Revising Business Prose

ISBN 0-205-30944-5

This book, by Richard Lanham, Macmillan, 1992, is simply excellent, without question the best of its kind I have seen. You only need to skim the first 50 pages. The front cover has the message of the book:

circle the prepositions and "is" forms
ask, "who's kicking who"
put this kicking action in a simple active verb
start fast - no slow windups
mark off the sentence's lengths and rhythmic units, read it aloud

Just those first 4 shortened and added punch to my writing. I hope I learn to write that way first, instead of on the 2nd rewrite! If you write, check out this book.

-- AlistairCockburn

Alistair, I'll get the book, I promise. But just as a teaser, could you briefly describe the who's kicking whom concept? Thanks!

Oftentimes, for whatever reason that seems appropriate to the writer, it seems right to precede whatever is deemed of importance to the reader with subordinate clauses that set up the reader's mental state..... uh... what was the point of that last sentence?... Note that it did not have anyone kicking anyone. Passive voice, lack of transitive verb. What was I trying to say? I was trying to say:

Start the story immediately. Give the reader some action. Use the active voice, show somebody doing something to someone/thing. Skip the subordinate clauses. Read this book.

I hope you see the difference between the two styles. Which do you prefer reading? I went through my book and found most of my sentences were doubled, full of adjectives and long words. I made one full pass replacing passive voice with active, deleting doubled adjectives, and splitting sentences. It was much easier to read after, with no substantive loss of information. I kept looking for "who's kicking whom in this sentence?" Whenever I bother to proofread my own writing :-) I run that one test. -- cheers, Alistair

A similar trick is to make bullet lists whenever you have two or more things in a sentence. Compare:

This book will teach you how to write better Java and communicate it to your colleagues.

With:

This book will teach you how to:

Write better Java
Communicate it to your colleagues

The rule sounds crazy, but it really cleans up sentences that would otherwise require lots of concentration. A sentence you have to read twice kills your flow. Don't write them.

Anyone know the main difference to Lanham´s other book, Revising Prose?

I think the second sentence of this review could do with some revision. Does it mean "You can get away with skimming the first 50 pages and ignoring the rest" or "You can get away with skimming the first 50 pages, but you'll need to read the rest properly"? -- GarethMcCaughan

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