Organizing from the Right Side of the Brain: A Creative Approach to Getting Organized
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Very Helpful !
  • Being Messy Doesn't Make You a Bad Person
  • Just Okay
  • Best Organizing Book For Creative Types
  • Great book for those looking for a different perspective
Organizing from the Right Side of the Brain: A Creative Approach to Getting Organized
Lee Silber
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312318162
Release Date: 2004-09-09

Book Description

Almost all the organizing books on the market today target the "left-brainer" - people who are generally disciplined, neat, and analytical. But for those who are more creative and spontaneous rather than logical and detail-oriented, help is on the way! In this book, Silber turns traditional organizing advice on its head and offers unique solutions that complement the unorthodox lifestyle of the creative "right-brainer."For example:* Discover how right-brainers can be organized in a left-brain world* Overcome obstacles that stand in the way of being more organized* Pile, don't file - put paper in its place the right-brained way* Learn how being a "pack rat" can be a good thingThis creative new approach to getting it together is perfect for those who can't relate to boring traditional organizing techniques!

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Very Helpful !.......2007-09-23

This is a really helpful book for people who are not naturally the "stack your magazines neatly on the coffee table" - type. I have been getting better at organizing over the years and now that I am homeschooling my kids I really need to lead by example. I feel the author really understands the pitfalls of traditional organizing books and sets out to give practical solutions to right-brained, creative people who don't want to be swallowed by their clutter. Buy it ! You'll be glad you did.

5 out of 5 stars Being Messy Doesn't Make You a Bad Person.......2006-07-06

Most organizing books can't help implying that clutter and all-around personal messiness is a sign of moral weakness or a character defect. So no matter how well-intentioned the reader is when they start the book, they can't help feeling that there's something wrong with them for needing help organizing themselves in the first place. What's refreshing about this book is that Silber suggests the opposite--that right-brained messy people are more creative, fun and engaged than the uptight left-brained people who usually make them feel so completely inadequate. It's a relief not to be judged and found morally wanting simply for being messy.

Silber's a good-natured writer who comes up with a lot of ingenious ideas for creative people to keep their lives from going out of control; he suggests using lots of post-it notes, putting things on bulletin boards or hanging them on hooks (over the door hooks are the best, in my experience). A lot of his ideas would be great for kids--maybe he could write a book just for them. They would appreciate his sense of humor and nonjudgmental attitude.

3 out of 5 stars Just Okay.......2006-02-25

This book is fairly practical. The author has to have a hook - organizing for "right brainers." It gets a little old when he is constantly putting down the left brainers for not being creative.

5 out of 5 stars Best Organizing Book For Creative Types.......2005-12-19

This is a fantastic book and interesting read. You will not want to put this down. Finally someone who understands the creative mind and does not try to put a square peg into a round hole. Thank you Lee for being such a positive, upbeat, motivational author and writing real suggestions that are easy to implement in our lives! I liked this book so much I bought 3 of his other books: Time Management, Money Management and Self Promotion. This book is well worth reading and I began implementing organizational suggestions from the book into my life and it has made a huge difference! This is a fast read with creative organizational suggestions you can begin utilizing the day you start reading the book. I have read many organizational books and this is the only one I'd recommend highly!

5 out of 5 stars Great book for those looking for a different perspective.......2005-12-13

I'll admit it. I've read practically every title on being more organized and all of them are now sitting on a bookshelf where they'll rest forever without a single idea being implemented. They just didn't make sense to me.

So, of course, I was skeptical when I read a review about this book in one of the many monthly creativity e-newsletters I receive each month. But being the bookhound that I am, I decided to give it a read. And I'm glad I did. Lee Silber has packed this book full of useful tips and tricks for us right-brained folks. He understands that for us, organizing has been about as much as fun as a trip to the dentist. He offers sound advice on piling (no, it's not a dirty word) and filing. He understands our propensity for procrastination and, instead of chiding us for it, offers help to make organizing and staying on top of our responsibilities fun. I'm now in an organizing zone, where I handle each piece of correspondence for my small business in a manner that's natural for me but that gets done. A very liberating feeling indeed to know that I can be myself and still be organized.

