Filled with practical advice from an award-winning playwright, with a range of resources to guide you in the craft and business of theatre writing, The Art of Writing for the Theatre provides everything you need to write like a seasoned theatre professional, including: * how to analyze and break down a script * how to write a wide range of plays * how to critique a theatre production * how to construct and craft critical essays, cover letters, and theatrical resumes This thorough introduction is supplemented with exercises and new interviews with a host of internationally acclaimed playwrights, lyricists, and critics, including Marsha Norman, Beth Henley, Lyn Gardner, Octavio Solis, Ismail Khalidi, and David Zippel, among many others. Accompanying online resources include playwriting and script analysis worksheets and exercises, an example of a playwriting resume, and critical points to consider on playwriting, design, acting, directing and choreography.

In writing, style matters. Our favorite writers often entertain, move, and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it. In The Sound on the Page, acclaimed author, teacher, and critic Ben Yagoda offers practical and incisive help for writers on developing and discovering their own style and voice. This wonderfully rich and readable book features interviews with more than 40 of our most important authors discussing their literary style, including: Dave BarryHarold BloomSupreme Court Justice Stephen BreyerBill BrysonMichael ChabonAndrei CodrescuJunot DiazAdam GopnikJamaica KincaidMichael KinsleyElmore LeonardElizabeth McCracken Susan OrleanCynthia OzickAnna QuindlenJonathan RabanDavid ThomsonTobias Wolff

Exploring College Writing: Reading, Writing and Researching across the Curriculum is a rhetoric for first-year and sophomore composition courses that uses a constructivist, ethnographic approach to introducing students to academic reading, writing, and researching. This text will be especially useful to composition instructors who wish to provide students with both a general overview of academic discourse and an introduction to the purposes, audiences, and genres of writing across disciplines. This textbook works from the premise that the best way to initiate students to academic discourse is to have them explore academic literacies using an ethnographic, fieldwork approach to their own institution. Students are cast in the role of researchers, exploring their own experiences as college writers and investigating writing in General Education and in their prospective majors. The book provides instructors and students sequences of engaging and exploratory Writing to LearnA" and Learn by DoingA" activities and formal, extended writing projects that ask students to interview professors, analyze writing assignments, and reflect on their own reading, writing, and researching processes and histories. These writing projects connect to students' interests, experiences, and goals and provide them with a sense of purpose and audience for writing.

This volume describes in detail teaching philosophies, curricular structures, research approaches and organizational models used in European countries. It offers concrete teaching strategies and examples: from individual tutorials to large classes, from face-to-face to web-based teaching, and addresses educational and cultural differences between writing instruction in Europe and the US.

"Surviving Your Thesis" is an invaluable resource for those undertaking a higher degree research qualification, as it describes clearly the challenges and complexities of successfully engaging in both the research process and thesis writing.
Taking a highly practical approach and tone, it covers all of the common problems facing every researcher working on a project or dissertation, and guides readers in both a helpful and challenging way. Issues covered include choosing a topic, quantitative and qualitative analysis and the ethics of research as well as more personal issues such as the psychological and emotional aspects of research projects, writers' block, energy levels and studying in another culture.
Drawing from the authors' many years of experience guiding students towards a successful end, this book is helpful for those already undertaking research projects and those deciding what is the right route for them.

Harvey S. Wiener shows how parents can encourage their children to write with a home program that can be used from preschool through high school. Beginning with the building of attitudes, Wiener moves through simple, varied and practical experience with the written word. By setting up an atmosphere in the home that encourages creative written expression, coupled with a parent's guidance in writing, children gain an outlook on writing that builds confidence in their abilities to use language.

This new edition addresses many heated issues about children's education and touches on today's critical debates: parents' roles in school preparations, the increased stress on writing assessment and performance measures throughout a child's education and across school sectors, and the debate over phonics. A revised and expanded section called "Key Books for Young Writers and Their Parents" will help any family stock its shelves with useful books for a home writing program.

A new chapter discusses the ubiquity of home computers and word processing programs and assesses their positive and negative influences on children's home learning experiences. In addition, Wiener describes how to find the best educational online resources and how to supervise a child's work on the Internet. Furthermore, he emphasizes the importance of collaboration--child and parent, child and sibling--to help avoid computer abuse and establish good computer practices. Finally, he integrates discussion on computers through the text, and also offers writing exercises and samples for children to obtain from Oxford's website.

