Writing: Understand Your Incentives. Why Write? Why Write Better?

The Power of Writing Well

By: Pete Geissler

Narrated by: Adam Zens

Length: 41 mins

Publisher's summary

"A bad writer has no rights whatever. Any mercy shown to him is wasted and mistaken." (H. L. Mencken, 1880-1956)

I wrote The Power of Writing Well to address everything managers, leaders, engineers, scientists, and others need to be better senders and receivers - not to cover everything they need to know about the language or to be the perfect sender or receiver; nobody is.

The many books on writing and communicating that claim to be everything to everybody fail simply because they are overwhelmingly complex, full of jargon and useless labels and distinctions such as participial phrases as opposed to gerund phrases, or transitive verbs versus intransitive verbs. Most of us outside of academe don't care, and we shouldn't since they're not relevant to our needs.

This short book condenses the habits and techniques - your tools - that work most of the time for most of the people who write at work and want to be happier in all parts of their lives: nothing more, nothing less. It's also an accurate reflection of my 40 years of writing for business and of teaching writing at two prestigious universities and many professional societies and companies. You can trust that what I'm telling you will improve your abilities to communicate and think and make you more productive, promotable, and happy. It'll also make your organization more efficient and profitable.

I guarantee it, and my students attest to it.

©2015 Pete Geissler (P)2015 Pete Geissler

Improve the clarity of your business communication

What made the experience of listening to Writing: Understand Your Incentives. Why Write? Why Write Better? the most enjoyable?

I did not have to read it. I could listen to it on my commute.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Writing: Understand Your Incentives. Why Write? Why Write Better??

One memorable part detailed how much money an average company wastes on clarifying their communication rather than communicating clearly the first time.

Which character – as performed by Adam Zens – was your favorite?

There are no characters. This is a writing textbook.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It depends on how quickly you want to use the information. If you want to improve your writing by tomorrow, then yes. Otherwise smaller listening sessions might be more appropriate.

Any additional comments?

This is a good self-paced text on how to improve your business communication. It is similar to the author's other books, but it is more concise. This book focuses on honing your message to your audiences needs.

Narration sounds like Siri

I couldn't get more than a few minutes through the book because of the narration - the narrator sounded like Siri on my iPhone - computer generated, flat and emotionless.