This study guide for a workshop course in effective writing is designed to help everyone involved in the process of business writing--managers, supervisors, and professional employees--agree on standards to be used in writing and reviewing; and to increase their confidence and skill in generating documents that meet those standards. Unit 1 presents fundamental considerations and standards for effective communication. Unit 2 discusses planning, organizing, and evaluating writing, as well as revising and editing. Unit 3 discusses language principles, clarity, conciseness, and appropriate tone. Unit 4 discusses such topics as paragraph development, paragraph length, and paragraph linkage. Unit 5 discusses sentence principles, active voice, parallel ideas, and punctuation. Unit 6 is an epilogue that includes general comments about the course.

Conceived as the successor to Gregg and Steinberg's Cognitive Processes in Writing, this book takes a multidisciplinary approach to writing research. The authors describe their current thinking and data in such a way that readers in psychology, English, education, and linguistics will find it readable and stimulating. It should serve as a resource book of theory, tools and techniques, and applications that should stimulate and guide the field for the next decade. The chapters showcase approaches taken by active researchers in eight countries. Some of these researchers have published widely in their native language but little of their work has appeared in English-language publications.