Description

 

This bestselling brief supplementary text is for any course in which students write.

 

Writing with Style is storehouse of practical writing tips–written in a lively, conversational style. This text provides insight into: how to generate interesting ideas and get them down on paper; how to write a critical analysis; how to write a crisp opener; how to invigorate a dull style; how to punctuate with confidence; how to handle various conventions–and much more.   Trimble is readily accessible to first-year college students, yet sophisticated enough to delight a senior English Honors class. Unusually flexible, the book can function equally well as both a self-teaching text (in literature courses, etc.) and a companion text (in composition and journalism courses).

Features

• Describes a remarkably effective method for generating ideas and converting them into coherent prose.
• Helps students overcome difficulty with generating ideas and developing these ideas in their writing.

TEACHING/LEARNING AIDS

• Summarizes important points in list form.

  • Facilitates using the book for review and quick reference.

• Enumerates over 200 tips for increasing the readability of one's writing.

  • Offers a plethora of techniques from which students can pick and choose.

• Supplements the author's advice with statements by professional writers.

  • Shows students how even professional writers follow the same process.

• Makes the use of analogies to explain abstract concepts.

  • Appeals to different learning styles to maximize understanding.

• Uses witty, memorable examples (not solemn, mechanical ones).

  • Helps engage students in learning to write.

• Includes examples from both professional and student writing.

  • Provides examples students can relate to and aspire to.

• Demonstrates the art of expository writing.

  • Instructors can introduce students to the many places where Trimble artfully illustrates his own points. Ex.___

New to this Edition

An new chapter, Critical Analysis: Jousting with Mencken,  includes an essay by Mencken and student critical analyses of it, along with Trimble's discussion to provide an illustrative unit on this essential academic writing skill.

 

A new chapter, Dramatizing Your Prose, provides examples and discussion of how to inject the principles of good story-telling into expository prose to keep an audience engaged.

 

Fresh examples and updated help on taboos, punctuation, usage manuals, and other topics

Table of Contents

Contents

 

A Word About These “Conversations”

Preface to the Third Edition

Acknowledgments

Fundamentals

 

Chapter 1: Thinking Well

 

Chapter 2: Getting Launched

 

Chapter 3: Openers

 

Chapter 4: Middles

 

Chapter 5: Closers

 

Chapter 6: Diction

 

Chapter 7: Readability

 

Chapter 8: Superstitions

 

Chapter 9: Critical Analysis: Jousting with Mencken

 

Chapter 10:  Dramatizing Your Ideas

 

Chapter 11: Revising

 

Chapter 12: Proofreading

    Odds and Ends

 

Chapter 13: Punctuation

    Semicolons 

    Commas 

    Parentheses 

    Dashes 

    Colons 

    Hyphens 

    Exclamation points 

 

Chapter 14: Quoting 

    Punctuation introducing quotations

    Punctuation at the end of quotations 

    Miscellaneous small points 

    Indented quotations 

    Orphan quotes 

    Dialogue

    Punctuating run-on quotations of poetry 

    References for quotations 

    Punctuating parenthetical references 

    Ellipses 

    Editorial insertions (square brackets)

 

Chapter 15: Abbreviations

 

Chapter 16: Tips on Usage 

 

Chapter 17: Epilogue 

 

Sources 

Index