A Writer's Reference with Exercises


Book Description

A Writer’s Reference has offered clear and quick answers to tough questions for millions of college writers. With a groundbreaking tabbed, lay-flat format and a first-of-its-kind directness, it helped a generation of students engage in their own writing and meet the challenges of the composition course. As we celebrate the 10th edition, we invite you to see our latest innovation--our latest answer to the question we have been asking for 35 years: How can we help? We help with superior content developed by experienced authors and shaped by faculty and student advisers. And we help with Achieve, a first-of-its-kind suite of digital tools paired with content you trust. Achieve with A Writer’s Reference lets you engage students in new ways. They do the work of the composition course in a contained and active writing space: they read, write, reflect, respond to peers, consult the handbook, and make action plans. And instructors use Achieve to design and facilitate writing assignments, peer review, and reflection. The best part? Achieve gives you deeper visibility into students’ writing processes--lets you see “between the drafts.” Insights for each writer and for each class provide actionable information about how your students are responding to expectations, allowing you to see, foster, and measure progress. The 10th edition is an innovation celebration--a continued commitment to college writers and teachers of writing.




A Canadian Writer's Reference


Book Description

A Canadian Writer's Reference, adapted from the most widely used college handbook ever published — and with the help of several Canadian instructors — has advice that's easy to find and easy to understand. It provides the comprehensive coverage, concrete examples, and trusted models students need for writing in almost every postsecondary course and beyond. A new tabbed section, Writing about Literature, offers advice on interpreting and writing about works of literature and includes two annotated student essays. Grounded in Canadian texts, culture, and current events, examples throughout the book provide relevant context and advice for Canadian writers. And a new instructor's edition offers classroom activities and teaching tips for Canadian instructors — making it easier than ever to integrate the handbook into the course.




A Writer's Reference with Exercises, with 2021 MLA Update


Book Description

This ebook has been updated to provide you with the latest guidance on documenting sources in MLA style and follows the guidelines set forth in the MLA Handbook, 9th edition (April 2021). A Writer’s Reference with Exercises helps you engage in and meet the challenges of your writing course. Clear How-to boxes help you complete common writing assignments like argument and analysis. Guidance about paraphrasing and fact-checking sources help you become a more responsible writer and reader. And Notes-to-self help you reflect on your progress and plan your revision. If your instructor has assigned Achieve, you have new ways to engage with course material and with your instructor and peers. Revision planning tools and individualized study plans help you become a better writer, and a built-in e-book puts your problem and your solution side by side.




Now Write!


Book Description

A collection of personal writing exercises and commentary from some of today's best novelists, short story writers, and writing teachers, including Jill McCorkle, Amy Bloom, Robert Olen Butler, Steve Almond, Jayne Anne Phillips, Virgil Suarez, Margot Livesay, and more. What's the secret behind the successful and prolific careers of critically acclaimed novelists and short story writers Amy Bloom, Steve Almond, Jayne Anne Phillips, Alison Lurie, and others? Divine assistance? Otherworldly talent? An unsettlingly close relationship with the Muse? While the rest of us are staring at blank sheets of paper, struggling to come up with a first sentence, these writers are busy polishing off story after story and novel after novel. Despite producing work that may seem effortless, all of them have a simple technique for fending off writer's block: the writing exercise. In Now Write!, Sherry Ellis collects the personal writing exercises of today's best writers and lays bare the secret to their success. - In "The Photograph," Jill McCorkle divulges one of her tactics for handling material that takes plots in a million different directions; - National Book Award-nominee Amy Bloom offers "Water Buddies," an exercise for writers practicing their craft in workshops; - Steve Almond, author of My Life in Heavy Metal and Candyfreak, provides a way to avoiding purple prose in "The Five-Second Shortcut to Writing in the Lyric Register"; - and eighty-three more of the country's top writers disclose their strategies for creating memorable prose. Complemented by brief commentary from the authors themselves, the exercises in Now Write! are practical and hands-on. By encouraging writers to shamelessly steal proven techniques that have yielded books which have won National Book Awards, Pulitzers, and Guggenheim grants, Now Write! inspires the aspiring writer to write now.




