A dynamic, easy-to-use handbook, The Longman Handbook for Readers and Writers allows writers to quickly and easily reference the information they need to improve their personal, business, and academic writing. Writing process, business writing, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, electronic research, documentation/citation style guides, avoiding plagiarism, ESL. Any student or professional interested in improving their writing.
I. WRITING, READING, AND THINKING: JOINING COMMUNITIES.
1. Writers, Readers, and Communities.
Recognizing academic, work, and public communities.
The composing process: Realities and myths.
Entering electronic communities.
2. Critical Reading.
Reading for understanding.
Reading for response and evaluation.
Reading into writing: Using journals.
3. Planning Strategies.
Generating ideas and information.
Structuring ideas and information.
Creating patterns of generalization and support.
Planning in electronic environments.
Planning: Paper in progress.
4. Defining Your Purpose and Thesis.
Analyzing your purpose.
Using rhetorical purposes to guide your writing.
Defining a main idea or thesis.
Using different kinds of thesis statements.
5. Considering Your Audience.
Defining your audience.
Characterizing your readers.
Adapting your content, structure, and style.
Addressing communities of readers.
6. Critical Reasoning.
What is critical reasoning?
Building a chain of reasoning.
Reasoning persuasively.
Critical reasoning in academic, public, and work contexts.
II. DRAFTING AND REVISING: SHAPING YOUR WRITING FOR YOUR COMMUNITY.
7. Drafting.
Moving from planning to drafting.
Using drafting strategies.
Drafting collaboratively.
Drafting: Paper in progress.
8. Revising.
Making major revisions.
Making minor revisions.
Revising collaboratively.
Revising: Paper in progress.
9. Paragraphs: Focusing, Linking, and Developing.
Recognizing paragraph focus.
Revising paragraph focus.
Recognizing paragraph coherence.
Revising paragraph coherence.
Recognizing and revising paragraph development.
Using special-purpose paragraphs in academic, work, and public settings.
10. Sentences: Clarifying, Emphasizing, and Varying.
Creating clear sentences.
Creating direct sentences.
Creating emphasis.
Revising for variety.
11. Editing and Proofreading.
Editing your own writing.
Editing collaboratively.
Editing on the computer.
Proofreading.
III. REPRESENTING YOURSELF: CREATING A PLACE IN A COMMUNITY.
12. Presenting Yourself Through Language Choices.
Understanding home and community language varieties.
Understanding how dialects influence writing.
13. Writing in Online Communities.
Writing online.
Avoiding plagiarism and acting ethically online.
Communicating with email.
Participating in online communities.
Participating in virtual classrooms.
14. Designing Documents.
Goals of document design.
Choosing a format.
Laying out your document.
Using type.
Using visuals.
Creating Web pages.
Model documents.
15. Strategies for Effective Speaking.
Effective oral presentation.
Managing speech anxiety.
Group presentations and other public forums.
IV. EDITING FOR GRAMMAR.
16. Sentence Elements and Sentence Patterns.
Using words.
Recognizing sentence parts: Subjects and predicates.
Recognizing phrases and clauses.
Recognizing different sentence types.
17. Appropriate Forms of Nouns and Pronouns.
Recognizing pronoun forms.
Recognizing common problems with pronoun forms.
Choosing who and whom.
18. Appropriate Verb Forms.
Recognizing and editing simple present and past tense verbs.
Recognizing and editing problems with participles.
Editing progressive and perfect tenses.
Editing troublesome verbs (lie, lay, sit, set).
Recognizing active and passive voice.
Creating clear tense sequence.
Recognizing the subjunctive mood.
19. Agreement of Sentence Parts.
Creating subject-verb agreement (simple).
Creating subject-verb agreement (complex).
Creating pronoun-antecedent agreement.
20. Adjectives and Adverbs.
Recognizing what adjectives and adverbs do.
Avoiding confusion between adjectives and adverbs.
Choosing correct forms for comparatives and superlatives.
Avoiding double negatives.
V. EDITING FOR SENTENCE PROBLEMS.
21. Sentence Fragments.
Recognizing sentence fragments.
Editing sentence fragments.
Using partial sentences.
22. Comma Splices and Fused Sentences.
Recognizing comma splices and fused sentences.
Editing comma splices and fused sentences.
23. Pronoun Reference.
Recognizing and editing unclear pronoun reference.
Recognizing and editing pronoun reference that is not specific.
Matching who, which, and that to antecedents.
24. Misplaced, Dangling, and Disruptive Modifiers.
Recognizing and editing misplaced modifiers.
Recognizing and editing dangling modifiers.
Recognizing and editing disruptive modifiers.
Using absolute phrases effectively.
25. Shifts.
Recognizing and editing shifts in person and number.
Recognizing and editing shifts in tense and mood.
Recognizing and editing shifts in voice.
Avoiding shifts between direct and indirect quotation.
26. Mixed and Incomplete Sentences.
Recognizing and editing mixed sentences.
Recognizing and editing incomplete sentences.
27. Building Parallelism.
Building parallelism.
Recognizing and editing problems with parallelism.
Creating parallelism beyond the sentence.
Creating parallelism in lists.
28. Coordination and Subordination.
Recognizing and creating coordination.
Recognizing and editing problems with coordination.
Recognizing and creating subordination.
Recognizing and editing problems with subordination.
VI. EDITING FOR WORD CHOICE.
29. Choosing Appropriate Words.
Thinking about word choice.
Using precise diction.
Using strategies for editing diction.
30. Using Dictionaries and Building Vocabulary.
Choosing dictionaries to serve your needs.
Using a dictionary.
Using dictionaries in the age of technology.
