Renovating Your Writing: Shaping Ideas into Clear, Concise, and Compelling Messages

Debuting in its first edition, Renovating Your Writing outlines the principles of effective composition and then engages the reader with constant revision and editing practices to improve writing skills at school, work, and home. This enlightening brief text provides readers with unique strategies, tactics, and tips needed to improve their ability to critique and self-revise their work. Kallan introduces and emphasizes to readers the difference between the act of writing and the informed practice of writing.

Table of Contents:
PART I: STRATEGIES, TACTICS, AND TIPS CHAPTER 1: RETHINKING YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT WRITING     The Writing Process: Separating Fact from Fiction     Your Writing: Separating Fact from Fiction   CHAPTER 2: STREAMLINING YOUR WRITING     Adopt the Runt of the (Word) Litter     Ration Long Sentences     Write Very Tightly without Verbosity     Exercises   CHAPTER 3: CONSTRUCTING SENTENCES     Get to Your Point, Today     Start with Active Actors     Avoid Verby Nouns                     Play Nice         Qualify Sensibly         Treat Others Fairly         Recognize that Women Exist     Exercises   CHAPTER 4: CONSTRUCTING PARAGRAPHS AND PAGES     State Your Purpose Like You Mean It     Exercising Rhetorical Literacy       Build Them (Paragraphs and Pages) Right     and They (Readers) Will Come         Bottomline Main Ideas and Main Arguments         Organize Evidence into Piles and Subpiles     Embrace Your Outline     Drive Home Your Message: Formatting Your Document         Rely on Headings and Subheadings         Befriend Bullets and Numbers         Choose a Typeface     Exercises   CHAPTER 5: FORTIFYING SENTENCES, PARAGRAPHS, AND PAGES     Check Out Your Audience     Shepherd Your Sentences         Rally Around the Topic Sentence         Worry Not about Length         Smooth the Rough Edges     Strategize Your Case         Strategize Persuasive Messages         Strategize Informative Messages     Revise How You Revise: A Final Note     Exercises   PART II: ADDITIONAL TOOLS CHAPTER 6: PUNCTUATION UNMASKED     Why, Is Punctuation; So Important     Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points         Periods         Question Marks         Exclamation Points     Commas, Semicolons, and Colons         Commas         Semicolons         Colons         Apostrophes     Double and Single Quotation Marks     Ellipses and Slashes         Ellipses         Slashes     Dashes, Parentheses, and Brackets         Dashes         Parentheses     Brackets   CHAPTER 7: WRITING NON-OBNOXIOUS PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL E-MAILS   CHAPTER 8: WHY YOU ARE NOT ALWAYS READ: RATING YOUR READABILITY     Finding Your Fog Indexsm Score     Putting the Fog Indexsm Scale to Work   CHAPTER 9: LEARNING TO WRITE COGENTLY     History and Structure of Short Fiction     Stylistic Characteristics of Short Fiction     A Short Conclusion about Short Fiction     Exercise Answers     About the Author

About the Author :
Richard Kallan is Professor of Communication and Chair of the Communication Department. He has taught a variety of courses in writing and speaking at various universities. More recently, his teaching interests have been directed toward mentoring students through his role as coordinator of the department's internship program. Most of Professor Kallan's research and publications focus on how language functions rhetorically, and, more specifically, on how writers use various strategies and tactics to create compelling messages that ensure persuasion.