The Office Guide

Out of all the office reference manuals I own, I use this one the most. The spirals are practical, making it easy to use; plus the book's small enough to store just about anywhere near your computer. The primary purpose of this book is "to help transcription and others produce correctly written and formatted documents," which it does do. It's also meant to be used in conjunction with "Transcription Skills for Business" by Linda Mallinson, Lois Meyer, and Ruth Moyer (which I also have). Yet, as this book mentions, it's not necessary to have both books, especially since this one is the more practical of the two, being geared for the office setting, while the other is mainly for transcription purposes.The major topics touched upon in "The Office Guide" are troublesome similar-sounding words (like 'patients' and 'patience'), foreign words ('id est', or 'i.e.'), and their respective meanings, as well as some of the following topics: proofreaders' and punctuation marks; postal and address guidelines; appropriate grammar use; document formats for letters, memos, agendas, minutes, etc. (includes 12 convenient examples of what some of them should look like); and filing procedures (alphabetic, numeric, etc.). Most of this stuff seems simple enough, but it's amazing how easily it is to goof up on a lot of it. I found numerous common errors I make all the time.I did want to mention that, while "The Office Guide" is functional, most software programs nowadays have templates, spell check, and formatting tools that make writing letters and such less of a headache. Yet for those who are stuck using something from back in the Stone Age, like WordPerfect, then this book is a lifesaver. It's also simple enough to be used in a business, English, and/or computer class setting for middle and high schoolers.

I'm an Executive Administrative Assistant, and I reach for this guide as often as I do my dictionary and thesaurus. It's a simple-to-use, concise resource, and the spiral binding is very convenient. If you're looking to buy only one guide, this is the one.