Polish your skills, build a winning resume and land the job you've always wanted. Books, magazines, Web sites, corporate documents - find out how to improve any type of publication and make yourself indispensable to writers, editors, and your boss.Balance between style and rules Master the art of the query Use proofreader symbols Edit and proof electronic documents Build a solid freelancing career

    Published in hardcover as The Penguin Roget's College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form, this new paperback edition of the 20-million-copy bestselling thesaurus has been fully revised, expanded, and updated for the modern home, school, or office.

    Written in a clear and informative style, the dictionary describes the Indo-European origins of English and includes many new words and coinages adopted each year.

    It is democratic, everchanging and ingenious in its assimilation of other cultures. English runs through the heart of the world of finance, medicine and the Internet, and it is understood by around two thousand million people across the world. It seems set to go on. Yet it was nearly wiped out in its early years.Embracing elements of Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi and Gullah, this 1500-year story covers a huge range of countries and people. The Adventure of English is not only an enthralling story of power, religion and trade, but also the story of people, and how their day-to-day lives shaped and continue to change the extraordinary language that is English.

    Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors, by professional freelance author, editor, and proofreader Kathy Ide, is the essential go-to tool for aspiring and experienced writers and editors. This book includes all of the material from Ide's popular Polishing the PUGS book (now out of print), with added PUGS guidelines and helpful tips from multi-published authors on how to catch typos and other common mistakes. In Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors, Kathy Ide identifies the industry-standard references for books, magazines, and newspapers (which are different from the guidelines for other types of writing, such as college term papers). Using these official references, she highlights the most common mistakes writers make in the areas of punctuation, usage, grammar, and spelling (for which she uses the acronym PUGS). She also includes guidelines from The Christian Writer's Manual of Style for authors and editors who work in the inspirational market.

      John Gardner was almost as famous as a teacher of creative writing as he was for his own works. In this practical, instructive handbook, based on the courses and seminars that he gave, he explains, simply and cogently, the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner’s lessons, exemplified with detailed excerpts from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics—from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence. Written with passion, precision, and a deep respect for the art of writing, Gardner’s book serves by turns as a critic, mentor, and friend. Anyone who has ever thought of taking the step from reader to writer should begin here.

     Do you ever leave work wondering whether all of the words exchanged between you and your colleagues in emails and meetings actually had any meaning? You spend the day touching base and networking, workshopping and impacting, strategizing and implementing, going forward with your key performance indicators. No wonder you are exhausted when you leave the office! Even as English spreads around the globe, the language itself is shrinking. Our vocabularies are increasingly trimmed of subtlety and obscure words are forbidden unless they qualify as economic or business jargon. The constant pressure in our society to be efficient and productive is working like a noose around the neck of the English language. Don Watson is one of Australia's foremost writers and intellectuals. In Death Sentences, he takes up the fight against the pestilence of bullet points, the scourge of buzzwords, and the dearth of verbs in public discourse. He encourages us to wage war against the personal mission statement and the Powerpoint essay and to take back our language from the corporate wordsmiths and marketeers. BACKCOVER: Praise for Don Watson’s Death Sentences: “Don Watson has written a fine and necessary book. Any citizen who neglects to read it does so at his or her peril.” –Lewis H. Lapham, editor of Harper’s Magazine "[a] marvelous polemic..." —forbes.com “…captures the powerlessness and frustration we feel when confronted by meaningless words delivered with authority.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “Watson makes an eloquent, elegant, and sometimes scathing case for taking back language from those who would trip it of all color and emotion and, therefore, of all meaning. —Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist) “…many lessons and insights in this book…” —Leigh Buchanan, Harvard Business Review “[Watson is] always clear and precise, even when exposing the verbal pollution that passes for wisdom in the public realm.” –Toronto Star

    Written by America’s most distinguished editors, these 38 essays will teach, inform, and inspire anyone interested in the world of editing. Editors on Editing includes essays on the evolution of the American editor; the ethical and moral dimensions of editing; what an editor looks for in a query letter, proposal, and manuscript; line editing; copyediting; the freelance editor; the question of political correctness; making the most of writers’ conferences; and numerous other topics

    With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind??—??a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

    Writing with marvelous brio, Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language--"so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy"--and pays homage to the great dictionary makers, from "the irredeemably famous" Samuel Johnson to the "short, pale, smug and boastful" schoolmaster from New Hartford, Noah Webster. He then turns his unmatched talent for story-telling to the making of this most venerable of dictionaries. In this fast-paced narrative, the reader will discover lively portraits of such key figures as the brilliant but tubercular first editor Herbert Coleridge (grandson of the poet), the colorful, boisterous Frederick Furnivall (who left the project in a shambles), and James Augustus Henry Murray, who spent a half-century bringing the project to fruition. Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making--how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient than anticipated--and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press. We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium--the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it--and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W.C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption. The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project--a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world's unrivalled uber-dictionary.

    This book makes grammar practice interesting by presenting rules that are easy to understand and remember, with exercises that entertain as they teach.

    

    What type of font to use? How big? How should those letters, words, and paragraphs be aligned, spaced, ordered, shaped, and otherwise manipulated? In this groundbreaking new primer, leading design educator and historian Ellen Lupton provides clear and concise guidance for anyone learning or brushing up on their typographic skills. Thinking with Type is divided into three sections: letter, text, and grid. Each section begins with an easy-to-grasp essay that reviews historical, technological, and theoretical concepts, and is then followed by a set of practical exercises that bring the material covered to life. Sections conclude with examples of work by leading practitioners that demonstrate creative possibilities (along with some classic no-no's to avoid).

    All chapters in this best-seller have been substantially revised to reflect recent discoveries and new understanding of linguistics and languages.

    Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including international bestselling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob. Agents, film scouts, film producers, translators, disability and minority activists, and power agents and editors also weigh in, offering advice and sharing intimate anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry. Their wisdom will help aspiring authors find a foothold in the publishing world and navigate the challenges of life before and after publication with sanity and grace.Are MFA programs worth the time and money? How do people actually sit down and finish a novel? Did you get a good advance? What do you do when you feel envious of other writers? And why the heck aren’t your friends saying anything about your book? Covering questions ranging from the logistical to the existential (and everything in between), Before and After the Book Deal is the definitive guide for anyone who has ever wanted to know what it’s really like to be an author.