The Writer's Practice


Book Description

“Unique and thorough, Warner’s handbook could turn any determined reader into a regular Malcolm Gladwell.” —Booklist For anyone aiming to improve their skill as a writer, a revolutionary new approach to establishing robust writing practices inside and outside the classroom, from the author of Why They Can’t Write After a decade of teaching writing using the same methods he’d experienced as a student many years before, writer, editor, and educator John Warner realized he could do better. Drawing on his classroom experience and the most persuasive research in contemporary composition studies, he devised an innovative new framework: a step-by-step method that moves the student through a series of writing problems, an organic, bottom-up writing process that exposes and acculturates them to the ways writers work in the world. The time is right for this new and groundbreaking approach. The most popular books on composition take a formalistic view, utilizing “templates” in order to mimic the sorts of rhetorical moves academics make. While this is a valuable element of a writing education, there is room for something that speaks more broadly. The Writer’s Practice invites students and novice writers into an intellectually engaging, active learning process that prepares them for a wider range of academic and real-world writing and allows them to become invested and engaged in their own work.




DIY MFA


Book Description

Get the Knowledge Without the College! You are a writer. You dream of sharing your words with the world, and you're willing to put in the hard work to achieve success. You may have even considered earning your MFA, but for whatever reason--tuition costs, the time commitment, or other responsibilities--you've never been able to do it. Or maybe you've been looking for a self-guided approach so you don't have to go back to school. This book is for you. DIY MFA is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. By combining the three main components of a traditional MFA--writing, reading, and community--it teaches you how to craft compelling stories, engage your readers, and publish your work. Inside you'll learn how to: • Set customized goals for writing and learning. • Generate ideas on demand. • Outline your book from beginning to end. • Breathe life into your characters. • Master point of view, voice, dialogue, and more. • Read with a "writer's eye" to emulate the techniques of others. • Network like a pro, get the most out of writing workshops, and submit your work successfully. Writing belongs to everyone--not only those who earn a degree. With DIY MFA, you can take charge of your writing, produce high-quality work, get published, and build a writing career.




Rules for Writers


Book Description

Rules for Writers succeeds because it has always been grounded in classroom experience. By looking at her own students' needs, Diana Hacker created an affordable and practical classroom tool that doubles as a quick reference. Developed with the help of instructors from two- and four-year schools, the sixth edition gives students quick access to the information they need to solve writing problems in any college course. In the Hacker tradition, the new contributing authors -- Nancy Sommers, Tom Jehn, Jane Rosenzweig, and Marcy Carbajal Van Horn -- have crafted solutions for the writing problems of today's college students. Together they give us a new edition that provides more help with academic writing and research and one that works better for a wider range of multilingual students. Flexible content options -- in print and online -- allow students to get more than they pay for.




A Writer's Book of Days


Book Description

First published a decade ago, A Writer's Book of Days has become the ideal writing coach for thousands of writers. Newly revised, with new prompts, up-to-date Web resources, and more useful information than ever, this invaluable guide offers something for everyone looking to put pen to paper — a treasure trove of practical suggestions, expert advice, and powerful inspiration. Judy Reeves meets you wherever you may be on a given day with: • get-going prompts and exercises • insight into writing blocks • tips and techniques for finding time and creating space • ways to find images and inspiration • advice on working in writing groups • suggestions, quips, and trivia from accomplished practitioners Reeves's holistic approach addresses every aspect of what makes creativity possible (and joyful) — the physical, emotional, and spiritual. And like a smart, empathetic inner mentor, she will help you make every day a writing day.




The Bedford Handbook


Book Description

What habits are common among good college writers? Good college writers are curious, engaged, reflective, and responsible. They read critically. They write with purpose. They tune into their audience. They collaborate and seek feedback. They know credible evidence makes them credible researchers. They revise. The Bedford Handbook, based on surveys with more than 1,000 first-year college students, fosters these habits and offers more support than ever before for college reading and writing. New writing guides support students as they compose in an ever-wider variety of genres, including multimodal genres. New reading support encourages students to become active readers. Retooled research advice emphasizes inquiry and helps writers cite even the trickiest digital sources confidently and responsibly. Best of all, the Handbook remains a trusted companion for students because it is accessible, comprehensive, and authoritative. Instructors benefit, too: A substantially revised Instructor’s Edition includes Nancy Sommers’s personal mentoring—more than 100 new concrete tips for teaching with the handbook. Finally, integrated digital content is easily assignable and helps students practice and apply the handbook’s lessons.