The Nonfictionist's Guide


Book Description

Nonfiction_the 'fourth genre' (along with poetry, fiction, and drama)_is a literary field affecting bestseller lists, writing programs, writers' workshops, and conferences on the study of creative writing, composition/rhetoric, and literature. It is often labeled and/or limited as 'creative' or 'literary' nonfiction and subdivided into essay, memoir, literary journalism, personal cultural criticism, and narratives of nature and travel. A vital and growing form, nonfiction has, until now, needed a sustained discussion about its poetics_both the theory and the craft of this genre. The Nonfictionist's Guide offers a lively exploration of the elements of contemporary nonfiction and suggests imaginative approaches to writing it. Each chapter on a vital aspect of contemporary nonfiction concludes with a separate section of relevant 'notes for nonfictionists.' Beginning with a new definition of nonfiction and explanation of the nonfiction motive, Robert Root discusses the use of experimental forms, the effects of present and past tense and experiential and reflective voices, and the issue of truth. He provides groundbreaking explorations of the segmented essay and the role of spaces as an essential literary device, guiding both readers and writers through the innovative and stimulating ways we write nonfiction now.




Writing Well in the 21st Century


Book Description

Writing Well in the 21st Century: The Five Essentials provides students, career-builders, and professional writers with the basic elements needed for writing in the 21st century. The book fully explains—and links—the five essentials of good writing: punctuation, grammar, fact-checking, style, and voice. Throughout history technology has changed both language and writing. Today in the digital age, language and writing are changing at a phenomenal pace. Students, career-builders, and professional writers need this guide that reviews those changes and connects the essentials for creating good writing in the digital age. Writing Well in the 21st Century: The Five Essentials gives writers the tools needed today. Among other essentials, the book: Resolves comma issues by explaining the Open and Close Punctuation systems. Writers select which system to use in their writing. Clarifies active and passive voice verbs and advocates using strong, specific verbs in writing. Provides guidelines for choosing credible online websites when searching for resources. Examines attributes of essentials that contribute to a writing style and urges a critical review of verbs. Connects elements that combine to create a voice in a written piece. Relevant and succinctly written, Writing Well in the 21st Century: The Five Essentials gives readers the basics they need to know to create well-written documents for school, work and in their professional writing.




The Fourth Genre


Book Description

An anthology of personal essays and memoirs, literary journalism, and academic/cultural criticism. Designed for use in a classroom, the first half of the 62 essays is a sampler of contemporary creative nonfiction, while the second part discusses theories about the nature of creative nonfiction and t




College Writing Skills


Book Description

College Writing Skills uses explanation, demonstration, and practice to teach skills essential to success in college writing. For this course Peder Jones and Jay Farness have constructed a framework of rhetoric--work in composing paragraphs and essays--around disciplined study of sentences and words. The authors have sought in each section of the book to combine the most useful features of contemporary and traditional approaches to college English. Their overall aim is to enable the beginning college writer to compose clear and effective sentences, paragraphs, and compositions. This new edition of College Writing Skills is a refinement of the four previous editions; it has been shaped by helpful comments from students and instructors who have used the course. Exercises have been updated, and many minor changes for clarity have been made. Basic features of this text have not changed, however. As a hybrid of textbook and workbook, it continues to stress focused practice leading to directed independent composing activities; it emphasizes student writing rather than students reading about writing. This emphasis translates into more than 500 sets of exercises, more than 100 optional workshop activities, and an Appendix covering special problems in the acquisition of English. The exercises in this textbook embody our belief that practice is crucial to improving one's writing skills. Accordingly, this text provides practice in forming ideas, in getting ideas our one's head and onto paper, in experimenting with various sentence structures in order to achieve clarity, in following models of correct grammar and effective style, and in making the writing process pay off through effective revision and editing. A Collegiate Press book




The Rowman & Littlefield Guide to Writing with Sources


Book Description

The Rowman & Littlefield Guide to Writing with Sources offers the most thorough and up-to-date discussion of plagiarism and the proper use of sources available today. The new edition incorporates the latest revisions to MLA, CSE, and CMS styles and the lexicon of electronic materials. This succinct and accessible handbook helps writers of all levels to assess, quote, cite, and present information from a variety of sources, including electronic and Internet sources. It features samples, updated throughout, of writing and style sheets, as well as a checklist for quoting and paraphrasing, to help strengthen writing in any field.




Winter Stars


Book Description

Since the appearance of his first book in 1972, Larry Levis has been one of the most original and most highly praised of contemporary American poets. In Winter Stars, a book of love poems and elegies, Levis engages in a process of relentless self-interrogation about his life, about losses and acceptances. What emerges is not merely autobiography, but a biography of the reader, a "representative life" of our time.




