The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking Like a Professional

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Overview

Effective writing and speaking are critical for all students and professionals in this challenging and competitive world. Professional level writing and speaking depend on only a handful of easy-to-understand principles.The Gettysburg Approach goes straight to the foundations, defines these principals and explains how to apply them.Through a variety of examples and simple exercises, this exceptional guide will help anyone sharpen their skills and rapidly learn to write and speak clearly, concisely, and persuasively.

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More About This Book

Overview

Effective writing and speaking are critical for all students and professionals in this challenging and competitive world. Professional level writing and speaking depend on only a handful of easy-to-understand principles.The Gettysburg Approach goes straight to the foundations, defines these principals and explains how to apply them.Through a variety of examples and simple exercises, this exceptional guide will help anyone sharpen their skills and rapidly learn to write and speak clearly, concisely, and persuasively.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780978924751
  • Publisher: INDI, LLC
  • Publication date: 2/1/2010
  • Pages: 275
  • Product dimensions: 5.40 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Meet the Author

Philip A. Yaffe is an author, former feature writer with the Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. Born in Boston he teaches writing and public speaking in Brussels, Belgium where he has lived for more than thrity years.

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  • Posted November 5, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    Reviewed by Theresa L. Stowell for Teens Read Too

    Author Phillip A. Yaffe is a professional writer who teaches in Brussels, Belgium. In this textbook, he offers logical and simple guidelines on how to become a better writer and speaker. Basing his pattern on Abraham Lincoln's most famous speech, Yaffe provides a handbook that includes theory of writing, examples, and exercises. His first section covers writing like a professional, while the second part of the book discusses oral presentations. Yaffe's conversational tone and straightforward style provide struggling writers in both the business and academic worlds with clear definitions of the basic types of writing, simple explanations of writing criteria, and honest commentary to tie his instruction together. This is a refreshing change from long, rambling texts on the topic. The examples and exercises included in the thirteen appendices are not only easy to follow but helpful, as well. His breakdown of the Gettysburg Address and description of what Lincoln did so well in that piece is particularly interesting, and his exercises on everyday writing issues (such as tense usage, concise language, and mechanics) work towards making writing or speaking seem effortless.

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  • Posted October 24, 2010

    Helpful resource for expository writing and oral presentations

    Content:

    There are two main sections, one on the basics of good writing and the other on oral presentations. Yaffe argues that essentially the same approach should be taken to speaking as to writing: it should be clear, concise and dense. I appreciated that he used conceptual formulae to explain how to achieve each of these qualities. For example, D (density) = PL (precise information, logically linked). Furthermore, I liked that he teased out how listening to a presentation differs from reading an article, and pointed out how that will naturally affect how the presentation should be delivered.

    Most of his tips made a good deal of sense, and I particularly enjoyed the section on the 'inverted pyramid' model of journalistic writing. I did quibble with a couple of his recommendations - for instance, he suggested only including images in a slide when you are intending to make a specific point about the illustration. In my experience, if the presentation only contains text, the audience interest starts to wane after a few slides.

    Readability/writing style:

    Although I don't recommend trying to finish this book in one sitting, it is relatively easy to read given the topic. Yaffe's points are made clearly and often backed up with examples, and follow a logical progression. The layout, by breaking down the text into short sections with headings, facilitates understanding. My one gripe is that I did catch a few typos (spelling and punctuation errors) and grammatical problems (sentence fragments, though that may have been intentional). Normally I wouldn't pay so much attention to these, but this is a book on improving writing, so it is critical that it should be error-free. Generally, it would have benefited from more careful editing.

    The tone of the book was generally informative without being terribly dry. However, occasionally it lapsed into a kind of 'sales pitch' I did not appreciate, and at other times it was a bit too didactic. I did find his use of quotes to be thoughtful and sometimes humorous, livening up the material a little.

    Applicability:

    Yaffe mentions at the beginning that he used to think "the essence of good writing was intricate sentences liberally sprinkled with sophisticated vocabulary." I think this is a very common misconception for writers starting out. His story of receiving lower grades than expected on his first papers in journalism school rang true with me. I remember learning the hard way, for my psychology research papers, that the professors weren't looking for flowery, smooth writing but simple, logical arguments grounded in cited evidence.

    The author provides short examples of his tips throughout the text, and fleshes some of them out further in the accompanying appendices (for instance, ways of increasing reader interest, how to use a Q&A analysis, and even a comparison of the Gettysburg Address and Shakespeare.) This helps to show how the conceptual model is reflected in real-life examples. The appendices also include exercises (with answers) for improving certain aspects of writing and analyzing speeches.

    Overall, I think it would be most useful to a beginner to expository writing (perhaps a first- or second-year college student new to writing research papers or making class presentations), but even those who consider themselves more seasoned writers/speakers may find this book a helpful resource.

    Disclaimer: I was given a copy to review by the publisher.

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  • Posted September 28, 2010

    Very informative and engaging!

