Books about Revising from Amazon.com

"Fifteen minutes!" you say. "That's too good to be true!" Okay, author Joan Bolker admits she gave her book the title Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day to get the reader's attention And she admits that it's unlikely you'll actually finish a dissertation at that speed. As she tells her clients, however, a mere 15 minutes is much better than no writing at all when they're stuck. As a clinical psychologist who cofounded the Harvard Writing Center, Bolker has helped hundreds of writers complete their dissertations. She offers suggestions on how to create a writing addiction so that you feel incomplete if you don't write every day and stresses the need to set reasonable goals and deadlines for yourself to keep from getting discouraged. She also offers strategies for dealing with both internal and external distractions and for fending off writer's block. Even more important is the advice on some of the more awkward issues related to dissertation writing, such as how to choose your adviser carefully. (For example, when faced with the tradeoff between a famous advisor who is inaccessible and a less famous advisor who is willing to make time for you, Bolker advises, "If choosing a politically advantageous, famous advisor makes it unlikely that you'll complete your degree, it's clearly not worth it.") The book even includes a helpful appendix for advisers that could become the basis for an honest discussion of what student and adviser can expect from each other. Throughout this excellent book, Bolker acts as a therapist, cheerleader, and drill sergeant, all rolled into one.

While some of the book's advice is of interest only to dissertation writers, much of the information--on battling writer's block, for instance--is valuable to anybody engaged in writing. Rather than being filled with rules defining how to become a great writer, Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day is about finding the process by which you can be the most productive--it's a set of exercises that you can use to find out more about you and the way you write. Along the way, you'll do a bit of writing. And that's what matters, especially when you experience writer's block--as Bolker says, "Write anything, because writing is writing." With its helpful advice and supportive tone, Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day should be required reading for anyone considering writing a dissertation. --C.B. Delaney.
Price: $9.56 [Notify me when price goes down.]

How to write understandable and usable bylaws using a simple and tested formula; how to write and adopt amendments without causing more problems; how to chair a meeting to consider amendments or a revision; how to instruct committees; how to write and adopt a revision; and scripts for handling these and other motions..
Price: $16.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The aftermath of graduate school can be particularly trying for those under pressure to publish their dissertations Written with good cheer and jammed with information, this lively guide offers hard-to-find practical advice on successfully turning a dissertation into a book or journal articles that will appeal to publishers and readers. It will help prospective authors master writing and revision skills, better understand the publishing process, and increase their chances of getting their work into print. This edition features new tips and planning tables to facilitate project scheduling, and a new foreword by Sandford G. Thatcher, Director of Penn State University Press..
Price: $10.41 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When a written document reaches its audience, it needs to be word-perfect because spelling, grammar, and overall structure speak volumes about a writer's aptitude Most standardized tests require that test takers write an essay or complete a short written section. It is important that writers take the time to learn how to find and eliminate misspelled words, correct grammar, and organize thoughts..
Price: $9.18 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The elegantly written RANDOM HOUSE HANDBOOK, 6/e, offers a comprehensive guide to writing and style, as well as special applications..
Price: $24.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"True to its title, Revising Prose is about revising, not about original composition. It will not teach you how to pray for inspiration, marshall your thoughts, or find the willpower to glue backside to chair. All writers face these dragons in their own idiosyncratic ways. But revision belongs to the public domain. Anyone can learn it. Revising Prose teaches you how, using a simple, rule-based, eight-step process called "The Paramedic Method" that concentrates on turning the bureaucratic official style so common today in business and government writing into plain English. Its focus on the individual sentence enables you to identify the surplus verbiage (what Lanham calls the Lard Factor) in an effort like this:

The history of new regulatory provisions is that there is generally an immediate resistance to them.

And turn it into this:

People usually resist new regulations.

A Lard Factor of 69%. Lanham's method aims to eliminate 50% from most writing, to create a sentence half as long and twice as strong. A saving of 50% in writing time, in reading time, in paper and screen space, in human patience and understanding-it all adds up to real money. It also adds up to a more persuasive and amiable presentation of self, as Revising Prose argues in its final chapter.

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Price: $7.42 [Notify me when price goes down.]

As its title implies, this book deals with revising, not with original composition. In business writing, where a first draft often emerges quickly under the pressures of facts, figures, and deadlines, revision is typically the major part of a writing task, and collaborative revision often produces the final document. Revising Business Prose provides detailed revision guidance and a collaborative approach to writing easily applied to writing in business, industry, government, and academics. Based on the premise that bad writing in organizations imitates the bureaucratic style The Official Style, as it's called here this book shows readers how to transform stilted, dense prose into plain English. For anyone interested in the revision process in every business writing context..
Price: $37.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Susan Van Dyne's reading of twenty-five of Sylvia Plath's Ariel poems considers three contexts: Plath's journal entries from 1957 to 1959 (especially as they reveal her conflicts over what it meant to be a middle-class wife and mother and an aspiring writer in 1950s America); the interpretive strategies of feminist theory; and Plath's multiple revisions of the poems..
Price: $4.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]