Madsen's book should be welcome both to graduate students about to undertake dissertations and to faculty needing to learn the role of thesis adviser. . . . Madsen tells how to propose, outline, write, defAnd, and possibly publish a dissertation, information which should save graduate students years, pain, and money.
--Library Journal

Developmental Perspectives on Writing LILIANA TOLCHINSKY University of Barcelona, Spain The advent of the sixties is considered a crucial moment for the discovery of writing as an object worthy of intellectual inquiry (Havelock, 1986). A number of books, which came out in that decade, set the stage for this turn-to-writing. One of them was the Preface to Plato by Eric Havelock. This book, published in 1963, was to become a milestone in the discovery of literacy as a field of research (Bockheimer, 1998). Havelock (1986) referred to three more works that came out at the same time, and Bockheimer suggested adding other publications; for example La pensee sau vage by Levi Strauss (1962); The consequences of literacy by Jack Goody and Ian Watt (1963) and La geste et la parole by Laroi -Gourham (1964/65). The authors of these books were anthropologists, philosophers and sociologists who coincided in highlighting the significance of writing for human development and, more specifically, for language development. They maintained that many insti tutions, ideas, beliefs, opinions and convictions of the Western world were a by product of an 'alphabetized mind'. Writing was for them one of the pillars of subjec tivity, responsible for the rise of consciousness, for our conception of words and for our notion of true and false. Amazingly linguists, psycho linguists, psychologists and educators did not participate in the turn-to-writing. The firstl, did not give any atten- 1 There were some exceptions to this generalization."

Text Therapeutics was written specifically for medical science professionals whose mother tongue is not English. Its objective is to assist non-native English- speaking physicians or scientists in the task of writing research documents for medical journals and/or oral presentations for medical congresses. Text Therapeutics incorporates a simplified methodology, which: provides a follow-the-formula' analysis and gives concise explanations; offers convenient categorized side-headings which pinpoint the English text problem; and utilizes a format which is easily understood and applicable to any medical field. Text Therapeutics includes additional sections: Word Order; Useful Usage; A-Ω An English Lexicon - Words derived from Greek; and A-Z Glossary Guide - Instructions for Authors'.

The crash of an Amtrak train near Baltimore, the collapse of the Hyatt hotel in Kansas City, the incident at Three Mile Island, and other large-scale technological disasters have provided powerful examples of the ways that communication practices influence the events and decisions that precipitate a disaster. These examples have raised ethical questions about the responsibility of writers within agencies, epistemological questions about the nature of representation in science, and rhetorical questions about the nature of expertise and experience as grounds for judgments about risk.
In "The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments, " author Beverly Sauer examines how the dynamic uncertainty of the material environment affects communication in large regulatory industries. Sauer's analysis focuses specifically on mine safety, which provides a rich technical and historical context where problems of rhetorical agency, narrative, and the negotiation of meaning have visible and tragic outcomes. But the questions Sauer asks have larger implication for risk and safety: How does writing function in large regulatory industries? What can we learn from experience? Why is this experience so difficult to capture in writing? What information is lost when agencies rely on written documentation alone? Given the uncertainties, how can we work to improve communication in hazardous and uncertain environments?
By exploring how individuals make sense of the material, technical, and institutional indeterminancies of their work in speech and gesture, "The Rhetoric of Risk" helps communicators rethink their frequently unquestioned assumptions about workplace discourse and the role of writers in hazardous worksites. It is intended for scholars and students in technical writing and communication, rhetoric, risk analysis and risk communication, as well as a wide range of engineering and technical fields concerned with risk, safety, and uncertainty.

This book is an outstanding account of the current state of using writing in service of learning. It presents psychological and educational foundations of writing across the curriculum movement and describes writing-to-learn practices implemented at different levels of education. It provides concrete applications and ideas about how to enhance student learning by means of writing. It is useful for educators, curriculum developers, psychologists, cognitive scientists, writing researchers, and teachers.

Written corrective feedback (CF) is a written response to a linguistic error that has been made in the writing of a text by a second language (L2) learner. This book aims to further our understanding of whether or not written CF has the potential to facilitate L2 development over time. Chapters draw on cognitive and sociocultural theoretical perspectives and review empirical research to determine whether or not, and the extent to which, written CF has been found to assist L2 development. Cognitive processing conditions are considered in the examination of its effectiveness, as well as context-related and individual learner factors or variables that have been hypothesised and shown to facilitate or impede the effectiveness of written CF for L2 development.