If you're a creative-type and want to be more organized in all aspects of your life, this is THE book for you.
Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Creativity
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • All Buzz and No Bizz
  • Clever stories but no handbook
  • Wake-Up Call for Traditional Marketing Literature
  • Build Your Own Garage
  • Sparking Corporate Creativity
Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Creativity
Bernd H. Schmitt , and Laura Brown
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0743202600

Amazon.com

Ever since Hewlett-Packard emerged from one in 1939, a "garage" has come to symbolize the no-holds-barred mentality that fosters the kind of creativity that drove this company--and the dozens more it spawned--to heights theretofore unknown. Bernd Schmitt, a Columbia Business School professor who has written several well-received marketing books (Experiential Marketing, Marketing Aesthetics) takes this image to the next level in Build Your Own Garage by relaying strategies that readers can adapt to their own enterprises whether they are housed in a converted parking structure or not.

As one might suspect from a book that advocates the unorthodox, Schmitt chooses to deliver his ideas in an unconventional manner. Each chapter begins with an elaborate short story by Laura Brown that encapsulates its central concepts (such as a vampire tale based on Bram Stoker's Dracula that illustrates how "the strictures of traditional corporate culture are enough to suck the life energy out of anyone"). Also sprinkled throughout are photographs and images by graphic artist Gail Anderson, which simultaneously reinforce the book's themes (on topics including technology, branding and "customer experience management") and distance it from buttoned-down management tomes that espouse the very group-think Schmitt is trying to eliminate. Those seeking new ideas who are not turned off by unique presentations should find this intriguing. --Howard Rothman

Book Description

Is your company all bizz -- filled with professional managers, accountants, and financial planners who produce "smooth operations" but offer no customer savvy or soul? Or is it all buzz -- filled with talk, hype, and the brainstorming of half-cooked ideas that often lead nowhere?

To capture the best of these dichotomous worlds, creativity expert Bernd H. Schmitt and accomplished business writer Laura Brown introduce a groundbreaking model of a creative organization they call "The Garage." This powerful new framework demonstrates how any executive can manage the creative tension between the analytic, rational side of business and its dynamic, innovative side. After laying out the broad mission, or "blueprint," for constructing The Garage, Schmitt and Brown present The Toolbox -- specific instruments for infusing creativity into all aspects of a business -- and show how to use The Blueprint and The Toolbox as essential strategy, recruiting, resource, and communications devices. At the center of this immensely readable book are the "Mastercrafts of The Garage" -- technology, branding, and customer-experience management -- the organizational forces that guarantee creative efforts are coordinated and well implemented to provide competitive advantage.

To illustrate particular aspects of creativity, Schmitt and Brown open each chapter with a story or "business parable," each written in a different genre -- horror, detective, love story, or fairy tale -- accompanied by evocative photographs. They also draw on scores of cutting-edge examples of creative, innovative ventures such as American Express's Blue, W Hotels, Eli Lilly's "Answers That Matter," SAP, and NTT DoCoMo's i-mode.

Build Your Own Garage is timely and instructive reading for any manager charged with the mandate to bring to market quickly the most useful and innovative products and services. The book's Web site is www.BuildTheGarage.com

Customer Reviews:

2 out of 5 stars All Buzz and No Bizz.......2005-03-05

This is an incredibly structured book about creativity. Although I agree with most of what he says, I find little value in this book. The thing that I disagree with most is the need for tension between bizz and buzz. I know that harmony between the two is not only acheivable but more productive.

The short stories about real companies earned this book its second star. They had real value.

To the writers of the 5 star reviews that convinced me to buy this book, I would ask "How in the world did you manage to walk away with anything of practical value?" It reads like an outline -- five steps to this, four tools for that, two types of that, three stages of the other thing. How boring!! And what a cluttered mind!!

In a sense, it is a great road map but tells you nothing about road conditions or the best route to take. To me, the creative stories just took up space and slowed me down. There is more information in a three frame Dilbert cartoon than in one of these stories.

