Built on Diana Hacker’s vision and developed with the help of expert composition teachers, the seventh edition of The Bedford Handbook is the indispensable classroom and reference tool it always was — only better. Now with the strongest coverage of research writing in a full-sized handbook, the seventh edition helps students meet one of the core challenges of academic writing: maintaining their own voice while writing from sources. This edition also adds innovative tips from writing center tutors, sound advice for writing across the curriculum, and substantially more help for writing with and writing about visuals.

DIANA HACKER's handbooks, used at almost half of the colleges and universities in the country, are the most widely adopted in America. A member of the English faculty at Prince George's Community College in Maryland for almost 35 years, Diana Hacker personally class-tested her handbooks with nearly four thousand students. Diana Hacker's other handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin's, include A Writer's Reference, Fifth Edition (2003); Rules for Writers, Fifth Edition (2004); and A Pocket Style Manual, Fourth Edition (2004).

  Preface for Instructors

  How to Use this Book and Its Web Site

    

PART I. THE WRITING PROCESS

    1. Generate ideas and sketch a plan.

    2. Rough out an initial draft.

    3. Make global revisions; then revise sentences.

    SAMPLE ESSAY

    4. Build effective paragraphs.

    

PART II. DOCUMENT DESIGN

    5. Become familiar with the principles of document design.

    6. Use standard academic and business formats.

    7. Create effective electronic documents.

    

PART III. CLEAR SENTENCES

    8. Prefer active verbs.

    9. Balance parallel ideas.

    10. Add needed words.

    11. Untangle mixed constructions.

    12. Repair misplaced and dangling modifiers.

    13. Eliminate distracting shifts.

    14. Emphasize key ideas.

    15. Provide some variety.

    

PART IV. WORD CHOICE

    16. Tighten wordy sentences.

    17. Choose appropriate language.

    18. Find the exact words.

    

PART V. GRAMMATICAL SENTENCES

    19. Repair sentence fragments.

    20. Revise run-on sentences.

    21. Make subjects and verbs agree.

    22. Make pronouns and antecedents agree.

    23. Make pronoun references clear.

    24. Distinguish between pronouns such as I and me.

    25. Distinguish between who and whom.

    26. Choose adjectives and adverbs with care.

    27. Choose standard English verb forms.

    28. Use verbs in the appropriate tense and mood.

    

PART VI. ESL TROUBLE SPOTS

    29. Be alert to special problems with verbs.

    30. Use the articles a, an, and the appropriately.

    31. Be aware of other potential trouble spots.

    

PART VII. PUNCTUATION

    32. The comma

    33. Unnecessary commas

    34. The semicolon

    35. The colon

    36. The apostrophe

    37. Quotation marks

    38. End punctuation

    39. Other punctuation marks

    

PART VIII. MECHANICS

    40. Abbreviations

    41. Numbers

    42. Italics (underlining)

    43. Spelling

    44. The hyphen

    45. Capital letters

    

PART IX. CRITICAL THINKING

    46. Writing about texts

   *SAMPLE ESSAY

    47. Constructing reasonable arguments

    SAMPLE ESSAY

    48. Evaluating arguments

    49. Writing in the disciplines

    

PART X. RESEARCHED WRITING

    50. Conducting research

    51. Evaluating sources

    52. Managing information; avoiding plagiarism

    53. Choosing a documentation style

    

    Writing MLA Papers

    54. Supporting a thesis

    55. Citing sources; avoiding plagiarism

    56. Integrating sources

    57. MLA documentation style

    58. MLA manuscript format

    SAMPLE ESSAY

    59. Writing about literature

    Writing APA Papers

    59. APA papers

   *SAMPLE ESSAY

    

    Writing Chicago Papers

    60. Chicago papers

    SAMPLE ESSAY

    

PART XI. GRAMMAR BASICS

    62. Parts of speech

    63. Sentence patterns

    64. Subordinate word groups

    65. Sentence types

    

  Glossary of Usage

  Answers to Tutorials and Lettered Exercises

  Index

    

    

   *new to this edition