Longman Pocket Writer's Companion, The, 3rd Edition

The journey to better grades starts here.

Since writing and research is part of almost every college course, you need an accessible, easy-to-understand reference guide that can provide answers to the many grammar, writing, researching and documentation questions you’ll have. The Longman Pocket Writer’s Companion is an inexpensive, pocket-sized guide that answers all your writing questions and more.  Offering a distinctive focus on writing for different audiences — academic, public, and workplace — this handbook enables you to communicate more effectively, while its superior support for writing across the curriculum and up-to-date documentation coverage will help you get better grades in all of your courses.

 

Why You Need this New Edition

 

A new Ten Serious Errors section helps you recognize and correct major errors that make it hard for readers to understand your writing, including fragments, run-ons, unnecessary commas, and more.

 

A new chapter on Assessing Writing (Ch. 10) offers you strategies for seeing your own writing objectively as well as tips for anticipating how others might evaluate your work. 

 

A new chapter on Writing for General Education Courses (Ch. 8) helps you analyze your college assignments.  You’ll also find tips to help you with the most common writing tasks across the General Education curriculum (such as writing summaries, annotated bibliographies, and essay exams) helping you to write more effectively in all your courses.  

 

A new chapter on Writing in the Disciplines (Ch. 9) will help you write papers common in the majors (such as interpretations, textual and visual analyses, abstracts, lab reports, and researched reports) to set you up for success as your college career progresses.

 

New documentation entries illustrate how to cite sources such as blogs and podcasts, genres so new that they aren’t covered in many texts. 

 

New student sample pages in the CMS and CSE Style chapters (Chs 19, 20) ensure that you see sample student research writing in all four of the major academic documentation styles.

 

New Source Samples in the MLA and APA Style chapters (Chs 17, 18) show you where in the original source you can find all the information you need for citation.

Handbook Menu

Guide for Using This Handbook

 

Part 1: Writing and Reading

 

1.  Writing and Reading in Communities

            1a. Understanding your writing situation

            1b. Moving from reading to writing

            1c. Paying attention to the writing process

 

2.  Developing a Thesis

            2a. Creating a thesis statement

            2b. Designing an appropriate thesis

 

3.  Providing Support and Reasoning Clearly

            3a. Reasoning critically

            3b. Providing support

            3c. Evaluating support

 

4.  Paragraphing for Readers

            4a. Focusing paragraphs

            4b. Making paragraphs coherent

            4c. Developing paragraphs

 

5.  Matching Style and Strategy to a Community of Readers

            5a. Recognizing a community’s style

            5b. Adjusting to a community’s style

            5c. Recognizing a community’s expectations

 

6.  Designing Documents for Readers

            6a. Planning your document

            6b. Laying out your document

            6c. Using type features

            6d. Using visuals

            6e. Sample documents

 

7.  Constructing an Argument

            7a. Identifying an issue

            7b. Developing an argumentative thesis

            7c. Developing reasons and supporting evidence

            7d. Presenting counterarguments

            7e. Reasoning logically

 

8. Writing for General Education Courses

            8a. General academic writing assignments

            8b. Writing goals and plans

            8c. Common types of general academic writing

 

9. Writing in the Disciplines

            9a. Writing in the arts and humanities

            9b. Common types of writing in the arts and humanities

            9c. Writing in the natural and social sciences

            9d. Common types of writing in the natural and social sciences

 

10. Assessing Writing

            10a. Assessing your own writing

            10b. Assessing someone else’s writing

            10c. Understanding how others assess your writing

            10d. Assessing your portfolio

 

Part 2: Conducting Research 

 

11.  Planning and Conducting Research

11a. Recognizing research topics

11b. Identifying keywords

11c. Developing research questions

11d. Developing critical search strategies

11e. Maintaining a working bibliography

11f. Keeping track of sources and notes

11g. Assembling your research materials

 

12.  Finding Library and Database Resources

            12a. Finding library resources

            12b. Locating books and documents

            12c. Locating periodicals and other documents

            12d. Finding research databases

            12e. Locating databases for articles and documents

 

13.  Finding Web Resources

            13a. Finding Web and Internet resources

            13b. Searching efficiently

13c. Locating appropriate Web resources

 

14.  Reading and Synthesizing Sources

            14a. Summarizing

            14b. Paraphrasing

            14c. Synthesizing

            14d. Questioning

 

15.  Evaluating Sources Critically

            15a. Evaluating appropriateness

            15b. Evaluating accuracy and reliability

            15c. Evaluating search engine results.

