This bestselling brief text is for anyone who needs tips to improve writing. Writing with Style is storehouse of practical writing tips—written in a lively, conversational style. This text provides insight into: how to generate interesting ideas and get them down on paper; how to write a critical analysis; how to write a crisp opener; how to invigorate a dull style; how to punctuate with confidence; how to handle various conventions—and much more.

“A rich, generous book about writing and reading and Kurt Vonnegut as writer, teacher, and friend . . . Every page brings pleasure and insight.”—Gail Godwin, New York Times bestselling author Here is an entirely new side of Kurt Vonnegut, Vonnegut as a teacher of writing. Of course he’s given us glimpses before, with aphorisms and short essays and articles and in his speeches. But never before has an entire book been devoted to Kurt Vonnegut the teacher. Here is pretty much everything Vonnegut ever said or wrote having to do with the writing art and craft, altogether a healing, a nourishing expedition. His former student, Suzanne McConnell, has outfitted us for the journey, and in these 37 chapters covers the waterfront of how one American writer brought himself to the pinnacle of the writing art, and we can all benefit as a result. Kurt Vonnegut was one of the few grandmasters of American literature, whose novels continue to influence new generations about the ways in which our imaginations can help us to live. Few aspects of his contribution have not been plumbed—fourteen novels, collections of his speeches, his essays, his letters, his plays—so this fresh view of him is a bonanza for writers and readers and Vonnegut fans everywhere. “Part homage, part memoir, and a 100% guide to making art with words, Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style is a simply mesmerizing book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough!”—Andre Dubus III, #1 New York Times bestselling author “The blend of memory, fact, keen observation, spellbinding descriptiveness and zany characters that populated Vonnegut’s work is on full display here.”—James McBride, National Book Award-winning author

A Style Guide with Style Writing With Style: An Editor's Advice for RPG Writers presents 45 pages of concise tips on simple ways to make your roleplaying game writing cleaner and clearer. This guide doesn't show you how to structure adventures, build stat blocks, or create worlds. Instead, Ray Vallese looks at some of the most common and easily fixable grammar and style issues he's encountered in over twenty years of editing RPGs.Rookie freelancers, industry veterans, and self-publishers alike can benefit from this (mostly) jargon-free guide, which addresses such topics as:* Recasting passive voice into active voice (and when you might not want to)* Dangling participles and other misplaced modifiers* Gender-specific and gender-neutral language* Commonly confused words, empty words, and clich�s to avoid* Choice and possibility in player character actions* Final things to check before submitting your manuscriptTighten and polish your text with these quick and easy tips!

OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD Why are the best words short and old? Why are full stops a writer's best friend? How can we simplify, then exaggerate? And what exactly are dangling modifiers? We'd all like to write with style. But what does that mean, and what can we learn from The Economist, a publication well known for its clarity and flair? Welcome to Writing with Style, an elegant survey of the principles available for writing better prose. By adopting some tried and tested tools and techniques, you too can learn how to inform, persuade and entertain when you write. Whether you want to know your singulars from your subjunctives, how colons add drama or why the word "comprise" is contaminated, this is the style guide for you.

"This alternative plan for teaching writing combines the best elements of old-fashioned writing instruction with innovative new educational methods and explains why so many writing programs fail" -- p. [4] of cover.

Many books offer instruction on how to use software programs to build Web sites, podcasts, and illustrations. But 'Writing for the Web' explains when and why an author might choose an illustration over a photograph, motion graphics over text, or a slice of Beethoven's Fifth over the sound of a bubbling brook. Focusing on storytelling techniques that work best for digital media, this book describes the essential skills and tools in a Web author's toolbox, including a thorough understanding of grammar and style, a critical eye for photography, and an ear for just the right sound byte for a podcast.

