Writing Clearly

There is an interesting brief essay on Ubiquityby Phillip Yaffe, entitled "The Three Acid Tests of Persuasive Writing." It is located at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/volume_9/v9i35_yaffe.html.

Yaffe writes, "I have yet to encounter a computing professional who is not concerned about communicating effectively. It is a waste of time to have to communicate again because an idea did not get across. And it can be enormously frustrating when people tell you that they do not "get" what you are saying. Especially since most people will not actually tell you that; they will just wander away, leaving you hanging. Phil Yaffe offers three clear, concise, and dense principles to help you overcome this issue."

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In the "I" of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (http://www.storypublishers.be/) and Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/).