Student Writing presents an accessible and thought-provoking study of academic writing practices. Informed by 'composition' research from the US and 'academic literacies studies'from the UK, the book challenges current official discourse on writing as a 'skill'. Lillis argues for an approach which sees student writing as social practice.
The book draws extensively on a three-year study with ten non-traditional students in higher education and their experience of academic writing. Using case-study material - including literacy history interviews, extended discussions with students about their writing of discipline specific essays, and extracts from essays - Lillis identifies the following as three significant dimensions to academic writing:
Access to higher education and to its language and literacy representational resources
Regulation of meaning making in academic writing
rrent Desire for participation in higher education and for choices over ways of meaning in academic writing.
Student Writing: access, regulation, desire raises questions about why academics write as they do, who benefits from such writing, which meanings are valued and how, on what terms 'outsiders' get to be 'insiders' and at what costs. Theresa M. Lillis is Lecturer in language and education at the Centre for Language and Communications at the Open University.

The goal of teaching writing is to create independent and self-motivated writers. When students write more often, they become better at writing. They acquire habits, skills, and strategies that enable them to learn more about the craft of writing. Yet they require the guidance and support of a more knowledgeable person who understands the writing process, the changes over time in writing development, and specific techniques and procedures for teaching writing.

In "Scaffolding Young Writers: A Writers' Workshop Approach," Linda J. Dorn and Carla Soffos present a clear road map for implementing writers' workshop in the primary grades.

Adopting an apprenticeship approach, the authors show how explicit teaching, good models, clear demonstrations, established routines, assisted teaching followed by independent practice, and self-regulated learning are all fundamental in establishing a successful writers' workshop. There is a detailed chapter on organizing for writers' workshop, including materials, components, routines, and procedures. Other chapters provide explicit guidelines for designing productive mini-lessons and student conferences.

"Scaffolding Young Writers" also features:

• an overview of how children become writers;
• analyses of students' samples according to informal and formal writing assessments;
• writing checklists, benchmark behaviors, and rubrics based on national standards;
• examples of teaching interactions during mini-lessons and writing conferences;
• illustrations of completed forms and checklists with detailed descriptions, and blank reproducible forms in the appendix for classroom use.

Instruction is linked withassessment throughout the book, so that all teaching interactions are grounded in what children already know and what they need to know as they develop into independent writers.

Short-Form Creative Writing: A Writer's Guide and Anthology is a complete introduction to the art and craft of extremely compressed works of imaginative literature. H. K. Hummel and Stephanie Lenox introduce both traditional and innovative approaches to the short form and demonstrate how it possesses structure, logic, and coherence while simultaneously resisting expectations. With discussion questions, writing prompts, flash interviews, and illustrated key concepts, the book covers: - Prose poetry - Flash fiction - Micro memoir - Lyric essay - Cross-genre/hybrid writing . . . and much more. Short-Form Creative Writing also includes an anthology, offering inspiring examples of short-form writing in all of the styles covered by the book, including work by Charles Baudelaire, Italo Calvino, Lydia Davis, Grant Faulkner, Ilya Kaminsky, Jamaica Kinkaid , and many others.

This book explains, in simple and straightforward terms, that the executive summary is not just short, it is concise; it is not just condensed, it is exact. The reader of a well-written executive summary is able to act instantly and responsibly on the basis of the relevant, accurate, and time-efficient information it encapsulates. The message of this book is clear: anything short of precision will not do; anything longer wastes time.

Information design is an emerging area in technical communication, garnering increased attention in recent times as more information is presented through both old and new media. In this volume, editors Michael J. Albers and Beth Mazur bring together scholars and practitioners to explore the issues facing those in this exciting new field.
Treating information as it applies to technical communication, with a special emphasis on computer-centric industries, this volume delves into the role of information design in assisting with concepts, such as usability, documenting procedures, and designing for users. Influential members in the technical communication field examine such issues as the application of information design in structuring technical material; innovative ways of integrating information design within development methodologies and social aspects of the workplace; and theoretical approaches that include a practical application of information design, emphasizing the intersection of information design theories and workplace reality. This collection approaches information design from the language-based technical communication side, emphasizing the role of content as it relates to complexity in information design. As such, it treats as paramount the rhetorical and contextual strategies required for the effective design and transmission of information.
"Content and Complexity: Information Design in Technical Communication" explores both theoretical perspectives, as well as the practicalities of information design in areas relevant to technical communicators. This integration of theoretical and applied components make it a practical resource for students, educators, academic researchers, and practitioners in the technical communication and information design fields.