Writing with Clarity and Style, 2nd Edition, will help you to improve your writing dramatically. The book shows you how to use dozens of classical rhetorical devices to bring power, clarity, and effectiveness to your writing. You will also learn about writing styles, authorial personas, and sentence syntax as tools to make your writing interesting and persuasive. If you want to improve the appeal and persuasion of your speeches, this is also the book for you. From strategic techniques for keeping your readers engaged as you change focus, down to the choice of just the right words and phrases for maximum impact, this book will help you develop a flexible, adaptable style for all the audiences you need to address. Each chapter now includes these sections: Style Check, discussing many elements of style, including some enhanced and revised sections Define Your Terms, asking students to use their own words and examples in their definitions. It's in the Cloud, directing students to the Web to locate and respond to various rhetorically focused items, including biographies and speeches. Salt and Pepper, spicing up the study of rhetoric by stretching students' thinking about how their writing can be improved, sometimes by attending to details such as punctuation, and sometimes by exploring the use of unusual techniques such as stylistic fragments. Review Questions, providing an end-of-chapter quiz to help cement the chapter ideas in long-term memory. Questions for Thought and Discussion, a set of questions designed for either in-class discussion or personal response. New to the Second Edition Additional examples of each device, including from world personalities and the captains of industry More and longer exercises, with a range of difficulty Advice from classical rhetoricians including Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Cicero, and Quintilian.

Commit to Your Writing Craft! To write with quiet hands is to embrace the journey all writers must take: from seeking inspiration and shaping raw material to cultivating a personal support network, navigating the various pathways to publication, and committing to a lifelong practice. In Writing with Quiet Hands, author and literary agent Paula Munier helps you hone your words into well-crafted stories and balance this satisfying work with the realities and challenges of the publishing world. You'll learn how to tame your muse, manage your time wisely, and treat your practice with the seriousness it deserves. You'll develop a distinct voice, write with style and substance, employ the tenets of strong structure, and engage your readers by injecting narrative thrust into your stories. You'll explore the finer aspects of craft, refine your work, and boldly bridge the gap between published and unpublished. From drafting and revising to querying agents, you'll discover the secrets to writing artfully, and publishing bravely. Fulfilling and rewarding writing careers are forged from the successful marriage of craft and business know-how. Are you ready to embark on your journey, armed with both grace and grit? Are you ready to write with quiet hands? "Writing with Quiet Hands is loaded tips and tools, firsthand experience, and down-to-earth advice from a writer, editor, and agent who's seen it from all sides. Paula Munier gives it to you straight as she dissects the inspiration, perspiration, and dogged determination it takes to set and meet your writing goals. This book will keep you sane." --Hallie Ephron, New York Times best-selling author of Night Night, Sleep Tight

Writing in Response is a flexible, brief rhetoric that offers a unique focus on the critical practices of experienced readers—analysis and reflection—the skills at the heart of academic writing. It helps students compose academic essays by showing how active reading and exploratory writing bring fresh ideas to light and how informal response is developed into polished, documented prose. Extensively class tested, Writing in Response emphasizes the key techniques common to reading, thinking, and writing throughout the humanities and social sciences by teaching students the value of a social, incremental, and recursive writing process. Read the preface.

The leading guide to clear writing!--StartFragment --—and clear thinking!--StartFragment --—in the legal profession for more than two decades, now newly updated. Admirably clear, concise, down-to-earth, and powerful—all too often, legal writing embodies none of these qualities. Its reputation for obscurity and needless legalese is widespread. Since 2001, Bryan A. Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English has helped address this problem by providing lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. Now the leading guide to clear writing in the field, this indispensable volume encourages legal writers to challenge conventions and offers valuable insights into the writing process: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. Accessible and witty, Legal Writing in Plain English draws on real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching experience. Trenchant advice covers all types of legal materials, from analytical and persuasive writing to legal drafting, and the book’s principles are reinforced by sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section. For this third edition, Garner has retained the structure of the previous versions, with updates and new material throughout. There are new sections on making your writing vivid and concrete and on using graphics to enhance your argument. The coverage and examples of key topics such as achieving parallelism, avoiding legalese, writing effective openers and summaries, and weaving quotations into your text have also been expanded. And the sample legal documents and exercises have been updated, while newly added checklists provide quick summaries of each section. Altogether, this new edition will be the most useful yet for legal professionals and students seeking to improve their prose.