Writing Skills Books

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fourth Edition

American Psychological Association

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 259 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Necessary Evil 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The program that I am in requires that I write all of my papers in this style, so I was forced to purchase the book. I do highly recommend the spiral format, as it is awfully easy to use.

Publichcation Manual of the American Psychological association 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I got this book just in time because I live in Bangkok. The seller said it took 21 days to delivery the book. I got exactly what I order I mean it brand new condition.

Editorial Review:

This fourth edition of the "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association" offers updated information in four key areas: reporting statistics; writing without bias; preparing manuscripts with a word processor for electronic production; publishing research in accordance with ethical principles of scientific publishing. Two goals shape the changes throughout the fourth edition: to encourage authors (a) to write about their research with specificity and (b) to write about their participants with sensitivity and accuracy. Regular users should find the chapters on editorial style and manuscript preparation a little easier to use than previous editions. Manuscript format requirements are more flexible and enable authors to take advantage of default settings on most word processors.

The Elements of Style

Jr., William Strunk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 369 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Reference 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE is a great little pocket reference for all writers (creative, essay, or nonfiction).

What is most amazing is how it consolidates a wealth of information into accessible, bite-size chapters that are easy to search on and then easy to comprehend.

The sections that I have found the most helpful are:
1) Verb Subject Agreement for the exceptions, "one of" and "each and every".
2) Why using the Active Voice is better through exhibition and not b/c it's the general rule.
3) Putting statements into positive form (something I had not considered).
4) And the entire section on "Approach to Style".

I think that for the price, you can not go wrong with this one. I have GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT by Stilman and SOLUTIONS FOR WRITERS by Stein, both of which I recommend, but if you had to choose the order in which to buy: ELEMENTS OF STYLE, SOLUTIONS FOR WRITERS (as it's not just about writing but the craft of story telling), and then GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT.

Editorial Review:

The Elements of Style is a classic work which is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature. It aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style. It aims to lighten the task of instructor and student by concentrating attention (in Chapters Two and Three) on a few essentials, the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. The numbers of the sections may be used as references in correcting manuscript.

The Elements of Style: The Original Edition

William Strunk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The print leaves much to be desired. 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book is great, I mean it's a classic but this version looks like it came right off the photo copier of the original print for 100 years ago. It's horribly fussy and the copy spacing is poor. I suggest finding a version by a different publisher.

Decent Desktop Reference for the Student / Professional 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Strunk's work is a solid baseline for grammar, punctuation, and composition. If your workplace tends to create its own standards for linguistics, it might be valuable to keep this readily available.

It is somewhat limited in terms of all the possible usages of punctuation, and admits as much in its first pages. While this is a valuable reference for most scenarios, it can't stand alone.

Continues to be the best 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a wonderful reference for clear and concise writing. It has helped me improved my writing tremendously. One of the reasons why it is so effective is that it gives good examples of bad writing and lets you compare it with the better kind so that you can see the difference between them. The book has been used by many writers in the past, so it gives you the sense that it has truly helped many.

Editorial Review:

This book is the classic reference text for clear writing and is generally considered a must-have for any student or writer. In this most revered of writing books, Strunk identifies the necessary qualities of proper American English style; and he does it all with wit and grace. Compelling and timeless, this book is simply the best of its kind.

The Chicago Manual of Style

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 102 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Fifteenth Edition is available in book form, on CD-ROM for Windows, and as a subscription Web site.  The same content from The Chicago Manual of Style is in all three versions.

In the 1890s, a proofreader at the University of Chicago Press prepared a single sheet of typographic fundamentals intended as a guide for the University community. That sheet grew into a pamphlet, and the pamphlet grew into a book—the first edition of the Manual of Style, published in 1906. Now in its fifteenth edition, The Chicago Manual of Style—the essential reference for authors, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers in any field—is more comprehensive and easier to use than ever before.

Those who work with words know how dramatically publishing has changed in the past decade, with technology now informing and influencing every stage of the writing and publishing process. In creating the fifteenth edition of the Manual, Chicago's renowned editorial staff drew on direct experience of these changes, as well as on the recommendations of the Manual's first advisory board, composed of a distinguished group of scholars, authors, and professionals from a wide range of publishing and business environments.

Every aspect of coverage has been examined and brought up to date—from publishing formats to editorial style and method, from documentation of electronic sources to book design and production, and everything in between. In addition to books, the Manual now also treats journals and electronic publications. All chapters are written for the electronic age, with advice on how to prepare and edit manuscripts online, handle copyright and permissions issues raised by technology, use new methods of preparing mathematical copy, and cite electronic and online sources.

A new chapter covers American English grammar and usage, outlining the grammatical structure of English, showing how to put words and phrases together to achieve clarity, and identifying common errors. The two chapters on documentation have been reorganized and updated: the first now describes the two main systems preferred by Chicago, and the second discusses specific elements and subject matter, with examples of both systems. Coverage of design and manufacturing has been streamlined to reflect what writers and editors need to know about current procedures. And, to make it easier to search for information, each numbered paragraph throughout the Manual is now introduced by a descriptive heading.

