The organization of this volume generally follows the more complete Seventh Edition of Negotiation. The fundamental difference between this and the Seventh Edition text is that this book contains only 12 chapters, while the complete Seventh Edition contains 20 chapters. The first four chapters have only been minimally shortened for this volume, because we believe that the content is essential to any negotiation course. (The shortening process includes editing out some of the more research-oriented references and descriptions, deleting many of the boxes and sidebars, and occasionally some secondary sections.) Similarly, the last chapter is reproduced in full. The other seven chapters from Negotiation, have been included, but shortened by 25–50 percent each.

本卷的组织一般遵循更完整的谈判第七版。这本书和第七版文本的根本区别在于，这本书只有12章，而完整的第七版只有20章。前四章对本卷只作了最小限度的缩短，因为我们相信内容对任何谈判过程都是必不可少的。（缩短的过程包括编辑一些更具研究性的参考文献和描述，删除许多方框和侧栏，偶尔还会删除一些次要部分。）同样，最后一章全文复制。谈判的其他七章已经被包括在内，但是每章都缩短了25-50%。