Technical Editing (3rd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for all fields, editors and writers
Review: Dr. Rude did a masterful job of explaining the concepts behind good writing. Reading this book improves your entire writing process by teaching the reader what he should not do when constructing any component within a document, be it a sentence, paragraph, chapter, etc.It also provides an excellent reference for copy editing symbols, defines the various levels of editing, and defines the roles that writers, editors, and publishers should have.Overall, Technical Editing has done more to improve my writing than all other writing books combine. It is a must have for your reference library and excellent for classroom instruction

Rating:
Summary: Physician Heal Thyself
Review: Dr. Rude should have read her book before she wrote it. While her advice is sound enough, she almost uniformly fails to follow it herself. Her book doesn't follow the schemata, the grammatical rules, the proofing rules, or the design rules, that she sets out for others. The ultimate example of this was when, in the section on political correctness, she advises the reader to refrain from using perjorative or demeaning terms for "handicappeds." "Handicapped" is itself considered perjorative and demeaning. She therefore broke the rule in stating it! Amazing.

Rating:
Summary: Rude advice
Review: One of the worst textbooks I've ever used. My students (college English majors) hate it because Dr. Rude presents rules, and then contradicts them.