This edited volume focuses on writing Chinese as a second language (L2). It provides readers with cutting-edge empirical research and insightful teaching methods and strategies for effectively developing L2 writing competence in L2 Chinese classroom contexts. The themes encompass heritage versus foreign language writers, individual versus collaborative writing, writing as process versus writing as product, writing-focused intervention and written corrective feedback in L2 Chinese classrooms, as well as online writing instruction during and beyond the pandemic. In addition to providing meaningful and innovative contributions for graduate students and researchers who wish to further explore learners' writing development in L2 Chinese, each chapter offers practical, detailed and insightful pedagogical recommendations to assist language teachers and educators, graduate students and research scholars in making well-informed decisions on writing instruction in L2 Chinese and to facilitate the implementation of writing-focused activities within classrooms.

Whether you are learning writing skills or teaching them, telling a life story can be a great beginning. These techniques are especially helpful in schools because, when students learn to express themselves, self-esteem flourishes and learning becomes a pleasure. This method has been tested in high schools and pleasure. This method has been tested in high schools and adult literacy programs as well as with special education, multi-ethnic, and gifted students. Teachers will value the many sample topics, examples of drafts, and student essays. The book can be used for homeschooling.

This book provides an alternative to the more conventional modes of qualitative and quantitative inquiry currently used in professional training programs, particularly in education. It features a very accessible presentation that combines application, rationale, critique, and inspiration-and is itself an example of this kind of writing. It teaches students how to use personal writing in order to analyse, explicate, and advance their ideas. And it encourages minority students, women, and others to find and express their authentic voices by teaching them to use their own lives as primary resources for their scholarship.

This book provides an alternative to the more conventional modes of qualitative and quantitative inquiry currently used in professional training programs, particularly in education. It features a very accessible presentation that combines application, rationale, critique, and inspiration-and is itself an example of this kind of writing. It teaches students how to use personal writing in order to analyse, explicate, and advance their ideas. And it encourages minority students, women, and others to find and express their authentic voices by teaching them to use their own lives as primary resources for their scholarship.

American author Kurt Vonnegut has famously declared that writing is unteachable, yet formal education persists in that task. Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination is the culmination of P.L. Thomas's experiences as both a writer and a teacher of writing reaching into the fourth decade of struggling with both. This volume collects essays that examine the enduring and contemporary questions facing writing teachers, including grammar instruction, authentic practices in high-stakes environments, student choice, citation and plagiarism, the five-paragraph essay, grading, and the intersections of being a writer and teaching writing. Thomas offers concrete classroom experiences drawn from teaching high school ELA, first-year composition, and a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses. Ultimately, however, the essays are a reflection of Thomas's journey and a concession to both writing and teaching writing as journeys without ultimate destinations.

American author Kurt Vonnegut has famously declared that writing is unteachable, yet formal education persists in that task. Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination is the culmination of P.L. Thomas's experiences as both a writer and a teacher of writing reaching into the fourth decade of struggling with both. This volume collects essays that examine the enduring and contemporary questions facing writing teachers, including grammar instruction, authentic practices in high-stakes environments, student choice, citation and plagiarism, the five-paragraph essay, grading, and the intersections of being a writer and teaching writing. Thomas offers concrete classroom experiences drawn from teaching high school ELA, first-year composition, and a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses. Ultimately, however, the essays are a reflection of Thomas's journey and a concession to both writing and teaching writing as journeys without ultimate destinations.

'Variety is the spice of life. Spice up your creative writing lessons with the many varied experiences offered by the books in this grouping. 'Write stories, draw and write about it, write in a journal, write in a science log, write at a special center, do a 10-minute writings every day. All these experiences and more are offered in these outstanding resources.

In this volume, nine commissioned essays introduce the non-specialist to the rapidly evolving field of composition studies, discussing the nature of the field, the relationship between composition and rhetoric and between theory and practice, the history of the discipline, its bibliographic sources and problems, its methods of research, teaching writing, and the politics of the profession. A concluding personal essay describes a life in the profession. Written by prominent authorities, these essays describe current developments in the field, outline the major issues, and suggest needed research. Most essays provide a brief bibligraphy of further readings. This important book gives students and teachers an invaluable overview of composition studies, a vital field of English and literacy education.