How to Write a Million Dollar Memo Book

	Preface	vii
	Introduction	viii
Part I	The Million-Dollar Memo
1.	The Secret of the Million-Dollar Memo	1
	How to communicate, not just inform	2
	How find--and fill--your reader's needs	2
	What's so important about a memo?	4
2.	Changing Your Approach	6
	To write a memo: the old way	6
	To write a memo: the new way	7
	The "need" test	9
3.	The Mechanics of Making a Memo	11
	To write--or to dictate	11
	The word processor as memo producer	12
	Appearance is everything--at first	13
Part II	The $2.98 Memo
4.	A Typical $2.98 Memo	16
5.	Business Language	17
	Why people use it	17
	How business language holds you back	18
Part III	The Enemies of a Million-Dollar Memo
6.	How to Lighten Your Language	21
7.	Forsake Phony Fancies	22
8.	No More Nounery	24
	Noun clusters	24
	Verbs turned into nouns	25
	Nouns turned into verbs	26
	Why we fall victim to nounery	26
	How to replace nounery	27
9.	Turn the Passive Voice Around	28
	Why the passive voice doesn't work	29
	How to avoid the passive voice	30
10.	Weed Out Wasted Words	31
11.	Clear Up Glaring Grammar Gaffes	34
	Unclear agreement	34
	Unparallel constructions	35
	Comma blunders	35
Part IV	Techniques of a Million-Dollar Memo
12.	Phase 1: Think Like Your Reader	39
	Language is not a common ground	39
	How to get into your reader's head	41
13.	Phase 2: Write From the Right Side of Your Brain	42
	Writing versus editing	42
	How to write freely	43
	How to learn through writing	43
	A writing exercise	43
	Writing the new way	44
14.	Phase 3: Switch to the Left Side, and Edit	46
	Shaping your manuscript	46
	Finding the unifying force	46
	Meeting your reader's needs	47
	Effective endings	48
	Making your memo good to read--two checklists	49
15.	Tone--Your Attitude, in Writing	51
	How to identify the tone of your memos	51
	How to control your tone	51
16.	Style--You in Your Writing	53
	Five techniques for letting your style shine through	53
17.	Punctuation--The Voice Behind the Writing	55
	Commas	55
	The enclosers	56
	Brackets	56
	Parentheses	57
	Quotation marks	58
	The connectors	58
	The semicolon and dash	59
	The colon	59
	The apostrophe	59
	The hyphen	59
18.	Spelling--Write It Right	61
19.	Prepositions--Little Words Mean a Lot	63
	Preposition combos that cause confusion	63
	Words that take only one preposition	65
20.	Metaphors--Don't Mix Them	67
21.	The Follow-up--The Final Flourish	69
Part V	Other Applications of Your Million-Dollar Memo Skills
22.	How to Write a Nicely Spoken Letter	72
23.	How to Write a Letter for a Job	74
	Making your own professional profile	75
	Your letter of application--the gentle art of persuasion	75
24.	How to Write a Complaint Letter That Gets Results	77
	Write a mad-rag	77
	Complain with style: seven rules	79
	Putting the rules into practice	82
	What to do if you still get no response	86
25.	How--and When--to Write for a Raise	87
	Making your value known	87
	Putting it in writing	87
	The power of enthusiasm	88
	Stating your needs	88
26.	How to Write a Technical Memo	90
	Technical booby traps	90
	The search for elegant simplicity--in four steps	91
27.	How to Write a Highly Readable Technical Report	95
	The pyramid of value	97
	The title	98
	Recommendations	98
	Table of contents	98
	Findings	98
	Discussion	99
	A discussion checklist	100
	Common problems with reports	100
	The appendix	101
Part VI	The Million-Dollar Method in Brief
28.	Think Differently	103
	Think: I want to talk to someone	103
	Think: I want to communicate	104
	Think like your reader	105
29.	Write Differently	107
	Write freely and ceaselessly	107
	Find your unifying force	107
30.	Make It Clear and Simple	109
	Write what you mean	109
	Use action verbs	110
	Use verbs instead of nouns	111
	Use prepositions instead of prepositional phrases	112
	Write English	112
	Avoid redundancies	113
	Cut out cliches	114
	The final check	115
	Epilogue: Language for the Fun of It	117