Rules for Writers succeeds because it has always been grounded in classroom experience. By looking at her own students' needs, Diana Hacker created an affordable and practical classroom tool that doubles as a quick reference. Developed with the help of instructors from two- and four-year schools, the sixth edition gives students quick access to the information they need to solve writing problems in any college course. In the Hacker tradition, the new contributing authors -- Nancy Sommers, Tom Jehn, Jane Rosenzweig, and Marcy Carbajal Van Horn -- have crafted solutions for the writing problems of today's college students. Together they give us a new edition that provides more help with academic writing and research and one that works better for a wider range of multilingual students. Flexible content options -- in print and online -- allow students to get more than they pay for.

THIS TITLE HAS BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT THE 2016 MLA UPDATES! Our editorial team has updated this text based on content from The MLA Handbook, 8th Edition. Browse our catalog or contact your representative for a full listing of updated titles and packages, or to request a custom ISBN. This version of the best-selling college handbook includes a tabbed section called Writing about Literature, a practical guide to interpreting works of literature and to planning, composing, and documenting papers about literature. Students will find help with forming and supporting an interpretation, avoiding plot summary, integrating quotations from a literary work, observing the conventions of literature papers, and using secondary sources. Writing about Literature also includes two sample student essays — one that uses primary sources and one that uses primary and secondary sources. The full primary texts are also included.

"These are the rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story."—Elmore Leonard For aspiring writers and lovers of the written word, this concise guide breaks down the writing process with simplicity and clarity. From adjectives and exclamation points to dialect and hoopetedoodle, Elmore Leonard explains what to avoid, what to aspire to, and what to do when it sounds like "writing" (rewrite). Beautifully designed, filled with free-flowing, elegant illustrations and specially priced, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing is the perfect writer's—and reader's—gift.

With more than a hundred published novels and more than seventeen million copies of his books in print, USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith follows five simple business rules for writing fiction. And now, he shares how those rules helped shape his successful career. In this WMG Writer's Guide, Dean takes you step-by-step through Heinlein's Rules and shows how following those rules can change your writing-and career-for the better. Simple rules, yet deceptively hard to follow. Do you have the courage to take a hard look at your writing process and follow Heinlein's Rules? Dean shows you how. "Dean Wesley Smith's blog gives both a slightly different view of the publishing world than I'd seen before and detailed hands-on "here's how to get from A to B" instruction." - Erin M. Hartshorn, Vision: A Resource for Writers

From a "genius" (New York Times) storyteller: a new, subversive, hilarious, heart-breaking collection. "There is sweetheartedness and wisdom and eloquence and transcendence in his stories because these virtues exist in abundance in Etgar himself... I am very happy that Etgar and his work are in the world, making things better." --George Saunders There's no one like Etgar Keret. His stories take place at the crossroads of the fantastical, searing, and hilarious. His characters grapple with parenthood and family, war and games, marijuana and cake, memory and love. These stories never go to the expected place, but always surprise, entertain, and move... In "Arctic Lizard," a young boy narrates a post-apocalyptic version of the world where a youth army wages an unending war, rewarded by collecting prizes. A father tries to shield his son from the inevitable in "Fly Already." In "One Gram Short," a guy just wants to get a joint to impress a girl and ends up down a rabbit hole of chaos and heartache. And in the masterpiece "Pineapple Crush," two unlikely people connect through an evening smoke down by the beach, only to have one of them imagine a much deeper relationship. The thread that weaves these pieces together is our inability to communicate, to see so little of the world around us and to understand each other even less. Yet somehow, in these pages, through Etgar's deep love for humanity and our hapless existence, a bright light shines through and our universal connection to each other sparks alive.

A writing handbook that provides rules, guidance, tutorials, and exercises on the writing process, document design, clarity, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, argument, and research.