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HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, 2nd Edition
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HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, 2nd Edition

by Harvard Business Review
August 2011
Beginner
25 pages
50m
English
Harvard Business Review Press
Content preview from HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, 2nd Edition

Five Quick ways to trim Your writing

by John Clayton

Word comes back from your boss on the report you labored over for weeks: “This is good, but it needs to be a lot shorter.” You throw up your hands in frustration. She doesn’t tell you what to cut or how. Your report brings together all the information the committee needs to make a decision on the project. Every section furthers the argument, you say to yourself; there’s nothing extraneous in it.

Similar challenges crop up in many business settings: Say you need to trim a product description to 200 words, squeeze a presentation handout onto one side of one page, or cut the executive summary of a complex, detailed report in half. Here are fve tips for losing length without losing meaning.

1. ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781422183366