Do your sentences sag? Could your paragraphs use a pick-me-up? If so, The Writer's Diet is for you It's a short, sharp introduction to great writing that will help you energize your prose and boost your verbal fitness.

Helen Sword dispenses with excessive explanations and overwrought analysis. Instead, she offers an easy-to-follow set of writing principles: use active verbs whenever possible; favor concrete language over vague abstractions; avoid long strings of prepositional phrases; employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a...

Q. Is it "happy medium" or "happy median"? My author writes: "We would all be much better served as stewards of finite public funds if we could find that happy median where trust reigns supreme." Thanks
A. The idiom is "happy medium," but I like the image of commuters taking refuge from road rage on the happy median.
Q. How do I write a title of a song in the body of the work (caps, bold, underline, italics, etc.)? Example: The Zombies' "She's Not There" looped in his head.
A. Noooo Now that song is looping in my head ("but it's too late to say you're sorry . . ."). Use...

Over three and a half decades, Ted Conover has ridden the rails with hoboes, crossed the border with Mexican immigrants, guarded prisoners in Sing Sing, and inspected meat for the USDA. His books and articles chronicling these experiences, including the award-winning Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, have made him one of the premier practitioners of immersion reporting.

In immersion reporting--a literary cousin to ethnography, travel writing, and memoir--the writer fully steps into a new world or culture, participating in its trials, rites, and rituals as a member of the group. The end...

At a time when policy discussions are dominated by "I feel" instead of "I know," it is more important than ever for social scientists to make themselves heard. When those who possess in-depth training and expertise are excluded from public debates about pressing social issues--such as climate change, the prison system, or healthcare--vested interests can sway public opinion in uninformed ways. Yet few graduate students, researchers, or faculty know how to do this kind of work--or feel empowered to do it.

While there has been an increasing call for social scientists to engage more broadly...

All writers conduct research. For some this means poring over records and combing, archives but for many creative writers research happens in the everyday world--when they scribble an observation on the subway, when they travel to get the feel for a city, or when they strike up a conversation with an interesting stranger.

The Art of Creative Research helps writers take this natural inclination to explore and observe and turn it into a workable--and enjoyable--research plan. It shows that research shouldn't be seen as a dry, plodding aspect of writing. Instead, it's an art that all...

For more than a decade, The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science has been the go-to reference for anyone who needs to write or speak about their research. Whether a student writing a thesis, a faculty member composing a grant proposal, or a public information officer crafting a press release, Scott Montgomery's advice is perfectly adaptable to any scientific writer's needs.

This new edition has been thoroughly revised to address crucial issues in the changing landscape of scientific communication, with an increased focus on those writers working in corporate settings,...

Each year, tens of thousands of students who are interested in politics go through a rite of passage: they take a course in research methods. Many find the subject to be boring or confusing, and with good reason. Most of the standard books on research methods fail to highlight the most important concepts and questions. Instead, they brim with dry technical definitions and focus heavily on statistical analysis, slighting other valuable methods. This approach not only dulls potential enjoyment of the course, but prevents students from mastering the skills they need to engage more directly and...

With growing academic responsibilities, family commitments, and inboxes, scholars are struggling to fulfill their writing goals. A finished book--or even steady journal articles--may seem like an impossible dream. But, as Joli Jensen proves, it really is possible to write happily and productively in academe.

Jensen begins by busting the myth that universities are supportive writing environments. She points out that academia, an arena dedicated to scholarship, offers pressures that actually prevent scholarly writing. She shows how to acknowledge these less-than-ideal conditions, and how...

Writing, for most of us, is bound up with anxiety. It's even worse when it feels like your whole future--or at least where you'll spend the next four years in college--is on the line. It's easy to understand why so many high school seniors put off working on their applications until the last minute or end up with a generic and cliched essay.
The good news? You already have the "secret sauce" for crafting a compelling personal essay: your own experiences and your unique voice.
The best essays rarely catalog how students have succeeded or achieved. Good writing shows the reader how...

Will Dunne first brought the workshop experience down to the desk level with The Dramatic Writer's Companion, offering practical exercises to help playwrights and screenwriters work through the problems that arise in developing their scripts. Now writers looking to further enhance their storytelling process can turn to Character, Scene, and Story.

Featuring forty-two new workshop-tested exercises, this sequel to The Dramatic Writer's Companion allows writers to dig deeper into their scripts by fleshing out images, exploring characters from an emotional perspective,...