I managed an innovation group for a fortune 100 company for 23 years and my experience taught me that people who try to create a "Cookbook" for creativity are usually devoid of it.

This would be a great $6.00 book.

2 out of 5 stars Clever stories but no handbook.......2001-12-31

The book benefits from amusing anecdotes but is very light on actual help for putting in place a workable framework for managing business innovation.

4 out of 5 stars Wake-Up Call for Traditional Marketing Literature.......2001-10-31

Finally somebody tearing down the "dusty" rules and old-fashioned formats of how to write a marketing book. This book is not only creative, well thought-out, and informative it is especially fun to read.
An absolute must-read!

5 out of 5 stars Build Your Own Garage.......2001-08-08

Another brilliant book fom Bernd Schmitt (the man behind "Experiential Marketing"). Very creative, great ideas about managing and adding creativity to yr organization. I loved the website too --buildyourowngarage.com. Very creative, hand-drawn design!

5 out of 5 stars Sparking Corporate Creativity.......2001-08-08

Having read Schmitt's books on marketing, I was very interested to see him branching out into the field of corporate creativity. "Build Your Own Garage" is a really interesting, quirky book that sparks the imagination and also offers practical, concrete tools that managers can use.

I believe that "Build Your Own Garage" is the first business book on creativity that really expresses the complexity of the creative process. Encouraging and managing creativity in a large organization is not a simple job. Schmitt and Brown approach the topic from different angles--analyzing the role of creativity in business organizations, detailing real-world examples of creative initiatives, and also offering creative "business parables" to show different facets of creativity in the workplace. (Look especially for the vampire story about "the Corporate Undead"!)

For all its quirkiness, "Build Your Own Garage" deals with corporate creativity in a down-to-earth way. This is not a giddy, dot-com, anything-goes approach to creativity. The book fully acknowledges the importance of business fundamentals and proposes a variety of realistic techniques to improve performance through creativity. Not surprisingly given Schmitt's background, the chapter on Branding is particularly strong.

"Build Your Own Garage" is a quick and enjoyable read that offers some useful insights into corporate creativity. I highly recommend it.
101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces: At the Doctor's Office, on Car, Train, and Plane Trips, Home Sick in Bed . . .
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces
  • disappointing
  • Great book!
  • One basic problem with this book--
101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces: At the Doctor's Office, on Car, Train, and Plane Trips, Home Sick in Bed . . .
Carol S. Kranowitz
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312134207

Book Description

You can never have enough space. And if you can't, just think of your kids--all the time they have to spend in tight spaces--like cars, planes, trains, the doctor's office, the grocery store, being sick or housebound, waiting in line. Kids need room to move around, but there are many times when they just plain can't have it.While raising two exuberant boys, teaching preschool, leading Cub Scouts, and running a birthday party business, Carol Kranowitz came up with savvy, creative ways to keep kids content in tight spaces. Her activity ideas combine old standbys with new ones born of desperation and cramped quarters. They follow a philosophy that helps kids develop their different skills and abilities while entertaining themselves and interacting.You'll find great projects for every imaginable small space parents and children encounter:Fun Food for Tiny Kitchens: Ants on a Log, Footprints in the Snow, and Aiken Drum FacesIn the Urban Community: Windowsill Garden, Bug Jar, and Corn-on-the-SpongeWhen the Walls Seem to Be Closing In: Pillow Crashing, People Sandwich, and Teeter-TotterWhen what you've got is a small space and a restless child, what you need are 101 ingenious solutions--right away. Here they are--easy to implement, creative fun for the three to seven-year-old--activities that can turn tough moments into teachable, terrific ones.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars 101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces.......2006-11-12

This book is packed with great info for parents with kids that have sensory intergration dysfunction syndrome.

3 out of 5 stars disappointing.......2005-01-17

I bought this book in preparation for an airplane trip with my family, including a 5 year old autistic daughter. As I am familiar with Kranowitz's book The Out of Sync Child, regarding sensory integration, I was disappointed that there was not more in the book that I could use with my daughter. Also, the ideas that could be used away from home are somewhat limited.

