Write This Way

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This little book represents the culmination of several people's efforts over several years and I will take a moment to thank my friends and allies. I will share some background on how this book was born. In my first job, I taught Physics at a high school I have always enjoyed mechanical things, and reading or composing precise instructions. In a major career shift in the 1980's, I became an Instructional Technologist at a Canadian telecommunications giant, and found myself teaching courses in writing policies and procedures. I then became a Performance Consultant, who (among other services) developed self-paced instruction to certify unionized manufacturing employees. Several clients then asked me to teach their employees some of my analysis and technical writing methods, so I developed a series of classroom-delivered courses. Charles Young , a business partner at the time, is a performance-improvement zealot. He took a run at the content and the course became Writing for Action . I have delivered the course to a multitude of clients in a variety of formats, including as a distance-education offering over the Internet complete with personal, one-on-one coaching. After I decided to self-publish this little book, its format and objectives have gone through a couple of metamorphoses. Charles became a co-author while his never-ending quest for perfection can drive one to distraction, he is almost always right. My sincere thanks to Stephen Butler for suggesting the title, to Lynda Myler for an early review, to Lesley Lucas, Alisha Wist, Jeffrey Butler, Mavis Young, and Karlye Butler for later reviews. Their willingness to go through the material with the reader's point-of-view top of mind has worked its magic. A special thank-you to my husband and life-partner Michael Butler, whose considerable encouragement and undying support kept me on track to complete this project. Pat Butler, B.Sc., M.Ed. Toronto, Ontario April 2009