Clear, concise, and replete with commonsense advice, The Chicago Manual of Style, fifteenth edition, offers the wisdom of a hundred years of editorial practice while including a wealth of new topics and updated perspectives. For anyone who works with words, whether on a page or computer screen, this continues to be the one reference book you simply must have.

What's new in the Fifteenth Edition:

* Updated material throughout to reflect current style, technology, and professional practice

* Scope expanded to include journals and electronic publications

* Comprehensive new chapter on American English grammar and usage by Bryan A. Garner (author of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage)

* Updated and rewritten chapter on preparing mathematical copy

* Reorganized and updated chapters on documentation, including guidance on citing electronic sources

* Streamlined coverage of current design and production processes, with a glossary of key terms

* Descriptive headings on all numbered paragraphs for ease of reference

* New diagrams of the editing and production processes for both books and journals, keyed to chapter discussions

* New, expanded Web site with special tools and features for Manual users at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Anne Lamott

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 307 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Touching and funny 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Anne teaches writing and this book is based on what she shares with her class. I love the personal stories she tells, especially about her son, Sam. Writers often talk of "voice", and I feel I know Anne through this book. I can hear her voice.

She makes the serious memorable, but also funny. Writing is important, but she does urge us to not take it all too seriously.
She talks about the thrill of seeing oneself in print, but then the raging doubt and the self-loathing that can come sometimes.
It is full of lessons, like seeing the world through a tiny window and just describing that bit - and then widening it. Don't start with a big project, just write a short assignment.
Writing is not just for publication - it is it's own reward. Commit to finishing. She is realistic, encouraging but without promising the world. Highly recommended!

Editorial Review:

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was  ten years old at the time, was trying to get a  report on birds written that he'd had three months to  write. It was due the next day. We were out at our  family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen  table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper  and pencils and unopened books on birds,  immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my  father sat down beside him, put his arm around my  brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.'"

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Sixth Edition

Joseph Gibaldi

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Total reviews: 83 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Best of Class 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The Modern Language Association has developed a crisp contemporary style with ready application well beyond the realms of modern literature. The style is an evolution of Chicago style. The reference format for the "Works Cited" in MLA-speak, are virtually indistinguishable from those in Chicago-style bibliographies. However, MLA has added a unique parenthetical "author-page" citation to reference sources in the text. This is easy for both scholars and non-scholars alike to comprehend and use, making this a good general-purpose style.

The MLA Handbook does an excellent job of representing the style, though with occasional foibles. These tend to be more a distraction than a nuisance, and are often ignored when the style is used in scholarly publication. For example, there is a marked predisposition for the use of abbreviations in references. This is unnecessary, and can present some rather unsavory phrases when sounded out, such as "U of Chicago P" for University of Chicago Press. Page space is rarely so confined as to make the parsimonious use of letters productive, so many authors and journal editors forgo this frugality. The handbook devotes an entire twenty-page chapter to the topic.

There is a tendency in the handbook expand features beyond their useful application. In the last edition the requirements for presenting quotations was elaborated far beyond the needs of most scholars. This was circumscribed in the current edition, but references to electronic sources were elaborated far beyond their credible application. Such references can have up to fifteen elements! An ephemeral online source cannot be made permanent and credible by elaborating the reference to it, and this appears to be an attempt to do just that. These features, too, can be employed as needed or safely ignored.

Missing from the handbook is any reference to the use of headings and subheadings in research papers. The handbook claims that most instructors discourage their use. However, an informal sampling of articles published in the MLA's own journal, PMLA, found that about half did make use of subheadings. This seems a bit hypocritical, especially in a handbook that gets a mite preachy about plagiarism. Do as I do, do as I say, or what? To be credible the handbook should reflect the style as applied in print.

These criticisms border on the trivial simply because there is nothing else to complain about. At its best, the style employs simple rules. For example, if a number can be written in one or two words write it out. Otherwise use numerals, and always use numerals for precise measures. In contrast, APA (American Psychological Association) style has elaborate rules requiring some small numbers to be written as words, others as numerals. MLA style is free of such exceptions. As long as the style and handbook are approached with a measure of tolerance for its idiosyncrasies, it is easy to use and adequately comprehensive for all the tasks of scholarship. Only if you have delved into other research styles such as APA, AMA (American Medical Association), and Chicago can you appreciate the simplicity of MLA style and the masterly way it has been documented in the handbook. There is elegance in ordered simplicity, and more so than any other research style, MLA style has achieved that elegance.

Editorial Review:

Since it was first published in 1977, the MLA Handbook has sold nearly four million copies worldwide. Now completely revised and updated, the guide contains detailed information on using computers for research and writing and on citing electronic publications. Features include two-color printing, lie-flat binding, and a complete subject index.