I have found some fun activities in this book to do with my children at home, so it is not a worthless book. However, it didn't really fill the need I was looking for.

5 out of 5 stars Great book!.......1999-03-25

It has lots of old ideas I'd forgotten from my own childhood and it has lots of new ideas. The writer understands the needs of children. They can behave a lot better if they have interesting little things to do like the ideas that are in this book.

5 out of 5 stars One basic problem with this book--.......1998-04-20

I have a basic problem with this book: it's too small! Although 101 activities sound like a lot, when you break them down into situations in which they are workable (at home, waiting in the doctor's office, in the car/train/airplane, sick in bed, etc.) a person might like more ideas. The activities presented in the book are simple. They are fun. And all of them I have tried work (many are old stand-bys that this grandma used with her own children-but many were new to me). I plan to use them soon on a long trip with my grandchildren. When could you use them next?!
Six Sigma Tool Navigator: The Master Guide for Teams (Tool Navigator)
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Six Sigma Tool Navigator: The Master Guide for Teams (Tool Navigator)
    Walter J. Michalski
    Manufacturer: Productivity Press
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    Book Description

    Six Sigma Tool Navigator

    The Master Guide for Teams

    Walter J. Michalski and Dana G. King

    Six Sigma Tool Navigator is the only lean resource that provides a complete compendium of tools for teams engaged in Six Sigma improvement activities. In addition, it offers actual tools, definitions and techniques you need to move your organization closer to producing minimal defects.

    Six Sigma Tool Navigator includes a complete collection of the latest improvement techniques and Six Sigma tool strings. The tool strings allow Six Sigma teams to combine Six Sigma tools to accomplish a particular outcome.

    Highlights include:

    · Over 70 tool string flowcharts
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    · A Six Sigma tools cross reference section
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    · 222 tools for improvement activities

    Six Sigma Tool Navigator goes beyond mere definitions — It acts as a true navigator, classifying each tool by process application, description of various applications of the tool, possible links to "before and after" tools, and problem-solving phases most applicable for the tool. And all of this information and guidance is provided in an easy-to-use format.

    Six Sigma Tool Navigator will enhance your team facilitation skills and assist you at every step in your diverse problem-solving and process-improvement efforts.
    Successful Writing at Work
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Excellent writing tool
    Successful Writing at Work
    Philip C. Kolin
    Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
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    ASIN: 0618040234

    Book Description

    This best-selling text is more than a comprehensive introduction for the business writing course; it also serves as a post-college reference tool for students launching their careers. Successful Writing at Work takes a practical approach to prepare students for the wide array of communication tasks they will face on the job. The text is recognized for its abundance of realistic situations and problems, broad range of real-world examples, and detailed guidelines for drafting, editing, and producing professional documents and graphics.

    To facilitate learning, the text is organized into four sections that build logically and sequentially. Part 1 introduces the basics: keys to effective writing, ethics, the writing process, and collaborative writing. Part 2 explores such simple business writing tasks as memos, types of business letters, emails, and how to conduct a job search. Part 3 covers the fine points of conducting research and documenting sources. Part 4 details more complex business communication activities, from designing visuals and web sites to writing proposals, drafting short and long reports, and making oral presentations.


    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Excellent writing tool.......2002-04-03

    Whether you are a novice at writing or just need help wording documents, this book is a wonderful guide. Samples are plenty, complete from determining who is your audience to effective guidelines and checksheets. You will learn simple editing techniques, exercises for practice. Extensive guidelines are given whether you do a resme, letter, research, short and long reports, proposal, charts, etc. Included, also is some instruction on technical writing (manuals, visuals, figures, etc.)

    The book is well prepared, easy to read, formatted and designed well for easy reference. You don't have to be a "writer" to use this book. It is for anyone who may write a memo to a proposal in business. I encourage the use of this book; as it is one of the better I have used. ....MzRizz
    The Houdini Solution
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Great, now even clients know how to get great work.
    • WWHD
    • The Handcuffs Are Off
    • A great book for anyone paid to use their noggin.
    • Constructs: bad. Boxes: good! Houdini: great!
    The Houdini Solution
    Ernie Schenck
    Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
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    Book Description

    Transform the shackles of conformity into the tools for generating amazing, unconventional results

    Houdini performed his greatest tricks within the confines of a box. Now one of the advertising industry's brightest and most innovative stars shows you how to do likewise: to use the power of thinking inside the box to unleash the power of innate creativity.

