'Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking' Is In The Same League as 'The Elements of Style', says Reviewer

Online, May 29, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Mark Lamendola, a book reviewer for Mindconnection, Amazon, and other web sites has declared The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking like a Professional to be "in the same league" as The Elements of Style. First published in 1918 and rediscovered in 1957, The Elements of Style has been an indispensable resource for writers for over a half century.

"One of my favorite references for writers is The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. I believe Professor Strunk would, if he were alive today, have nice things to say about this book by Philip Yaffe. In fact, Mr. Yaffe espouses the same core concepts of writing," Mr. Lamendola says. "This isn't a remake, however, of TES. It's an original work, and it's well done. It's also badly needed in this era of semi-literacy and poor speaking," he adds.

As the title suggests, Mr. Yaffe's book is based on the writing approach used by President Abraham Lincoln when composing the Gettysburg Address. "Mr. Yaffe explains this approach clearly, and distills the principles into a few formulas that the reader can easily remember and apply. He also provides examples to illustrate 'before' and 'after,' and I found those particularly helpful."

The reviewer is not altogether happy with the choice of Lincoln's speech as a model, because in analyzing the address, Mr. Yaffe doesn't deal with "Lincoln's deliberate misuse of words."

"While it's true that Lincoln gave an amazing and powerful speech, it's also true that Lincoln lied while doing so. Consequently, even today people mistakenly refer to his war as the American Civil War. By definition, however, this was not a civil war. In a civil war, insurgents seize the means of governing. Recall that the Confederate States didn't seize the capital, but seceded from the union and set up their own capital."

The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking consists of 287 pages, 162 of which are appendices. "That's a large appendix to text ratio, but don't be put off by it. In fact, it's a good thing," Mr. Lamendola says. This is because mixing basic principles with too much detail tends to obscure the importance of the principles and confuses the reader. The Gettysburg Approach rigorously separates fundamental content from detail to avoid falling into this trap.

"Yaffe's work is such a clear example of how to organize information that you don't even need to read the book to learn something that would vastly improve the performance of the typical writer or public speaker," Mr. Lamendola asserts.

"If you don't communicate with other people, then you probably won't miss anything by not reading this book. On the other hand, if you live on planet Earth then this book is well worth the cover price. Read it, study it, apply it. You'll be glad you did," he concludes.

Biographical Information

Philip Yaffe was born in Boston in 1942 and grew up in Los Angeles. In 1965 he graduated in mathematics from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), where he was also editor-in-chief of the Daily Bruin, the daily student newspaper.

Mr. Yaffe has more than 40 years of experience in journalism and marketing communication. At various points in his career, he has been a teacher of journalism, a reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal, an account executive with a major international press relations agency, European marketing communication director with two major international companies, and a founding partner of a marketing communication agency in Brussels, Belgium, where he has lived since 1974.

He can be reached either at [email protected] or [email protected].