    I consider myself to be something of a stickler for proper grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalization. I have always had a knack for grammar, even though I am not an expert on the rules, and certainly don't know them upside down and backwards, I generally have a feel for them, and am often right. I was slightly nervous that the book might be dry, boring or tedious. It wasn't. I found the book to be interesting, informative, personable, and even funny at times. Yaffe sprinkled anecdotes throughout the text which lightened the tone of the book, and made it feel as if it was a friendly tutoring session rather than a pre-final lecture. This book focused on expository writing, such as training documents, memos, articles, newsletters, etc, more than writing for entertainment or enjoyment. I am not a professional journalist or writer, but I do use written communication and presentations in my day-to-day work, and while I feel like I am a good communicator, I still feel as though I picked up some useful information here. My favorite tip was the "inverted pyramid" and related tests. The inverted pyramid is a method of writing which structures your text into a lead-in section and then the supporting details in the body. The lead-in should contain all of the most important and informative information regarding the subject, and the body should contain the details which provide additional information. There are two related tests which go hand-in-hand with this method: the "Stop Reading Test" and the "Q&A Test". The Stop Reading Test is designed to ensure that busy readers can glean as much information as possible, as quickly as possible, from your writing. The test helps to indicate how much of the article or text a person would have to read in order to obtain a full understanding of the topic -- the more they have to read, the more likely the text should be rewritten more concisely and to the point, so that a reader can stop reading after the first paragraph and still understand the entire text's purpose. The Q&A Test is designed to answer potential questions in the body of the text to support the lead-in. As a writer adds sentences, they should anticipate questions that the reader may have, and answer them, so that by the end of the text, the reader has a full understanding of the information provided. These are brilliant tips that I wish were used more often, especially in the workplace. I detest having to read through pages and pages of a document just to learn one bit of information that could have been explained in a paragraph-long brief up front. I wish that this technique was used more widely! In addition to these, Yaffe's book contains many examples, exercises, tips and guidelines to help mold us into better communicators. This includes orally speaking and presenting information, which is just as important in the professional world as writing is. There are subtle differences that one should bear in mind between the different types of communication, because they are similar, but using only one set of methods for both will result in a failure to engage and interest your audience. I found this book to be enlightening and informative, and with the exception of two typos, very well written and helpful. I would definitely recommend this to those people looking to improve their professional communication!

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  • Posted July 13, 2010

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    A must for scholars

    There are simple guidelines to follow for effective and professional writing and speaking. Philip Yaffe bases his guidelines on those outlined in the Gettysburg Address. This book outlines the basic rules of professional and academic writing, and has a complete set of exercises to practice said rules, listed in appendices in the back.

    If you are in college, particularly graduate school, this book will be extraordinarily helpful to you. The focus on the book is expository writing, so for creative writing purposes, this tool may not be as important to you, but if you ever plan on writing an academic paper, or a professional report, this book is a must have for your library.

    Philip Yaffe very clearly outlines, in simple terms, the real rules to professional writing. A lot of these rules were familiar to me from my past academic pursuits, but I still was able to learn a lot from the book. I think this would actually make a wonderful textbook for a writing course at the college level. I believe if more students had textbooks like this one, there would be far more success in academia today. I particularly liked the plethora of examples for the different rules. There are over 100 pages of appendices just full of examples and exercises.

    This is not the type of book you are likely to sit down and read cover to cover like I did, unless you have a real passion for grammar and professional writing. That being said, like any mental health student has a copy of the APA guide book and the DSM on their bookshelves, so too should every college student and writer of professional materials have The Gettysburg Approach on their shelves.

    I highly recommend this book to any serious scholar, regardless of subject matter, because its usefulness will know no bounds when you sit to do professional writing.

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  • Posted May 1, 2010

    good resource for improving writing and speaking skills

    Do you think that you could write (or speak) something as memorable as Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address? Maybe not, but you can still learn the fundamental principles for effective writing and speaking that are based upon the sixteenth President's famous speech. Drawing from the Gettysburg Address, author Philip A. Yaffe, a former writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant, provides tips and techniques that are designed to help your own writing and speaking to advance by leaps and bounds.
    The Gettysburg Approach is divided into three main sections. In "The Fundamentals of Good Writing" Yaffe explains the difference in basic purpose and attitude between creative writing (fiction) and expository writing (non-fiction), and then identifies the key characteristics of good writing: clarity, conciseness, and density. He also talks about following the inverted pyramid structure using the "5 Ws and H" questions. In "Oral Presentation," he applies these same principles to public speaking to show how you can give voice to your words. The final section consists of thirteen appendices which give numerous examples, offer various exercises, and share other bits of information that will help improve one's writing.
    Understanding that this book focuses on expository writing, whose main purpose is to instruct, inform, and persuade, rather than creative writing, homeschooling parents might find that this book could be a good resource upon which to build a year's writing curriculum for their teen, especially if he or she is thinking about a business career. Since this is a website devoted to reviewing books primarily for children, some parents might want to know that in one appendix, an example whose writing style is chosen "to admire and learn from" is a news item related to the demise of a couple of "gay" (i.e., homosexual) publications. Otherwise, The Gettysburg Approach will prove beneficial to anyone who wishes to write better.

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