    Who hasn't been extremely creative when boxed into an exceedingly tight deadline or budget? The Houdini Solution introduces a radical theory of how to generate more focused and powerful ideas by accepting, and even thriving on, constraints instead of being controlled by them. Filled with inspiring anecdotes and intriguing exercises that will yield surprising results, this book will spur you on to unleash the full power of your creativity, work magic in the workplace, and succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Great, now even clients know how to get great work........2007-01-05

    This is simply a great, revealing read. I probably own every "here's how to do superior advertising work" book ever published, and have even read one or two. But Schenck has finally given up art directors' and copywriters' greatest secret: we WANT to be boxed in. Limitations lead to intense focus and creative, laser-like communications. Who knew? (well, some of us did, but now even clients do.)

    Gee, thanks Ernie.

    5 out of 5 stars WWHD.......2006-12-16

    Having worked in the creative business for a while I'm pretty jaded about most of these books. But this is a really fresh approach to creative thinking. I liked it so much I bought a copy for everyone in my company.

    5 out of 5 stars The Handcuffs Are Off.......2006-12-12

    As a writer by trade, I've always appreciated the haiku. Without its strict adherence to structure, this form of poetry would lose its inherent beauty. The Houdini Solution is a refreshing take on creativity. It's a great reminder that the box is not a limitation, but a fascinating place to work.

    5 out of 5 stars A great book for anyone paid to use their noggin........2006-12-08

    A lot of books have been written on the subject of creativity. Many of them written by academics spouting useless theories on how to `be more creative.' This book is different. Maybe it's because Ernie Schenck is such a celebrated thinker in the advertising industry, where your job is not to just think of ideas, but to think of a lot of ideas in a short amount of time and then move on to the next problem. This book goes beyond theory and instead is full of useful advice and even very real exercises on how to think within the parameters of any given problem. The phrase "think outside the box' is, of course, iconic at this point, but Ernie argues that most reinvention and innovation come from actually working within your parameters rather than thinking in blue sky scenarios. He makes a convincing case.

    This is a great book for anyone staring at a white sheet of paper and trying to think of ideas. The writing is crisp, fun and intelligent. It's an all around terrific read and very helpful.

    4 out of 5 stars Constructs: bad. Boxes: good! Houdini: great!.......2006-11-19

    So many boxes have become constructs--intentionally constricting, smothering monsters. Houdini Solutions shows you how to look at a box--a strategy, a problem, a small budget, etc. and think your way out of it. because you can't always trow away the box or the perception people have of you/your client/your issue, etc.

    It's sorta like lifting weights--you don't throw away the weights cuz they're too heavy--you figure out how to get strong enough to lift them. (or turn them into a coat rack or something.)

    My point is, i dig this book a lot. it's well written by a guy who knows his stuff about marketing and advertising and building brands. you can apply a lot of HS to other business beyond advertising--always the sign of a well written business book (when it can go beyond the industry its written for).

    i still hate boxes. but thanks to houdini Soultion, i'm starting to think that maybe a stronger idea instead of a bigger hammer is the better way out.
    Writing At Work : Professional Writing Skills for People on the Job
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Writing at Work works!
    Writing At Work : Professional Writing Skills for People on the Job
    Edward L. Smith , and Stephen A. Bernhardt
    Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

    CommunicationsCommunications | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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    ASIN: 0844259837

