How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write

by Sandra Lamb

Write personal and professional communications with clarity, confidence, and style.

How to Write It is the essential resource for eloquent personal and professional self-expression. Award-winning journalist Sandra E. Lamb transforms even reluctant scribblers into articulate wordsmiths by providing compelling examples of nearly every type and form of written communication. Completely updated and expanded, the new third edition offers hundreds of handy word, phrase, and sentence lists, precisely crafted sample paragraphs, and professionally designed document layouts. How to Write It is a must-own for students, teachers, authors, journalists, bloggers, managers, and anyone who doesn’t have time to wade through a massive style guide but needs a friendly desk reference.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Writing, Reference, Nonfiction, Self Help, Education, Business, How To

434 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1999

About the author

I began my career as a technical writer, and quickly learned that the engineers I worked with, although brilliant, were extremely challenged in their ability to communicate effectively in writing. My early experiences led me to write How to Write It, Personal Notes, Write the Right Words, 3000 Power Words and Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews, and most recently, Writing Well for Business Success.

Reviews

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book several years ago. I regret spending ten dollars on it now, but at the time, I thought it was a good idea to buy it. No matter who you are, communication is essential to you as a human being.

How To Write It: A Complete Guide To Everything You'll Ever Write provides examples aplenty and specific advice. It boils down to editing and writing a lot.

Most of the advice is common sense. Write for your audience, don't type in all caps, follow good design principles, and so on. Don't use overused words is a hard one for me. Why should I use a rare word when a more common one will do?

The book is older and might not be practical in the internet age. With the advent of the internet, this information is available on any writing site you care to find.

Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so close to 5 stars, but then in the section on writing apologies, while the points made were good some of the examples were terrible apologies. They are good examples of what some people would send, but if the book is about doing better...

Otherwise, the organization is superb, points are laid out clearly, and examples are given for individual words, phrases and paragraphs before giving complete samples. While the purpose is always clear communication, specific types of communication present different challenges, and the book is a thoughtful look.

Ideally it works better as a reference book than straight reading material, but I can also see it being used for teaching, where different note types can be used for English and writing practice, and other samples could fit into personal finance and business skills classes. Even with the apology samples that I don't like, you can have some good discussions.

[Yusuff Azeez · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book answers every needs to write.

[Ifeanyi Onuoha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book...very helpful.

[Heather Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent - worth adding to your reference section.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful collection of templates for all sorts of writing situations.

[Chris Muth · Rating 5 out of 5]

To read

[TSStechAngel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good jumping point for personal letters, business plans and other professional matters. If you're looking for story writing tools, this isn't what you need.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ms Lamb has put together an extensive collection of tips and examples on writing various kinds of correspondence, resumes, and even books.

[Priyanka Sriram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book. This is what we want in our day to day life. MUST READ IT!