Cross-posted from Goodreads.
I bought this one during my MBA prep days. I thought it’d also help me become a better writer. Simultaneously, I was doing a creative writing course at IGNOU. Those were days when Flipkart sold only books! After waiting for ten years, it was high time to pick it up.
When I did finally started reading, I realized why I had been putting it off. Despite being only 50 pages long, it’s technically dense and written in a horrible typewritery font.
What I liked
- Confident and prescriptive tone.
- Eye-opening anti-patterns for commonly used words.
- Reading the book is like reading the inner rules of Grammarly.
What I didn’t like
- A bit technically dense, especially in the second chapter.
- A few rules feel a bit dated. Eg. replacing ‘They’ with he or she – it’s non-inclusive.
Key learnings
The rules in the book discourage:
- Vagueness (missing detail)
- Uncertainty, timidity
- Wordiness (unnecessary words)
- Grammatical errors
- Intensifiers (so, very)
Conclusion
If you struggle to make your writing concise, give this short primer a read. But don’t be fooled by its length. Sometimes digesting a single page may take a few good minutes. Otherwise, simply subscribe to Grammarly Premium and learn the same rules visually.