The Harvard Business Essentials series is designed to provide com-prehensive advice, personal coaching, background information, andguidance on the most relevant topics in business. Drawing on richcontent from Harvard Business School Publishing and othersources, these concise guides are carefully crafted to provide a highlypractical resource for readers with all levels of experience. To assurequality and accuracy, each volume is closely reviewed by a special-ized content adviser from a world-class business school. Whetheryou are a new manager interested in expanding your skills or anexperienced executive looking for a personal resource, these solution-oriented books offer reliable answers at your fingertips.

Introduction

1 Good Writing

 It Begins with Principles

 Have a Clear Purpose

 Be Audience Focused

 State Your Key Message Clearly

 Stay on Topic

 Observe Economy of Words

 Use Simple Sentences

 Consider Your Delivery Strategy

 Summing Up

2 Start-Up Strategies

 Your Launch Point

 Questioning Method

 Traditional Outline Method

 Brainstorm Outline Method

 Free Writing Method

 Scoping Your Project

 Summing Up

3 The First Draft

 Getting It Down

 Get It Down First

 Build on Strong Paragraphs

 Create Transitions

 Use Design Elements to Lighten the Reader's Load

 Summing Up

4 Getting It Right

 The Editing Craft

 Editing for Content

 Editing for Style

 Tighten and Sharpen Those Sentences

 Editing for Accuracy

 Summing Up

  Everyday Writing

  Memos, Letters, and E-mail

 Writing Effective Memos

 Business Letters That Do the Job

 Making the Most of E-mail

 Summing Up

6 Presentations

 Timeless Principles

  Presentations: The Greek Way

  Four Rhetorical Devices

  Three Learning Styles

  Aim for the Head and the Heart

  Summing Up

  Backstage

  Preparing Your Presentation

  Step 1: Define Your Objective

  Step 2: Understand the Audience

  Step 3: Decide What to Say

  Step 4: Get Organized

  Step 5: Develop Effective Visuals

  Step 6: Rehearse

  Summing Up

8 Show Time

 Making an Effective Delivery

 Speaking Effectively

 Projecting a Positive Image

 Keeping the Audience Engaged

 Handling Questions

 Making Group Presentations

 Dealing with Stage Fright

 Evaluating Your Presentation

 Summing Up

9 Dialogue

 The Ultimate Communication

 Understanding the Other Person

 Seeing Yourself (or Your Company) from the Other Person's Perspective

 Creating Dialogue

 Summing Up

 Appendix A

 Useful Implementation Tools

 Appendix B

 Writing the Perfect Job Application Cover Letter

 Appendix C

 Commonsense Rules.for Presentation Visuals

Notes

Glossary

For Further Reading

Index

About the Subject Adviser

About the Writer