    Book Description

    Writing at Work is for people who do or will write while on the job whether the writing be an interoffice memo, e-mail, a status report, a lab report, marketing materials, or a letter to a customer. The philosophy behind Writing at Work is that such writing needn't be stale and unoriginal but can instead be a sophisticated piece of work that positively reflects the competence of its composer to all who read it. Rather than dwell on picky, little "rules" that you must adhere to when writing, Writing at Work focuses on the real rules of grammar and aspects of style that you really need to know in order to write with confidence. Using examples realistically drawn from work settings, Writing at Work presents each topic in a manner that is at once accessible and inviting. Spread throughout the text are exercises that provide you with ample opportunity to write, revise, and correct the kinds of written tasks typically encountered at work. You can immediately gauge your progress by checking your work against the answers listed at the end of each chapter.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Writing at Work works!.......2001-04-08

    In the course of twenty-five chapters, Smith and Bernhardt write in a lively manner about the elementary rules (and "non-rules") of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure up through discussions on jargon, technical language, and then on to the "tones" of writing, parallel structure, and playful and elegant prose. I really enjoyed reading this book because I was able to review those elementary rules (without too much pain) as well as get some validation for stylistic choices I've made in my own writing. So much of how a person writes -- whether it's "good" writing or not -- is rather semi-conscious. "Writing at Work" makes the reader conscious about what they're doing in their writing as well as makes a strong case for putting elegant, persuasive writing back into technical and business communications.

    And I only had to re-write the last paragraph a few times....
    The Other Office: Creative Workplace Design
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Aesthetically Beautiful Book @ Office Design! Must Have!
    The Other Office: Creative Workplace Design
    Matt Stewart
    Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Basel
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

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    5. Office Design (Design Books) Office Design (Design Books)

    Accessories:
    1. Patterns in Design, Art and Architecture Patterns in Design, Art and Architecture
    2. Manuscript: Essentials for the Everyday Use of Interior Architects and Designers Manuscript: Essentials for the Everyday Use of Interior Architects and Designers
    3. Material World 2: Innovative Materials for Architecture and Design Material World 2: Innovative Materials for Architecture and Design

    ASIN: 3764370483

    Book Description

    The world of work refuses to stand still: new technologies have a huge impact on office design and now that a great many employees have the freedom to do their work anywhere - on the road, at home, with clients - the general role of the office has altered significantly. The projects that make up The Other Office identify those offices that keep abreast of the rapid pace of change and, more importantly, set the pace. They achieve their goals in unique and creative ways. Their common denominator is that special quality with which they transcend the mundane requirements of planners' programs, a creative synthesis of the intuitive and the analytical, bringing a new sensibility to the workplace.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Aesthetically Beautiful Book @ Office Design! Must Have!.......2004-11-16

    Amazing photos backed up by great writing on design. This book is a necessity for any serious design fanatic...but those who adore coffee-table design books will LOVE it as well!

    Matthew Stewart is a design writer to watch!!
    Office Of Assertion: An Art Of Rhetoric For Academic Essay
    Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    • Useless
    • Use the best tool for the job--this is the best tool.
    • Undergraduate Tool!
    • A Very Useful Book
    Office Of Assertion: An Art Of Rhetoric For Academic Essay
    Scott F. Crider
    Manufacturer: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 1932236457

    Book Description

    A frivolous argument or inflated claim is often dismissed with the reply, "That's just rhetoric!" But as Scott Crider explains in The Office of Assertion, the classical tradition of rhetoric is both a productive and a liberal art. The ability to employ rhetoric successfully can enable the student, as an effective communicator, to reflect qualities of soul through argument. In that sense, rhetoric is much more than a technical skill. Crider addresses the intelligent university student with respect and humor. This short but serious book is informed by both the ancient rhetorical tradition and recent discoveries concerning the writing process. Though practical, it is not simply a "how-to" manual; though philosophical, it never loses sight of writing itself. Crider combines practical guidance about how to improve an academic essay with reflection on the final purposes --educational, political, and philosophical--of such improvement.

