How to Write a Million Dollar Memo Rapid Access Management Primers for Young Professionals

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ISBN: 9780440537823 | 0440537827
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 3/1/1984

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Communicate effectively and get everything you want!

Instant expertise for business people who’ve swiftly moved into management positions—and need immediate access to the nuts and bolts of the business art. This series of brisk, readable titles will arm self-starters with the knowledge and skills they need to: be a good boss, run an effective meeting, manage benefits, plan successfully, and meet the myriad challenges impossible to anticipate in the grad school classroom. With an eye to blending the practical with the humanistic, each volume in the series lays bare an essential aspect of the complex business scene—and promises to become mandatory reading for every would-be executive in today’s fiercely competitive working world.

Preface	p. vii
Introduction	p. viii
The Million-Dollar Memo
The Secret of the Million-Dollar Memo	p. 1
How to communicate, not just inform	p. 2
How find--and fill--your reader's needs	p. 2
What's so important about a memo?	p. 4
Changing Your Approach	p. 6
To write a memo: the old way	p. 6
To write a memo: the new way	p. 7
The "need" test	p. 9
The Mechanics of Making a Memo	p. 11
To write--or to dictate	p. 11
The word processor as memo producer	p. 12
Appearance is everything--at first	p. 13
The $2.98 Memo
A Typical $2.98 Memo	p. 16
Business Language	p. 17
Why people use it	p. 17
How business language holds you back	p. 18
The Enemies of a Million-Dollar Memo
How to Lighten Your Language	p. 21
Forsake Phony Fancies	p. 22
No More Nounery	p. 24
Noun clusters	p. 24
Verbs turned into nouns	p. 25
Nouns turned into verbs	p. 26
Why we fall victim to nounery	p. 26
How to replace nounery	p. 27
Turn the Passive Voice Around	p. 28
Why the passive voice doesn't work	p. 29
How to avoid the passive voice	p. 30
Weed Out Wasted Words	p. 31
Clear Up Glaring Grammar Gaffes	p. 34
Unclear agreement	p. 34
Unparallel constructions	p. 35
Comma blunders	p. 35
Techniques of a Million-Dollar Memo
Phase 1: Think Like Your Reader	p. 39
Language is not a common ground	p. 39
How to get into your reader's head	p. 41
Phase 2: Write From the Right Side of Your Brain	p. 42
Writing versus editing	p. 42
How to write freely	p. 43
How to learn through writing	p. 43
A writing exercise	p. 43
Writing the new way	p. 44
Phase 3: Switch to the Left Side, and Edit	p. 46
Shaping your manuscript	p. 46
Finding the unifying force	p. 46
Meeting your reader's needs	p. 47
Effective endings	p. 48
Making your memo good to read--two checklists	p. 49
Tone--Your Attitude, in Writing	p. 51
How to identify the tone of your memos	p. 51
How to control your tone	p. 51
Style--You in Your Writing	p. 53
Five techniques for letting your style shine through	p. 53
Punctuation--The Voice Behind the Writing	p. 55
Commas	p. 55
The enclosers	p. 56
Brackets	p. 56
Parentheses	p. 57
Quotation marks	p. 58
The connectors	p. 58
The semicolon and dash	p. 59
The colon	p. 59
The apostrophe	p. 59
The hyphen	p. 59
Spelling--Write It Right	p. 61
Prepositions--Little Words Mean a Lot	p. 63
Preposition combos that cause confusion	p. 63
Words that take only one preposition	p. 65
Metaphors--Don't Mix Them	p. 67
The Follow-up--The Final Flourish	p. 69
Other Applications of Your Million-Dollar Memo Skills
How to Write a Nicely Spoken Letter	p. 72
How to Write a Letter for a Job	p. 74
Making your own professional profile	p. 75
Your letter of application--the gentle art of persuasion	p. 75
How to Write a Complaint Letter That Gets Results	p. 77
Write a mad-rag	p. 77
Complain with style: seven rules	p. 79
Putting the rules into practice	p. 82
What to do if you still get no response	p. 86
How--and When--to Write for a Raise	p. 87
Making your value known	p. 87
Putting it in writing	p. 87
The power of enthusiasm	p. 88
Stating your needs	p. 88
How to Write a Technical Memo	p. 90
Technical booby traps	p. 90
The search for elegant simplicity--in four steps	p. 91
How to Write a Highly Readable Technical Report	p. 95
The pyramid of value	p. 97
The title	p. 98
Recommendations	p. 98
Table of contents	p. 98
Findings	p. 98
Discussion	p. 99
A discussion checklist	p. 100
Common problems with reports	p. 100
The appendix	p. 101
The Million-Dollar Method in Brief
Think Differently	p. 103
Think: I want to talk to someone	p. 103
Think: I want to communicate	p. 104
Think like your reader	p. 105
Write Differently	p. 107
Write freely and ceaselessly	p. 107
Find your unifying force	p. 107
Make It Clear and Simple	p. 109
Write what you mean	p. 109
Use action verbs	p. 110
Use verbs instead of nouns	p. 111
Use prepositions instead of prepositional phrases	p. 112
Write English	p. 112
Avoid redundancies	p. 113
Cut out cliches	p. 114
The final check	p. 115
Epilogue: Language for the Fun of It	p. 117
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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How to Write a Million Dollar Memo Rapid Access Management Primers for Young Professionals

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