If you are having difficulty communicating by email, or just wish that you could communicate more effectively at work, then you'll want to take a look at The Executive Guide to E-mail Correspondence: Including Model Letters for Every Situation.



CONTENT

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Eleven chapters and more than 250 pages that range from the basics of sentence construction to model letters for difficult situations. It is very well organized and clearly written.



THE GOOD

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Lots of examples, and most importantly, extensive analyses of the letters make this really useful to have around.



The author doesn't talk down to the reader. As she says, you may be a professional with a university degree, but that doesn't mean you were lucky enough to have good writing teachers. I think that for most people, strong communication skills need to be consciously acquired. This book is a good opportunity to do that.



There is plenty of discussion about sentence patterns that I think would benefit non-native speakers, and those who have very little background in writing for a business context.



The author talks about email etiquette, which is something that is a little different in professional environments.



There is some general advice embedded in the email explanations that is just good to remember. Negative information ought to be put into dependent clauses, use the pronoun "we," especially in a delicate letter, etc. This kind of information works for speaking as well!



THE BAD

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It's a minor point, but there are sections that might be a little too basic for some, and models that are a little too complex for others. That is inevitable, but it would have been nice to have seen one letter in multiple iterations ranging from the simplest one that gets the message across to a really well-crafted one.



Also, I wanted to see some emails that are poorly written. Analyzing these would give readers a much better idea about what to avoid.



SUMMARY

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I think this book is really well-written, and I recommend it especially to those who are getting ready to enter the professional world. I used to teach courses in business communication, and I would have liked to have had this book available back then.