The Broadview Guide to Writing - Softcover

The Broadview Guide to Writing is a concise yet uncommonly thorough text with a fresh approach to the craft of essay writing. The first part of the book discusses the style and structure of essay writing, and includes a useful discussion of the intangibles involved in the writing process―such as confidence, perseverance, and a willingness to deal with criticism constructively. The second part of the book provides thorough coverage of grammar and usage in a comprehensive reference guide, ranging from the simplest mechanical issues (such as subject-verb agreement) to subtle distinctions between words that have similar meanings. A wide range of examples is included throughout the book. The new edition includes a new sample essay (on the "Sensation" exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum), which is referred to frequently throughout the first section of the text in discussions of style and the writing process. Also included are entirely new sections on the writing conventions of different academic disciplines, and on special difficulties experienced by those whose first language is not English. Areas in which coverage has been significantly expanded include problems with capitalization; the subjunctive and conditional constructions; and the chapter on MLA style and other citation and documentation systems. In more modest ways the book has been updated and revised throughout. Exercises (previously available only in a separate short exercise book), will now also be available through the Broadview adjunct website.

Doug Babington is Director of the Writing Center at Queen’s University, and the author of articles both on writing and on literature. Don LePan is the author of The Cognitive Revolution in Western Culture (Macmillan, 1989) and of The Broadview Book of Common Errors in English (5/e, 2003).