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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Well
If you have trouble putting your thoughts down on paper, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Well has everything you need to know to make writing of any kind as easy as thinking or speaking. This guide gives expert advice on making your writing as clear and persuasive as possible, whether it's a thank-you note, a school paper, or an executive briefing. It provides easy-to-follow guidelines on structure, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and style. You will find terrific tips on minimizing the time and energy taken up by tasks like research, note-taking, and proofreading.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 12, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 5, 2009
It definitely will benefit someone that's just starting out who wants to understand the basics of the craft.
August 22, 2024
This is a review of the 2000 edition. Sadly, my copy got water damaged. It's just barely readable, but not sellable. I still can't get the mold off of the bottom. What a pity.
Many of The Complete Idiot's Guides are tosses, but this one is actually helpful. Before it got water-damaged, it did help me when I was a freelance writer. Don't rely on software like Grammerly. They just aren't up to snuff. You want to make sure something is well-written, you have to do it the old fashioned way. This book can help.
The book isn't just for freelance writers, but also for students, business writing, writing letters to the editor, emails, that sort of thing. There certainly are many reviewers here on Goodreads that could benefit from reading this (myself included.)
Books about grammar, punctuation, editing and formatting are usually snooze-fests, but not this one. It's well organized, gets to the point, is often humerous, and gives examples, including example term papers. I admit that I've been so broke that I went over to The Dark Side and wrote term papers for rich, lazy kids. If you're a professional writer, you'll probably be stuck doing this too, so don't ignore the term paper stuff. Of course, I highly discourage any writer going as low as I did. Those sites eventually start cheating you. Since it's a legal grey area, you can't exactly appeal to any authority to get your money.
The book has some nice cartoons, but some repeat. There is an index, but it seems skimpy. The Table of Contents seems more thorough than the index. There is an interesting Appendix of word groups and homophones that get often get abused and misused.
Many of The Complete Idiot's Guides are tosses, but this one is actually helpful. Before it got water-damaged, it did help me when I was a freelance writer. Don't rely on software like Grammerly. They just aren't up to snuff. You want to make sure something is well-written, you have to do it the old fashioned way. This book can help.
The book isn't just for freelance writers, but also for students, business writing, writing letters to the editor, emails, that sort of thing. There certainly are many reviewers here on Goodreads that could benefit from reading this (myself included.)
Books about grammar, punctuation, editing and formatting are usually snooze-fests, but not this one. It's well organized, gets to the point, is often humerous, and gives examples, including example term papers. I admit that I've been so broke that I went over to The Dark Side and wrote term papers for rich, lazy kids. If you're a professional writer, you'll probably be stuck doing this too, so don't ignore the term paper stuff. Of course, I highly discourage any writer going as low as I did. Those sites eventually start cheating you. Since it's a legal grey area, you can't exactly appeal to any authority to get your money.
The book has some nice cartoons, but some repeat. There is an index, but it seems skimpy. The Table of Contents seems more thorough than the index. There is an interesting Appendix of word groups and homophones that get often get abused and misused.
February 17, 2013
Pretty good book. :)
December 27, 2014
This book was recommended by a blog I read. It was helpful...which probably means I can be easily identified with other idiots.
April 28, 2017
This is a good reference book for improving writing skills. Contains helpful info ranging from sentence structure, forming paragraphs, to word usage and how to engage the reader.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews