Tested Writing Methods

This book is for writing instructors who want to see their students make dramatic improvements in their writing in a single semester. To facilitate that, you just need to add this book as a required supplementary text to your course.

Although the focus of this book is on business writing, the tested writing methods work for all types of non-fiction. To write well, you need to think and write from the top-down, and that’s what this book will teach your students how to do.

What’s unique about this book is that most of its methods aren’t included in other books on writing. That’s true even though the tested writing methods it presents are the ones used by professional writers. That’s why the two sections in this book will help your students improve their writing in ways that other books don’t even address.

In section 1, your students will learn the tested writing methods. That includes how to use headings and subheadings to plan what you’re going to write...how to write paragraphs that sell your ideas...how to write sentences that are easy to read and understand...how to show the relationships between your paragraphs and sentences...how to write the first draft in record time...and how to edit that first draft without “thrashing.”

Then, the last chapter in section 1 shows your students how they can use chatbots like ChatGPT to improve their writing. This is a timely subject that needs to be handled in every writing course because like it or not your students will be using chatbots. But as this chapter shows, most chatbot writing leaves a lot to be desired. That’s why your students still need to master all of the methods in this book.

In section 2, your students will learn how to use the Microsoft Word features that every writer should use: templates and styles, the outline feature, and the spelling and grammar checker. If that seems out of place in a book on writing, it’s included because most writers don’t use these features, even though these features will help them write faster and better.

To a large extent, writing has been treated as more of an art than a science. In business, though, you want your writing to be more science that art. You want your emails to communicate efficiently. You want your reports to draw the right conclusions and your proposals to get results. You want your marketing and web copy to sell your products and services. In short, you want your writing to get the intended results. And any writing that doesn’t do that is a waste of time...for both the writer and the reader.

So what we mean by “tested” writing methods is that our publishing company has tested them on the job in the real world for more than 50 years. During those years, we used these methods to write dozens of books and to sell more than 1,000,000 copies of them. We also used these methods to write our emails, reports, proposals, procedure manuals, web copy, and more. From the start, the success of our company has depended 100% on how well we write...and we’ve used the methods in this book to do that writing.

When we started, though, we had to develop many of the writing methods ourselves. That’s because we couldn’t find anything useful in the dozens of books that we reviewed. That includes: How to plan what you’re going to write. How to use headings and subheadings to guide your readers. How to get the most from visuals. How to write the first draft. How to edit that first draft. And even how to write effective paragraphs.

But when it came to writing sentences, there was voluminous information in other books on writing. The trouble is that there’s so much more to good writing than writing good sentences. So when it came to writing sentences, we selected just the best methods from other books, tested them on the job, and improved them. Now, chapter 4 presents those methods in a single chapter from the top-down with the most important methods first.

Like all our books, this one has features that you won’t find in competing books. Here are five of them:

• This book presents a top-down approach to writing that starts with how to plan what you’re going to write and ends with how to use Word’s spelling and grammar checker to catch a final error or two. No other writing book is that comprehensive.
• Above all, this book presents the writing methods that are either neglected or ignored in college textbooks on writing and communications. That’s why Tested Writing Methods works so well as a supplementary text.
• This book not only shows how to write better, but also how to write faster. That starts with planning and ends with writing the first draft just once, editing it just once, and proofreading it just once. That contrasts the write, edit, rewrite, and edit again approach to writing that we call “thrashing.”
• This book has a chapter on AI writing and chatbots like ChatGPT that shows how these tools can help you write better. But as the chapter points out, your students still need to master all the other skills in this book if they want their writing to be successful.
• This book shows how to use the Microsoft Word features for writers: templates and styles, the outline feature, and the spelling and grammar checker. If your students are using Word but aren’t using these features, this will show them what they’re missing. And if they aren’t using Word, this will show them why they should be.

Because Tested Writing Methods has a business and technical orientation, it will work especially well for business and technical writing courses. But the methods work for most types of non-fiction. That’s why this book will help the students in most curriculums improve the writing that they do for their courses.