The Writer's FAQ's: A Pocket Handbook, Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: A Writer's Tale
Review: Get used to having an opinion and defending it: education in the United States wants to know what writers think, not how well they repeat the thinking of experts and great scholars. Muriel Harris says that good writing means being aware of and committed to purpose, audience and organization: everything between beginning and ending goes to support the main idea by passing judgment on each part of the thesis statement and on the sources. I like the way the author describes conclusions: looking backwards by summing up what went before and forward by giving advice or suggestions. THE WRITER'S FAQS reminds us that both Internet and nondigital sources need to be checked for reliability and that a particular course of study, such as anthropology, links with a particular handbook, such as CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE. Readers have no problems moving from this helpfully clear guide to specifics in Michael Alley's THE CRAFT OF SCIENTIFIC WRITING, Jan A. Pechenik's A SHORT GUIDE TO WRITING ABOUT BIOLOGY, Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly's THE NEW YORK TIMES MANUAL OF STYLE AND USAGE, and Joseph F. Trimmer's THE ESSENTIALS OF MLA STYLE.