The Practical Writer with Readings provides you with a manageable step-by-step approach to writing, from the one-paragraph essay to the five-paragraph essay, and beyond it into the research-driven paper. Everything you need to master college-level writing is right here! A proven model for writing takes you through a two-stage process of crafting the one-paragraph essay and concludes with techniques on how to write a sound five-paragraph essay. More than 50 student-written paragraphs and essays illustrate how various students approach the writing process. Comprehensive guidelines for writing a successful 3,000- to 4,000-word research paper are provided, Part 5, "The Research Paper," reflects the latest MLA recommendations for format and documentation and includes strategies for finding and using online sources and citing electronic sources. A mini-handbook on punctuation and expression offers sets of exercises on everything from comma splices to subject-verb agreement, Chapter 6, "Tips on the Writing Process," features a new section on peer review; the Readings section features new essays on sports and leisure. Correlations to the updated Book Companion Website with Test Your Knowledge sections are consistently integrated throughout the text. New icons prompt you to use the website as a tool to hone your skills as well as to further your study and research. Book jacket.

The Practical Writer with Readings provides both developmental and first-year composition students with a step-by-step approach to writing, from the one-paragraph essay to the five-paragraph essay to the research paper.

In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humour and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart – to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O’ Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Brontë ’ s structural nuance and Charles Dickens’ s deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.

Do you want to write magazine articles, but don’t know where to start? Or perhaps you want to break into new markets, but are not sure how. The Complete Article Writer will show you how to do all that… and more! Writing for the magazine market is the easiest publishing market to break into. But only if you can come up with the right idea for the right market at the right time. The Complete Article Writer shows you how to do that, time and time again. It also reveals how to maximise your article ideas: don’t write one article - write six or more! The Complete Article Writer shows you how to analyse a publication to identify its readership and the freelancing opportunities within it. Then it guides you into twisting your idea so it appeals to the core readership and the most important reader of all - the editor. With detailed advice about beginnings, middles and endings (the variety of different middle structures you can use to exploit your ideas further), along with other pieces of page furniture, including boxouts, sidebars and photos, The Complete Article Writer tells you how to offer an editor the complete package. Discover how to pitch your ideas and sell your article first before writing a single word. Learn how to negotiate the minefield of publishing rights and keep control of more of your work. Master all this and you will become The Complete Article Writer. Simon Whaley’s articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including: BBC Countryfile, Country Walking, Lakeland Walker, The Simple Things, Cumbria, Discover Britain, British Heritage, Writing Magazine, The People’s Friend, Coast and Outdoor Photography. Enjoy creative writing? Looking to get into freelance writing? Check out The Practical Writer Series for easy-to-implement advice.

When you Read Like a Writer (RLW) you work to identify some of the choices the author made so that you can better understand how such choices might arise in your own writing. The idea is to carefully examine the things you read, looking at the writerly techniques in the text in order to decide if you might want to adopt similar (or the same) techniques in your writing. You are reading to learn about writing. Instead of reading for content or to better understand the ideas in the writing (which you will automatically do to some degree anyway), you are trying to understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what you can learn about writing by reading a particular text. As you read in this way, you think about how the choices the author made and the techniques that he/she used are influencing your own responses as a reader. What is it about the way this text is written that makes you feel and respond the way you do?

“Reliably insightful.” – Publishers Weekly The first step to becoming a successful writer is to become a successful reader. Helping you develop your critical skills How to Read Like a Writer is an accessible and effective step-by-step guide to how careful reading can help you improve your craft as a creative writer, whatever genre you are writing in. Across 10 lessons – each pairing published readings with practical critical and creative exercises – this book helps writers master such key elements of their craft as: · Genre – from fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry to hybrid genres such as graphic narratives and online forms · Plot, conflict, theme and image · Developing characters – physical descriptions, psychological depths and actions · Narrators and points of view – 1st, 2nd and 3rd person narratives · Scenes and settings – time, space and place · Structure and form – length, organization and media · Language, subtext and style