Some of the finest minds in the field present a provocative treatise on the practice and promise of journalism today. This book is an idealistic yet practical guide for journalism scholars, analysts, students, and professionals. Reflecting the mission of the Poynter Institute to educate journalists and media leaders to better serve the citizens of our democracy, its essays offer an inspiring vision of the practice and promise of journalism. From all corners of the fast-changing world of news gathering and publication, the contributors include some of the finest minds in American...

One of America's most influential writing teachers offers a toolbox from which writers of all kinds can draw practical inspiration. Writing is a craft you can learn, says Roy Peter Clark. You need tools, not rules. His book distills decades of experience into 50 tools that will help any writer become more fluent and effective. WRITING TOOLS covers everything from the most basic (Tool 5: Watch those adverbs) to the more complex (Tool 34: Turn your notebook into a camera) and provides more than 200 examples from literature and journalism to illustrate the concepts. For students, aspiring...

Both newspaper and magazine journalism in the nineteenth century fully participated in the development and emergence of American Realism in the arts, which attempted to accurately portray everyday life, especially in fiction. Magazines and newspapers provided the raw material for American Realism, but were also its early and vocal advocates. This symbiotic relationship reached its peak from 1890 to 1910, when writers who might be called the first literary journalists (or, much later, new journalists ) closed the circle by more fully adopting the fiction writer s style of attempting to show...

Early in the history of English, the words "grammar" and "glamour" meant the same thing: the power to charm. Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools and the forthcoming Help For Writers, aims to put the glamour back in grammar with this fun, engaging alternative to stuffy instructionals. Now in paperback, this widely praised practical guide demonstrates everything from the different parts of speech to why effective writers prefer concrete nouns and active verbs. Above all, Clark teaches readers how to master grammar to perfect their use of English, to instill meaning, and...

Roy Peter Clark, one of America's most influential writing teachers, draws writing lessons from 25 great texts.
Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In THE ART OF X-RAY READING, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita...