College Writer's Reference

The third edition of The College Writer's Reference remains portable, accessible, and easy to understand. It continues to explain and illustrate the qualities of good writing as well as the logic behind the traditional conventions of grammar and usage. And it continues to insist that good writing is a mix of inventive composing, judicious revising, and rigorous editing rather than the mechanical following of formulaic prescriptions. At the same time, the new edition features include an expanded discussion of Internet research, evaluating all research sources, updated documentation conventions, fresh samples of student writing, complete information on publishing student writing, and even more clarity and grace throughout. The basic approach in all editions of The College Writer's Reference is to focus honestly on the needs of undergraduate student writers. Presented is a process approach to the teaching of writing, examining the different but overlapping stages of writing we call planning, drafting, researching, revising, and editing. The book addresses rhetorical issues of audience, purpose, and voice as well as the more technical issues of style, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics, emphasizing the actual choices that writers make rather than arbitrary rules. We wrote the book to give students a brief, no-nonsense, non-threatening guide to improving their writing abilities. As a practicing composition teacher with 35 years experience, Fulwiler is especially aware that inexperienced writers need to gain confidence in their voices and ideas as much as practice in the technical requirements of good writing. And as a practicing journalist with 25 years of experience, Alan Hayakawa insists on the importance of conventional correctness in writing destined for the real world in which writing is published. For this reason, The College Writer's Reference devotes equal time to the whys (the emphasis on rhetoric) as well as the hows (grammar, spelling, punctuation) of good writing. Students who know why they are doing what they are doing are more likely to slow down and learn how to master it. Pedagogical Features As a progressive alternative to traditional brief handbooks, this revised edition of The College Writer's Reference has several important features that will continue to make this book as easy for instructors to teach from as it is for students to use on their own. Useful organization The College Writer's Reference offers concise yet thorough coverage of all handbook concerns, uniquely organized according to the logic of the writing process: in the opening section, we urge writers to think about planning and drafting; in the later sections, we ask them to think hard about revision and editing. Traditional topics of style, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics are thus presented as "editing" choices that writers make in the final stage of the writing process. New to this edition is the placement of the editing sections students use most often (punctuation, spelling, conventions) before that used less frequently (grammar and grammar review). Teachable treatment of the whole writing process The opening chapters of The College Writer's Reference examine the creative but frustrating messiness of the writing process, offering plenty of ideas and strategies to help writers shape, organize, and give voice to their work. This fully teachable treatment of the writing process discusses inventing, composing, revising, editing, and publishing. Detailed chapters cover four, common purposes for writing--recounting experiences, explaining things, interpreting texts, and arguing positions. And we believe this is the only brief handbook that includes thorough explanations of both journal writing and advanced revision techniques. This new edition of The College Writer's Reference adds a new part ("Fulwiler, Toby is the author of 'College Writer's Reference' with ISBN 9780130429230 and ISBN 0130429236.