Original Content--How to Write an Excellent Essay, Story, or Squidoo Lens

'How to Write an Essay' is a book of lessons, model essays and writing topics to help students between Grades 5 and 12 to practise their essay writing technique. The book looks at story writing, short essays, information, explanation, discussion and argumentative essays, letters to friends, business letters, letters to the editor, science reports, job application letters and curriculum vitae, writers' techniques, poetry and prose analysis. If students attempt most of the essays in the book, they are bound to become better writers as a result of all their efforts.

The College Guide to Essay Writing is designed to teach college-level writing skills. The book lays out a straight-forward, easy-to-comprehend, step-by-step process for writing college-level essays. The book is based on years of practical application and testing on a wide variety of students. The text is an effective learning tool for high school students preparing for college courses, for parents home-schooling their children, and for college students working to improve their writing skills. The College Guide to Essay Writing presents a variety of methods for discovering topics, creating thesis statements and outlines, planning and organizing an essay, and improving writing style. Coverage includes: topic selection, thesis statements, outlines, organizational strategies, style (paragraphs, voice, and language), grammar and mechanics, research, editing, and MLA and APA Documentation (including detailed instructions and 47 examples).

How to Write is an introductory guide to writing, aimed at people who think they can't write, or for whom writing is an ordeal. Broken down into short topic-based chapters on everything from beginning to revising, it demystifies the writing process by taking the reader through each stage necessary to bring a piece of writing to a decent finish. The book also offers a wealth of invaluable practical considerations, including when and where to write, when to printout and when to edit onscreen, what type of pen works well for revisions, and the hazards of the paperclip. The author is a seasoned writer whose encouraging but uncompromising guidance will delight as well as instruct.
Offering practical advice in a lucid, no-nonsense style, How to Write will be ideal for both students and professional people who need to write during the course of their work.
Topic areas include:
How to begin, including prep work, producing drafts, and making outlines
Sentence construction, including word order, punctuation, and use of metaphors
Paragraph construction, including types of paragraphs, readability, and size reduction
Tips on research and using reference works

Whether you write an occasional professional letter or a daily newspaper column, William Zinsser's On Writing Well should be required reading. Simplicity is Zinsser's mantra: he preaches a stripped-down writing style, strong and clear. He has no patience for excess (most use of adjectives and adverbs, he writes, just adds clutter) or tired phraseology (for instance, he'd like to outlaw all leads involving those "future archaeologists" most often found "stumbl[ing] upon the remains of our civilization"). He recommends that all writers of nonfiction read their work aloud (don't commit something to paper that you wouldn't actually say) and write under the assumption that "the reader knows nothing" (not to be confused with assuming the reader's an idiot). In addition to the chapters on the expected--usage, audience, interviews, leads--Zinsser also focuses on such trouble spots as science and technical writing, business writing, sports, and humor.

Review
"On Writing Well belongs on any shelf of serious reference works for writers."

William Zinsser's journey to all the places where he has done his writing and his teaching begins in 1946, with his first job at the New York Herald Tribune, a community of legendary journalists and oddballs, in its postwar years of glory. Next came 11 years of freelance writing for magazines, mainly covering the turbulent 1960s for Life, a period that found the writer and his typewriter perched in many unusual locations.

After that he spent a decade at Yale University, where his office as master of Branford College was beneath a 44-bell carillon. At Yale he originated his famous "nonfiction workshop," which would launch the careers of many exceptional writers and editors. That course led to his classic book, On Writing Well, which he wrote during the summer of 1974 in a crude shed in Connecticut. In this new memoir Zinsser recalls the processes that went into creating that original edition and revising it over the next 30 years to keep pace with changes in the language and culture of America. His journey brings him back to New York City and to writing articles and books in quirky rented offices, one of which had a fire pole.

Written with humor and with gratitude for a lifetime of change and self-discovery, relishing a rich cast of characters that ranges from Yale's president Kingman Brewster to the actor Peter Sellers and the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Writing Places never loses its anchor in the craft of writing-how writing is taught, learned and finally brought to a high level of enjoyment.