Book reviews

As with many recent books, the title of this one is misleading because it fails to convey the true nature of its contents. This may be why the publisher found it necessary to add the subtitle. The Psychological Approach to Effective Writing, on the jacket. But this also leads one astray, for what the book really deals with, and amusingly and entertainingly at that, are the psychological reasons for the vast quantities of bumbling and ineffective writing turned out by our business, government, research, technical, and commercial organizations today. In dealing with this, Classen has just the right touch to deflate the egocentric business writer and to show by examples how to restore his psyche to the prosaic mundaneness of precise communication. The author´s treatment of his subject is ably complemented by the many pertinent cartoons of Herb Green. These alone would, in fact, if enlarged and framed and hung on the walls of any office, constitute a most effective picture story of what not to do in nonfictional forms of writing (but there might be a copyright problem here!).