Writing at Work: How to Write Clearly, Effectively and Professionally

Is there an evolution or progress in the Philosophy of Documentation and Professional Writing? Yes, there definitely is! How do I know? – Because during the past four decades I was involved in various aspects of scientific and humanity-related documentation (e.g. creation of data bases), writing reference and text books, editing of books and several international journals, and publishing of hundreds of articles, essays, book reviews, and reports – as part (or better as a sideline activity) of my pragmatic/practically applied scientific work and university teaching and research. Having checked many books, and bought over 20, on writing (aside from those on linguistics, . . .) I am able to do some comparing/contrasting. The book by James (being Executive Director of the Plain English Foundation) is indeed one of the better ones, and thus highly recommended. However, one must realize that some of the older books still have some appeal, exemplified by Tichy (1966). The