            15d. Evaluating point of view or bias

            15e. Evaluating Web sources critically

            15f. Turning inquiry into writing

 

16.  Avoiding Plagiarism and Integrating Sources

            16a. Avoiding plagiarism

            16b. Deciding what to document

            16c. Documenting sources for different audiences

            16d. Integrating quotations

            16e. Integrating sources into your text

            16f. Integrating visual and webbed sources

           

Part 3: Documenting Sources

 

17.  MLA Style

            Guide to MLA Formats

            17a. MLA in-text (parenthetical) citations

            17b. MLA list of works cited

            17c. MLA sample pages

 

18.  APA Style

            Guide to APA Formats

            18a. APA in-text (parenthetical) citations

            18b. APA reference list

            18c. APA sample pages

 

19.  CMS Style

            Guide to CMS Formats

            19a. CMS notes

            19b. CMS bibliography

            19c. CMS sample pages

 

20.  CSE Style

            Guide to CSE Formats

            20a. CSE in-text citations

            20b. CSE reference list

            20c. CSE sample pages

 

Part 4: Writing Correctly

 

21.  Fragments

            21a. Recognizing sentence fragments

            21b. Editing sentence fragments

            21c. Using partial sentences

 

22.  Comma Splices and Fused Sentences

            22a. Recognizing comma splices

            22b. Recognizing fused sentences

            22c. Editing comma splices and fused sentences

 

23.  Pronoun Reference

            23a. Recognizing unclear pronoun reference

            23b. Editing pronoun reference

 

24.  Agreement

            24a. Recognizing agreement

            24b. Editing subject-verb agreement

            24c. Editing pronoun-antecedent agreement

 

25.  Correct Forms

            25a. Recognizing and editing verb forms

            25b. Editing for clear tense sequence

            25c. Recognizing pronoun forms

            25d. Editing pronoun forms

            25e. Recognizing adjectives and adverbs

            25f. Editing adjectives and adverbs

            25g. Recognizing and editing comparisons

 

Part 5: Writing Clearly

 

26.  Clear Sentences

            26a. Recognizing unclear sentences

            26b. Editing for clear sentences

 

27.  Mixed Structures

            27a. Recognizing mixed and incomplete sentences

27b. Editing mixed and incomplete sentences

 

28.  Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers

            28a. Recognizing misplaced modifiers

            28b. Editing misplaced modifiers

 

29.  Unnecessary Shifts

            29a. Recognizing shifts in person and number

            29b. Editing shifts in person and number

29c. Recognizing shifts in tense

            29d. Editing shifts in tense

 

30.  Parallelism

            30a. Recognizing faulty parallelism

            30b. Editing for parallelism

 

31.  Coordination and Subordination

            31a. Recognizing coordination

            31b. Recognizing subordination

            31c. Editing for coordination and subordination

 

32.  Conciseness

            32a. Recognizing wordiness

            32b. Editing for conciseness

 

33. Language Choices

            33a. Recognizing and editing language varieties

            33b. Recognizing and editing disrespectful language

 

Part 6: Writing with Conventions

 

34.  Commas

            34a. Recognizing commas that join sentences

            34b. Editing commas that join sentences

            34c. Recognizing commas that set off sentence elements

            34d. Editing commas that set off sentence elements

            34e. Editing disruptive commas

            34f. Editing commas with words in a series

 

35.  Semicolons and Colons

            35a. Recognizing semicolons that join sentences

            35b. Editing semicolons that join sentences

            35c. Editing semicolons in a complex series

            35d. Recognizing and editing colons

 

36.  Apostrophes

            36a. Recognizing apostrophes that mark possession

            36b. Editing apostrophes that mark possession

            36c. Recognizing apostrophes that mark contractions

            36d. Editing apostrophes that mark contractions

 

37.  Quotation Marks

            37a. Recognizing marks that set off quotations

            37b. Editing marks that set off quotations

            37c. Editing quotation marks with titles

 

38.  Italics and Underlining

            38a. Recognizing conventions for italics (underlining)

            38b. Editing for conventions for emphasis

 

39.  Capitals

            39a. Recognizing capitals that begin sentences

            39b. Editing capitals that begin sentences

            39c. Editing capitals that begin words

 

40.  Abbreviations

            40a. Recognizing and editing abbreviations

            40b. Editing to use abbreviations sparingly

 

41.  Numbers

            41a. Recognizing when to spell or use numbers

            41b. Editing numbers in general text

 

42.  Hyphens

            42a. Recognizing hyphens that join words

            42b. Editing hyphens that join words

            42c. Editing hyphens that divide words

 

43.  Spelling

            43a. Using the computer to proofread for spelling

            43b. Recognizing and editing spelling errors

 

44.  Other Marks and Conventions

            44a. Recognizing and editing parentheses

            44b. Recognizing and editing dashes

            44c. Recognizing and editing brackets

            44d. Recognizing and editing ellipses

            44e. Recognizing and editing slashes

            44f. Recognizing and editing end marks

            44g. Recognizing and editing electronic addresses

            44h. Combining marks

    

Ten Serious Errors

            1. Fragment

            2. Fused sentence

            3. Unclear pronoun reference

            4. Lack of subject-verb agreement

            5. Dangling modifier

            6. Shift

            7. Misused or missing apostrophe

            8. Unnecessary commas

            9. Misused or missing quotation marks

            10. Double negative

 

Glossary of Usage  and Terms

Index

Guide to ESL Advice

Detailed Contents

Symbols for Revising and Editing