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

Kate L. Turabian

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Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Dewey. Bellow. Strauss. Friedman. The University of Chicago has been the home of some of the most important thinkers of the modern age. But perhaps no name has been spoken with more respect than Turabian. The dissertation secretary at Chicago for decades, Kate Turabian literally wrote the book on the successful completion and submission of the student paper. Her Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, created from her years of experience with research projects across all fields, has sold more than seven million copies since it was first published in 1937.

Now, with this seventh edition, Turabian’s Manual has undergone its most extensive revision, ensuring that it will remain the most valuable handbook for writers at every level—from first-year undergraduates, to dissertation writers apprehensively submitting final manuscripts, to senior scholars who may be old hands at research and writing but less familiar with new media citation styles. Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, and the late Wayne C. Booth—the gifted team behind The Craft of Research—and the University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff combined their wide-ranging expertise to remake this classic resource. They preserve Turabian’s clear and practical advice while fully embracing the new modes of research, writing, and source citation brought about by the age of the Internet.

Booth, Colomb, and Williams significantly expand the scope of previous editions by creating a guide, generous in length and tone, to the art of research and writing. Growing out of the authors’ best-selling Craft of Research, this new section provides students with an overview of every step of the research and writing process, from formulating the right questions to reading critically to building arguments and revising drafts. This leads naturally to the second part of the Manual for Writers, which offers an authoritative overview of citation practices in scholarly writing, as well as detailed information on the two main citation styles (“notes-bibliography” and “author-date”). This section has been fully revised to reflect the recommendations of the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style and to present an expanded array of source types and updated examples, including guidance on citing electronic sources.

The final section of the book treats issues of style—the details that go into making a strong paper. Here writers will find advice on a wide range of topics, including punctuation, table formatting, and use of quotations. The appendix draws together everything writers need to know about formatting research papers, theses, and dissertations and preparing them for submission. This material has been thoroughly vetted by dissertation officials at colleges and universities across the country.

This seventh edition of Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is a classic reference revised for a new age. It is tailored to a new generation of writers using tools its original author could not have imagined—while retaining the clarity and authority that generations of scholars have come to associate with the name Turabian.

A Hard Day's Write

Steve Turner

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A lavishly illustrated, rollicking account of the real people and events that inspired the Beatles' lyrics.

Who was "just seventeen" and made Paul's heart go "boom"? Was there really an Eleanor Rigby? Where's Penny Lane? In A Hard Day's Write, music journalist Steve Turner shatters many well-worn myths and adds a new dimension to the Fab Four's rich legacy by investigating for the first time the ordinary people and events immortalized in the Beatles' music and now occupying a special niche in popular culture's collective imagination.

Arranged chronologically by album, the book breaks new ground by exploring how private incidents influenced the group's writing and how their music evolved. Turner reveals that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was really a drawing by Julian Lennon of his childhood friend; Bungalow Bill was an all-American tiger hunter; Doctor Robert was a New York 'speech doctor'; and much more. A longtime Beatles admirer, Turner tracked down and interviewed the real-life subjects of the songs, probed public records and newspaper archives, and spoke in depth to the people closet to the Beatles to unearth tales that have never before been made public. The result is a book that chronicles an untold story of the Beatles themselves.

Illustrated with over 200 photographs, A Hard Day's Write is a visually alluring and highly entertaining journey to the land stretching just beneath your conscious mind, mapped out with strawberry fields, fool-topped hills, and long and winding roads.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Lynne Truss

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Total reviews: 544 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A bona fide publishing phenomenon, Lynne Truss’s now classic #1 New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves makes its paperback debut after selling over 3 million copies worldwide in hardcover.

We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the Internet, in e-mail, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species.

In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with. BACKCOVER: Praise for Lynne Truss and Eats, Shoots & Leaves:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves “makes correct usage so cool that you have to admire Ms. Truss.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Witty, smart, passionate.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review, Best Books Of 2004: Nonfiction

“Who knew grammar could be so much fun?”
—Newsweek

“Witty and instructive. . . . Truss is an entertaining, well-read scold in a culture that could use more scolding.”
—USA Today “Truss is William Safire crossed with John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“Lynne Truss has done the English-speaking world a huge service.”
—The Christian Science Monitor

“This book changed my life in small, perfect ways like learning how to make better coffee or fold an omelet. It’s the perfect gift for anyone who cares about grammar and a gentle introduction for those who don’t care enough.”
—The Boston Sunday Globe

“Lynne Truss makes [punctuation] a joy to contemplate.”
—Elle

“If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I’d nominate her for sainthood.” —Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes

“Truss’s scholarship is impressive and never dry.”
—Edmund Morris, The New York Times Book Review

On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (On Writing Well)

William K. Zinsser

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 174 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Inspiring and practical instruction on writing 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3SOY5891YP5FI This is by far the best book on writing any kind of non-fiction. He encourages you to be clear, and gives practical tips and instruction so that you feel that you know what good writing looks like. I'd also recommend Bird By Bird by Lamott for fiction writers, or anyone who needs moral support for the writing process.

Editorial Review:

On Writing Well has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity and the warmth of its style. It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sole, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.