1998 MLA DOCUMENTATION INCLUDED

Brief Contents

Preface

I THE WRITING PROCESS

1 A Writer's Questions

a Purpose
b Audience
c Situation
d Voice

2 The Writing Process

a Planning
b Drafting
c Researching
d Revising
e Editing
f Writing with computers
g When English is your second language ESL

3 Inventing And Discovering

a Brainstorming
b Freewriting ESL
c Looping
d Asking questions
e Outlining
f Clustering

4 Journal Writing

a Understanding journals
b Academic journals ESL
c Journal-writing activities

5 Recounting Experience

a Topic
b Character
c Perspective
d Setting
e Events
f Theme
g The paper (student essay)

6 Explaining Things

a Purpose
b Topic
c Thesis
d Strategies
e Organization
f Neutral perspective
g The paper (student essay)

7 Interpreting Texts

a Interpretive essays
b Text exploration
c Topic
d Interpretation
e The paper (student essay)

8 Arguing Positions

a Topic
b Issue analysis
c Argument
d Organization
e The paper (student essay)

9 Revising

a General strategies
b Focused strategies
c Tools

10 Editing

a Strategies
b Purposes
c Peer editing ESL

11 Portfolios And Publishing

a Preparation
b Books
c World Wide Web

II EDITING FOR EFFECTIVENESS

12 Openings and Conclusions

a Openings ESL
b Conclusions

13 Paragraphs

a Unity
b Organization
c Coherence ESL

14 Sentence Structure

a Coordination of equal ideas
b Effective coordination
c Subordination of ideas
d Effective subordination ESL
e Sentence flow
f Parallel structures
g Effective parallelism

15 Emphasis And Variety

a Sentence emphasis
b Sentence length
c Sentence types ESL
d Sentence openings

16 Vitality

a Concrete, specific nouns
and modifiers ESL
b Strong verbs
c Active or passive voice? ESL

17 Conciseness

a Vague generalities
b Idle words
c Redundancy
d Elliptical constructions
e Pretentious language
f Euphemisms

18 Word Choice

a Dictionary and thesaurus
b Word meanings
c Idioms ESL
d Slang, regionalisms,
and colloquialisms
e Jargon
f Figurative language
g Clichés

19 Unbiased Language

a Stereotypes
b Labels ESL
c Nonsexist language

20 Glossary Of Usage

III EDITING GRAMMAR

21 Sentence Fragments

a Fragments without verbs or subjects
b Dependent clause fragments ESL
c For special effects

22 Comma Splices And Fused Sentences

a With coordinating conjunction
b With semicolon
c With colon
d By separating sentences
e By using subordination
f By creating one independent clause