Words fail me : what everyone who writes should know about writing / Patricia T. O'Connor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Conner, Patricia T.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Harvest book

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authorship.

Creative writing.

Report writing.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

viii, 228 pages ; 22 cm.

Edition:

First Harvest edition.

Other Title:

What everyone who writes should know about writing

Place of Publication:

New York : Harcourt, 2000.

Summary:

Armed with our laptops and our PCs, we're the writing-est generation ever, cranking out e-mail, Web pages, and blogs, not to mention office memos, faxes, reports, newsletters, school papers, even memoirs and novels. But many of us were never taught how to write a sentence that makes sense, how to make sure our words do justice to our ideas. The result? Never have so many written so much so badly. O'Conner comes to the rescue with a practical and witty guide to the elements of good writing--From publisher description.

Contents:

Is your egg ready to hatch? Know the subject

"The party to whom I am speaking": know the audience

Get with the program: the organized writer

Commencement address: the first few words

From here to uncertainty: how am I doing?

Pompous circumstances: hold the baloney

The life of the party: verbs that zing

Call waiting: putting the subject on hold

Now, where were we? A time and a place for everything

The it parade: pronoun pileups

Smothering heights: misbehaving modifiers

Too marvelous for words: the sensible sentence

Made for each other: well-matched sentences

Give me a break: thinking in paragraphs

The elongated yellow fruit: fear of repetition

Training wheels: belaboring the obvious

Critique of poor reason: the art of making sense

Grammar Moses: thou shalt not embarrass thyself

Down for the count: when the numbers don't add up

Lost horizon: what's the point of view?

Wimping out: the backward writer

Everybody's favorite subject: I, me, my

Promises, promises: making them, keeping them

You got rhythm: writing to the beat

The human comedy: what's so funny?

I second that emotion: once more, with feeling

The importance of being honest: leveling with the reader

Once around the block: what to do when you're stuck

Debt before dishonor: how and what to borrow

Revise and consent: getting to the finish line.

Notes:

Originally published as hbk.: Harcourt Brace, ©1999.

Includes bibliographical references (page 223) and index.

ISBN:

0156010879

9780156010870

OCLC:

45097737