive copy through the power of persuasion. 
[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 2 out of 5 (1 Rating; 0 Review)

My Rating:  2 out of 5.   
My Review: OK sort of book. Got put off by its canned sales oriented suggestions. There may be better books out there on this topic.

Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in  Buy Kindle Version
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.)

Twenty-six Ways of Looking At a Blackberry

Author:        John Simmons

Published:    2009

Publisher:    A&C Black Publishers Ltd.

Paperback: 240 Pages

If you think this book is about Blackberry (TM) the smartphone or the blackberry the fruit, read no further. It is about neither.

But hold on ! If you are interested in creative writing then this book (and hopefully my summary of it in this blog post !) is definitely worth a read. It is certainly one of the stand-apart  books  which I have come across.

The author John Simmons is of the view that even a dull, matter of fact business writing can be transformed into a more expressive and adventurous form of writing. The transformed piece may not convey precisely all the information and the same meaning. But it may establish better emotional connectivity with the reader and achieve the same goal as that of the original piece.

To demonstrate this the author first creates a base text -  the opening pages of an annual report of a fictitious technology company. The base text uses the standard business jargon-  sales, profits, future plans etc.

He rewrites this piece in 26 different styles that include Pronoun Shift, Fairy Tale, Questions, Style of Dickens, Six-word Stories, Alliteration, Song Lyrics, Eight-word Sentences, Greek Myth, Graphic Novel, Shakespearean Sonnet, Newspaper Article, Letter to a Friend, Blues, Detective Fiction, Democratic Campaign Speech, Lists, Haiku etc.

The nuances of creative writing are brought out in a very lucid manner using  these rewritten pieces and many  other examples drawn from author's career as a brand management consultant. 

A must read book for all business communicators like brand managers, marketers, advertisers, copywriters, PR people and also for anyone interested in creative writing !

Outwitting Writer's Block and Other Problems of the Pen

Author: Jenna Glatzer
Published: 2003
Publisher: The Lyons Press

Over the last 16 years my writing skills have been confined to preparing power point presentations and process documents. Ever since I joined the Toastmasters club last September, I have to write out my speeches before delivering them. I have also started blogging recently, writing book reviews in my blog. I also hope to write a book someday . On what ? Yet to decide ! I am sure this book which I picked up at Strand Book Festival at a bargain price of Rs. 175 ($3.5 vs the marked price of $14.95) will stand me in good stead in my writing ventures.

The book contains lots of tips and techniques for overcoming the writer's block. Just to enumerate a few - planning your writing, letting the ideas percolate, dealing with self-doubt and self-criticism of your writing, training your brain to write, relaxing, dealing with deadlines etc.

One technique among several others mentioned in the book that I can definitely vouch for by my experience is writing your draft on an ugly cheap notebook (real rough note book !) . Elegant and high priced notebooks makes you think that you have to write neatly and correctly. You don't feel like dirtying it with your scribblings. And that leads to the writer's block !
I need to try out other techniques. They seem doable.

The book is written in a conversational manner with lots of humor. It is pretty light read in that way , if you are interested in the subject of the book.

I only wish that all the tips and techniques were summarized in an appendix. Such an appendix would have made this review of mine even better. I really wanted to extract some good tips and put it here, but the absence of such an appendix made my job difficult. So I gave up the idea.

Nevertheless a must read for both a newbie and an experienced writer.