Building vocabulary.
31. Avoiding Wordiness.
Editing for common types of wordiness.
Editing for clichs, generalizations, and overblown language.
32. Avoiding Sexist and Discriminatory Language.
Recognizing and editing sexist language.
Avoiding discriminatory language.
VII. EDITING FOR PUNCTUATION, MECHANICS, AND SPELLING.
33. Commas.
Using commas to help join sentences.
Using commas to set off introductory phrases.
Using commas to set off nonrestrictive modifiers.
Using commas to set off parenthetical expressions.
Using commas in a series.
Separating coordinate adjectives with a comma.
Using commas with dates, numbers, addresses, place names, people's titles, and letters.
Using commas with quotations.
Using commas to make your meaning clear.
Avoiding commas that do not belong.
34. Semicolons and Colons.
Using semicolons.
Using colons.
35. Apostrophes.
Using apostrophes to mark possession.
Using apostrophes to mark contractions or omissions.
36. Quotation Marks.
Marking quotations.
Using block quotations.
Writing dialogue.
Labeling titles of short works.
Indicating special meanings of words and phrases.
Indicating irony, sarcasm, and authorial distance.
37. Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points.
Using periods.
Using question marks.
Using exclamation points.
38. Special Punctuation Marks.
Using parentheses.
Using brackets.
Using dashes.
Using ellipses.
Using slashes.
39. Capitalization.
Using a capital at the beginning of a sentence.
Using capitals for proper nouns and adjectives.
40. Italics (Underlining).
Following conventions for italics (underlining).
Underlining for emphasis.
41. Hyphens and Word Division.
Using hyphens to divide words.
Using hyphens to join words.
42. Numbers.
Spelling out numbers or using numerals.
Following special conventions.
Avoiding too many numbers.
43. Abbreviations.
Using familiar abbreviations.
Using abbreviations sparingly.
44. Strategies for Spelling.
Spelling as you write.
Recognizing and correcting spelling errors.
Using long-term strategies to improve your spelling.
Spelling and the computer.
VIII. USING RESEARCH STRATEGIES: READING AND WRITING WITHIN A RESEARCH COMMUNITY.
45. Getting Started: Research and Writing.
Beginning your research.
Recognizing difference kinds of research writing.
Choosing a topic.
Narrowing a topic.
Developing a research question.
Developing a preliminary thesis.
Reading to summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize.
Reading print and electronic sources critically.
Creating an audience inventory.
Creating a timeline.
46. Developing a Search Strategy and Using Library Resources.
Developing a general search strategy.
Using library resources and databases.
Using general resources.
Using books and online catalogs.
Using periodicals, print or electronic indexes, and government documents.
Using online databases.
47. Using Web and Internet Resources.
Creating a search strategy for Web and Internet resources.
Using search engines.
Consulting Web sites and Internet resources.
Evaluating online resources.
48. Locating Field Resources and Doing Fieldwork.
Purposes for field research.
Developing meaningful field research.
Preparing surveys, polls, and questionnaires.
Conducting interviews.
Obtaining human subjects' consent and approval.
Conducting ethnographies.
49. Avoiding Plagiarism.
What is plagiarism?
The problem of intent.
Recognizing when to document sources.
Citing sources responsibly.
Using sources in context.
50. Integrating Sources.
Choosing purposes for your sources.
Summarizing, paraphrasing, and synthesizing.
Working with common knowledge.
51. Writing, Revising, and Presenting Your Research.
Take time to review: What's my goal? What's my plan?
Writing an informative research paper.
Planning and writing a persuasive research paper.
Presentation strategies.
IX. USING CITATION STYLES.
52. Documenting Sources: MLA.
Using in-text citations.
Creating MLA in-text citations.
Informative footnotes and endnotes.
Creating an MLA list of works cited.
Sample MLA paper.
53. Documenting Sources: APA.
Using in-text citations.
Using content footnotes.
Creating APA in-text citations.
Creating an APA reference list.
Sample APA paper.
54. Documenting Sources: Science (CSE) and Engineering.
Recognizing elements of scientific and engineering styles.
Analyzing the documentation style of a publication.
Creating scientific in-text citations (CSE/CBE).
Creating the scientific references list (CSE/CBE).
55. Documenting Sources: CMS.
Using endnotes and footnotes.
Creating CMS notes.
Creating the CMS bibliography.
X. WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE PAPERS.
56. Argument: Recognizing an Issue and Taking a Stand.
Recognizing occasions for argument.
Developing a stance.
Developing a thesis.
57. Argument: Developing Reasons and Supporting Evidence.
Developing reasons that support your claim.
Using varied kinds of evidence.
Arguing through the visual.
Incorporating counterarguments.
Developing a point: Argument in progress.
58. Critical Thinking and Argument.
Building logical strategies.
Drawing on emotional strategies.
Using data-warrant-claim (Toulmin) reasoning.
Considering your audience and purpose.
Recognizing misleading and illogical reasoning.
The documented argument or position paper.
XI. WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM.
59. Writing Academic Papers Across the Curriculum.
Understanding the discourse community.
The critique.
The review.
The argumentative essay exam.
Developing and presenting informative writing.
The short informative documented paper.
The literature review.
The lab report.
The abstract.
The annotated bibliography.
The informative essay exam.
60. Reading and Writing About Literature.
Reading literary texts.
Writing about literary texts.
The text analysis.
61. Developing Business Writing.
Using general strategies to learn the principles of successful business writing.
Using specific strategies to learn the business writing process.
Writing business letters.
Writing memos.
Writing email.
Writing resumes and letters of application.
Glossary of Usage and Terms.
Credits.
Index.
