W r i t i n g g u i d e s • • 1 WritingBooks Guides for Course Adoption www.HarperAcademic.com C o M p osition • J o urn A L i s M • ei C r At V e W r i t i n G • p oetrY • s C r een W r i t i n G • B u s i n e s s W r i t i n G • W r itin G C A r e e r s • MMAG r A r , s t Y L e , r e f e r e n C e , A n d LA n G u AG e Index View Print Exit W r i t i n g g u i d e s • • 1 COMPO s t i O n On Writing Well C o n t e n t s : Introduction • Part I: Principles • The Transaction • Simplicity • Clutter • Style • The Audience • Words • Usage • Part II: Methods • Unity • The Lead and the Th e ClAssiC guide tO Writing Ending • Bits & Pieces • Part III: Forms • Nonfiction as Literature • Writing About People: nOnfiCtiOn The Interview • Writing About Places: The Travel Article • Writing About Yourself: The 30tH AnniversAry editiOn Memoir • Science and Technology • Business Writing • Sports • Writing about the Art: William Zinsser Critics and Columnists • Humor • Part IV: Attitudes • The Sound of Your Voice • Enjoy- ment, Fear and Confidence • The Tyranny of the Final Product • A Writer’s Decisions • Expanded and updated, the 30th anniversary Write as Well as You Can edition of this favorite of both teachers and students now contains three new chapters, and William Zinsser is a writer, editor and teacher. He began his career with the New York many new passages that place new emphasis on Herald Tribune and has long been a freelance writer for several leading magazines. During the the writer’s voice and on such fundamental 1970s he taught writing at Yale University, where he was master of Branford College from values as intention, character, and making 1979 to 1987. decisions. Zinsser was general editor of the Book-of-the-Month Club. His eighteen books, ranging While still covering all of the basics, Zinsser from jazz to baseball, also include the influential Writing to Learn. He now teaches at the includes a new chapter entitled “Enjoyment, New School in New York and at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Fear, and Confidence,” urging students to convey zest for what they are writing about and to overcome their anxieties by trusting their general intelligence. Another chapter, “The Tyranny of the Final Product,” advises students not to visualize their completed article but Also Available: to focus on all the prior decisions of selection, organization, and tone that will eventually let On Writing Well Cd AudiO COlleCtiOn them know what their piece is about. William Zinsser Including On Writing Well and How to Write a Memoir, these classic audios are the definitive works on the art “not since Elements of Style has there been a guide to writing as well presented of nonfiction writing. and readable as this one. A love and respect for the language is evident on every HarperAudio: 3 CDs/2.5 hours. page.”—Library Journal 2004 978-0-06-058611-9 $14.95 ($17.50 Can.) “On Writing Well belongs on any shelf of serious reference works for writers.” —New York Times Harper paperbacks: 336 pp.; index. 2006 978-0-06-089154-1 pb, $14.99 ($18.99 Can.) ResouRces foR On Writing Well Browse Inside the Book Request a Desk Copy Order an Examination Copy NPR Interview with William Zinsser Index View Print Exit W r i t i n g g u i d e s • • 2 neW Writing to learn Writing Places HWt O O Write—And tHink—CleArly AbOut Any subJeCt At All Th e life JOurney Of A Writer And William Zinsser teACHer William Zinsser Zinsser’s point of departure is that writing is a powerful method of learning: “Writing enables In Writing Places Zinsser describes more than 50 us to find out what we know—and what we years of writing and teaching in a series of don’t know—about whatever we’re trying to unusual locations, starting with his first job at learn.” the legendary New York Herald Tribune and including freelance stints in lonely apartments; a “An elegant exposition of the thesis that to decade as master of Branford College at Yale, write is to learn . in the tradition of where his office was under a carillon; and strunk and White, a model in its own various quirky offices in New York, one of right.”