    Customer Reviews:

    1 out of 5 stars Useless.......2007-08-23

    For anyone who has taught writing seriously as a process of human responsiveness to reality, this book will seem simply silly. It is a throwback to a rigid conception of reality as having only one meaning, only one mode of expression (and if your mode does not conform to mine, beware). Not only is the style of writing pretentious in the extreme, the student example which is cited throughout the book contains a huge, really huge, compositional mistake, which makes me wonder just how much classical rhetoric depends on a priori bias. The book is impossible to teach because it assumes that students already have in mind the basics of writing as process, an odd assumption since neither ISI nor the school from which this author comes values anything as modern as process. It sounds too much like progress. One thing is clear: no progress in writing will be achieved by using this book.

    5 out of 5 stars Use the best tool for the job--this is the best tool........2007-04-05

    There are lots of books on writing, but Scott Crider wrote a book aimed to help college students understand why they write (to learn, explore, and persuade) and how they should write.

    He follows Aristotle's definition of rhetoric as "the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion ..." (5), and then suggests how to "discover" arguments, how to organize a paper (he advocates replacing the "5-paragraph-essay" with the six-part (not paragraph) "Classical Oration"), how to use language to say what you mean ("Style"), and how to evaluate and rework (and rework and ...) what you have written, returning at the end to his opening point that "rhetoric moves an audience" and good rhetoric moves an audience--as it has already moved the rhetor--toward that which is true.

    This is a gem of a book, not a word, sentence, or paragraph out of place, and every facet cut to lighten the student's way.

    4 out of 5 stars Undergraduate Tool!.......2005-06-14

    A fine little text on rhetoric. It is a must read for all undergraduates before they write their first academic essay. Students are introduced to the basic meaning and understanding of rhetoric beyond its misuse in today's media.

    5 out of 5 stars A Very Useful Book.......2005-05-16

    This little book will prove a classic. It shapes Rhetoric into a most useful tool for facing down the academic essay. Clear and spare, it's a keeper.
    Brewing a Creative Culture
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Best Advice Ever
    Brewing a Creative Culture
    The Staff of Dillanos Coffee Roasters
    Manufacturer: AuthorHouse
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

    WorkplaceWorkplace | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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    1. The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

    ASIN: 142083309X

    Book Description

    If you walk through the front doors of Dillanos Specialty Coffee Roasters you will undoubtedly witness something not traditionally seen in most business settings. In fact, it would seem nothing short of outrageous. It's not the presence of charismatic leaders, although you will soon witness their presence. Rather, at any given moment, a delivery driver, a receptionist or salesperson would appear, acting as though they are the chief executive officer. They could be found straightening furniture in the lobby, picking up a misplaced paper coffee cup and tossing it in a trash can, or stepping over to the entry table to skillfully fan national magazines with Dillanos features. Management does it, minimum wage employees do it. Everybody does it. This personal ownership behavior is not rewarded with special monetary compensations, and there is no point system or other special award for such actions. Nor will you find a special monitoring system that watches if employees are living up to their job descriptions. Every business leader wonders at some point if they have the ability to motivate their employees to have an overwhelming personal pride and a sense of belonging in their company. They try to imagine a place where every staff member has a special family-like connection and share a set of common values. Brewing A Creative Culture will help small- to medium-sized business owners in any industry stop wondering. The key to creating a seamless team as passionate about their company's culture and profitable growth is blocked out into twelve inspiring formulas to blend outrageous fun with high accountability. Some readers will find the formulas familiar. But they'll be driven to action based on the book's unique approach of sharing Dillanos' story told directly by members of the staff. Whether viewpoints from the CEO and president, or delivery driver and warehouse manager, a delicate hand was used in rewriting their chapters. The idea for this book came from one of Dillanos; members of the sales department, not the CEO. What a perfect start to a project brimming with heart and soul. The twelve formulas for success are within every business leader's grasp. Each chapter gives exact examples during everyday life at Dillanos, and the reasons for applying each formula to meet company goals. By the time the reader reaches the conclusion of Brewing A Creative Culture, they are ready to grade how their company measures up to these solid motivational basics. Readers are armed with the inspiration and formulas to turn disenfranchised employees into unbelievably enthusiastic team members.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Best Advice Ever.......2005-03-04

    This book was really helpful. I would recommend it to any small business owner. I love the concept of a book about improving your company culture written by the staff members of a successful company.A quick, easy and usable read!

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