The Sociology Student Writer's Manual and Reader's Guide


Book Description

The Sociology Student Writer's Manual 7/E is a practical guide to research, reading, and writing in sociology. The Sociology Student Writer’s Manual and Reader’s Guide, Seventh Edition, is a set of instructions and exercises that sequentially develop citizenship, academic, and professional skills while providing students with knowledge about a wide range of sociological concepts, phenomena, and information sources. Part 1 begins by teaching students to read newspapers and other sociological media sources critically and analytically. It focuses on the crafts of writing and scholarship by providing the basics of grammar, style, formats and source citation, and then introduces students to a variety of rich information resources including the sociological journals and the Library of Congress. Part 2 prepares students to research, read, write, review, and critique sociology scholarship. Finally, Part 3 provides advanced exercises in observing culture, socialization, inequality, and ethnicity and race.




The Psychology Student Writer's Manual and Reader's Guide


Book Description

The Psychology Student Writer's Manual 3/E is a practical guide to research, reading, and writing in the discipline. Ideal as either a companion or stand-alone text for any psychology course that requires students to write papers. This clear and functional handbook shows how to research and write in psychology as well as improve one's overall writing ability. Covering every fundamental aspect of writing (from content to form, grammar, tracking sources of information, and citing sources), it assists students in preparing two specific types of papers: research reports and term papers. Comprehensive source—Contains all the information needed to write most types of papers typically assigned in the discipline of psychology. Provides students with a complete, one-stop, easy-to-follow reference source on how to research and write papers—including how to conduct research in psychology, how to find information on topics related to psychology, how to incorporate citations, and more. Thorough review of writing basics and formatting instructions—Addresses fundamental concerns of all writers, exploring the reasons why we write, describing the writing process itself, and examining those elements of grammar, style, and punctuation that cause the most confusion among writers in general. Shows students the key elements of good writing and effective communication, gives students a quick and handy grammar reference source, and provides them with a detailed, easy-to-follow guide to preparing papers according to accepted formats. Creative writing assignments—Offers practical writing exercises with step-by-step instructions. Heightens students' interest in the study of psychology, and frees professors from the duty of teaching students to write the papers most often assigned in psychology classes. APA standards—Complies with all APA style requirements, displays formats for text, title pages, reference pages, tables of contents in APA format, details the APA citation system, and discusses the crucial responsibility of every psychology writer to use source material ethically. General analysis of psychology -◦Helps students obtain a deeper understanding of what constitutes the discipline of psychology so that they will become better and more educated writers on the subject.




Writing Creative Nonfiction


Book Description

Experience the power and the promise of working in today' most exciting literary form: Creative Nonfiction Writing Creative Nonfiction presents more than thirty essays examining every key element of the craft, from researching ideas and structuring the story, to reportage and personal reflection. You'll learn from some of today's top creative nonfiction writers, including: • Terry Tempest Williams - Analyze your motivation for writing, its value, and its strength. • Alan Cheuse - Discover how interesting, compelling essays can be drawn from every corner of your life and the world in which you live. • Phillip Lopate - Build your narrator–yourself–into a fully fleshed-out character, giving your readers a clearer, more compelling idea of who is speaking and why they should listen. • Robin Hemley - Develop a narrative strategy for structuring your story and making it cohesive. • Carolyn Forche - Master the journalistic ethics of creative nonfiction. • Dinty W. Moore - Use satire, exaggeration, juxtaposition, and other forms of humor in creative nonfiction. • Philip Gerard - Understand the narrative stance–why and how an author should, or should not, enter into the story. Through insightful prompts and exercises, these contributors help make the challenge of writing creative nonfiction–whether biography, true-life adventure, memoir, or narrative history–a welcome, rewarding endeavor. You'll also find an exciting, creative nonfiction "reader" comprising the final third of the book, featuring pieces from Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Beverly Lowry, Phillip Lopate, and more–selections so extraordinary, they will teach, delight, inspire, and entertain you for years to come!




The Fourth Genre


Book Description

This best-selling anthology is a comprehensive and indispensable introduction to the way creative nonfiction is written today. The Fourth Genre offers the most comprehensive, teachable, and current introduction available today to the cutting-edge, evolving genre of creative nonfiction. While acknowledging the literary impulse of nonfiction to be a fourth genre equivalent to poetry, fiction, and drama, this text focuses on subgenres of the nonfiction form, including memoir, nature writing, personal essays, literary journalism, cultural criticism, and travel writing. This anthology was the first to draw on the common ground of the practicing writer and the practical scholar and to make the pedagogical connections between creative writing practice and composition theory, bridging some of the gaps between the teaching of composition, creative writing, and literature in English departments.