—Kirkus Reviews which had a firepole. Each place taught him Harper paperbacks: 272 pp. valuable lessons that shaped the influential writer 1993 978-0-06-272040-5 pb, $14.95 ($18.99 Can.) and teacher he would become. Written with humor, elegance, and vividly remembered detail about the men and women who kept crossing his life, Writing Places will delight students who dream of writing their own distinctive story. Harper: 208 pp. 2009 978-0-06-172902-7 hc, $22.99 ($29.50 Can.) ResouRces foR Writing Places ResouRces foR Writing to Learn Browse Inside the Book Browse Inside the Book Request a Desk Copy Request a Desk Copy Order an Examination Copy Order an Examination Copy Index View Print Exit W r i t i n g g u i d e s • • 3 neW simple & direct the elements of story AHt r e OriC fOr Writers Jacques Barzun f Oield n tes On nOnfiCtiOn Writing Francis Flaherty After a lifetime of writing and editing prose, Jacques Barzun has set his view of the best ways The bulk of writing books address grammar, to improve one’s style. His discussions of diction, style, and other line-by-line topics. Francis syntax, tone, meaning, composition, and revision Flaherty believes that complex, story-level guide students through the technique of making concerns—how to make a story move and how the written word clear and agreeable to read. to use description to buttress your theme—pose equally common and far more formidable The book includes exercises, model passages, problems for writers. and hundreds of amusing examples of usage gone wrong. In the spirit of The Elements of Style, and drawn from Flaherty’s long experience as an editor at “ History teacher, writer, critic, barzun the New York Times, this highly entertaining book strikes at pedantry, malapropisms, shows how Times articles read the way they do, imprecision, misdirection—all the ways presenting 50 secrets of successful narratives. language can go wrong on the page—and “Sometimes, say things sideways,” Flaherty writes, emerges the victor.”—Booklist “the reader will be grateful.” “White is whitest on black,” he observes, “let contrast work for Harper Perennial: 288 pp.; notes; index you.” Through these and other hard-won story-level insights, sprinkled with examples from 2001 978-0-06-093723-2 pb, $12.95 ($14.95 Can.) real stories and leavened with a good dose of newsroom memoir, The Elements of Story fills a large gap in the long shelf of writing books. Harper: 320 pp.; index. 2009 978-0-06-168914-7 hc, $24.99 ($32.99 Can.) ResouRces foR The elemenTs of sTory ResouRces foR Simple & Direct Browse Inside the Book Browse Inside the Book Request a Desk Copy Request a Desk Copy Order an Examination Copy Order an Examination Copy Columbia College Profile of Jacques Barzun Index View Print Exit W r i t i n g g u i d e s • • 4 the Classic guide to the sound on the Page better Writing s tyle And vOiCe in Writing Ben Yagoda se t P-by-steP teCHniques And exerCises tO Write siMPly, CleArly, In writing, style matters. Our favorite writers And COrreCtly often entertain, move, and inspire us less by 50tH AnniversAry editiOn what they say than by how they say it. In The Rudolf Flesch & A. H. Lass Sound on the Page, acclaimed author, teacher, and critic Ben Yagoda offers practical and incisive Rudolf Flesch’s philosophy is simple: writing help for students on developing and discovering clearly and correctly doesn’t have to be difficult. their own style and voice. This wonderfully rich With this handbook of practical methods and and readable book features interviews with wisdom, students can learn to express themselves more than 40 of our most important authors on paper. discussing their literary style, including Dave The many examples and exercises included in Barry, Harold Bloom, Bill Bryson, Michael this book will guide them through the writing Chabon, Jamaica Kincaid, and Anna Quindlen. process: getting started; organizing ideas; “this entertaining and instructive book connecting ideas; choosing the right tone; should be part of any writing collection.”—Library Journal making meaning clear; giving writing flair and punch; and using correct grammar. Harper paperbacks: 304 pp. Collins Reference: 320 pp.; index. 2005 978-0-06-093822-2 pb, $14.99 ($18.99 Can.) 1996 978-0-06-273048-0 pb, $13.99 ($17.99 Can.) ResouRces foR The ClassiC Guide To Better WriTinG ResouRces foR The Sound on The Page Browse Inside the Book Browse Inside the Page Request a Desk Copy Request a Desk Copy Order an Examination Copy Order an Examination Copy Wikipedia Entry for Rudolf Flesch Ben Yagoda’s Website Index View Print Exit W r i t i n g g u i d e s • • 5 Writing for your life Writing your life dsO i C vering tHe stOry Of yOur Putting yOur PAst On PAPer life’s JOurney Lou Willett Stanek, Ph.D.