[caption id="attachment_5169" align="alignleft" width="300"]<a href="http://www.lloydluna.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/David_Ogilvy.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-5169" alt="David Ogilvy on good writing." src="http://www.lloydluna.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/David_Ogilvy-300x207.jpg" width="300" height="207" /></a> David Ogilvy on good writing.[/caption]

As a prolific autor and a passionate writer myself, I can totally agree on David's wisdom on writing. These 10 items are highly recommended to those who want to make it to the top, especially in today's world of information.

On September 7th, 1982, <a title="David Ogilvy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogilvy_(businessman)" target="_blank">David Ogilvy</a> sent the following internal to all agency employees, titled “How to Write”:

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy &amp; Mather. People who think well, write well.

Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.

Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson <a title="book on writing" href="http://amzn.to/UXGEqZ" target="_blank">book on writing</a>. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

~David

Discover more of David's thinking in this now rare book: <a title="The Unpublished David Ogilvy" href="http://amzn.to/ROIle4" target="_blank">The Unpublished David Ogilvy</a>.