Organizing Ideas: the Key to Effective Communication

The approach to business communication explained in Organizing Ideas is now available in a revised and updated version in Think First, Write Better, also by Matthew Spence.

Although the approach remains essentially the same, Think First, Write Better shows how to organizing progressively more complex documents, beginning with simple emails and ending with presentations. In this way, the approach in Think First, Write Better is more suited to the requirements of 21st century communication than Organizing Ideas, whose approach was developed primarily for the memo-based business culture of the 1950s.

Both books show how to apply the principles of effective communication to organize and express your ideas. The approach has been used for over 65 years to teach communication skills to professionals at leading American companies.

Think First, Write Better shows how to identify your key message in any email or document and develop a persuasive argument to support it. You will learn to tailor any message to the needs of your audience. Special chapters show how to compose effective e-mail, prepare presentations that are conceptually clear and visually appealing, and write documentation that people actually read.

Thin First, Write Better also presents nine simple principles for editing—all you need to ensure that your paragraphs and sentences are easy to read and understand.

A companion volume, Business Writing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, illustrates with before-and-after examples how to apply the principles in Think First, Write Better to improve the clarity of all types of business documents.

MATTHEW SPENCE teaches workshops on business and technical communication in a broad range of industries throughout the United States and abroad. He lives in Portland, Oregon.