Throughout, the emphasis is on promoting a plain English style. This little book can help you communicate more effectively by showing you how to enliven your sentences.

    The Clockwork Muse is designed to help prospective authors develop a workable timetable for completing long and often formidable projects.The idea of dashing off a manuscript in a fit of manic inspiration may be romantic, but it is not particularly practical. Instead, Eviatar Zerubavel, a prolific and successful author, describes how to set up a writing schedule and regular work habits that will take most of the anxiety and procrastination out of long-term writing, and even make it enjoyable. The dreaded 'writer's block' often turns out to be simply a need for a better grasp of the temporal organization of work.The Clockwork Muse rethinks the writing process in terms of time and organization. It offers writers a simple yet comprehensive framework that considers such variables as when to write, for how long, and how often, while keeping a sense of momentum throughout the entire project. It shows how to set priorities, balance ideals against constraints, and find the ideal time to write. For all those whose writing has languished, waiting for the "right moment," The Clockwork Muse announces that the moment has arrived.

    The suggested strategies are supported by research and are grounded in enough theory to enable teachers to adapt them to their own situations. The author does not suggest a "set of recipes" to be followed mechanically, but gives teachers the tools they need to deal with the ever changing dynamics of teaching and learning.

    The Dialogic Imagination presents, in superb English translation, four selections from Voprosy literatury i estetiki (Problems of literature and esthetics), published in Moscow in 1975. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction to Bakhtin and his thought and a glossary of terminology.Bakhtin uses the category "novel" in a highly idiosyncratic way, claiming for it vastly larger territory than has been traditionally accepted. For him, the novel is not so much a genre as it is a force, "novelness," which he discusses in "From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse." Two essays, "Epic and Novel" and "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel," deal with literary history in Bakhtin's own unorthodox way. In the final essay, he discusses literature and language in general, which he sees as stratified, constantly changing systems of subgenres, dialects, and fragmented "languages" in battle with one another.

    Its hands-on, completely accessible approach walks writers through each stage of the creative process, from the initial triggering idea to the revision of the final manuscript. It is unique in combing the three main aspects of creative writing instruction: process (finding inspiration, getting ideas on the page), craft (specific techniques like characterization), and anthology (learning by reading masters of the form). Succinct, clear definitions of basic terms of fiction are accompanied by examples, including excerpts from masterpieces of short fiction and essays as well as contemporary novels. A special highlight is Alice LaPlante's systematic debunking of many of the so-called rules of creative writing. This book is perfect for writers working alone as well as for creative writing classes, both introductory and advanced.

    Adaptation, Hutcheon argues, has always been a central mode of the story-telling imagination and deserves to be studied in all its breadth and range as both a process (of creation and reception) and a product unto its own.Persuasive and illuminating, A Theory of Adaptation is a bold rethinking of how adaptation works across all media and genres that may put an end to the age-old question of whether the book was better than the movie, or the opera, or the theme park.

    The second edition features many additional terms, both traditional and recent, with a greater array of examples that make it an even more useful and informative reference than before.

    Now comes Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope - a powerful, visionary work that will enrich our teaching and our lives. Combining critical thinking about education with autobiographical narratives, hooks invites readers to extend the discourse of race, gender, class and nationality beyond the classroom into everyday situations of learning. bell hooks writes candidly about her own experiences. Teaching, she explains, can happen anywhere, any time - not just in college classrooms but in churches, in bookstores, in homes where people get together to share ideas that affect their daily lives.In Teaching Community bell hooks seeks to theorize from the place of the positive, looking at what works. Writing about struggles to end racism and white supremacy, she makes the useful point that "No one is born a racist. Everyone makes a choice." Teaching Community tells us how we can choose to end racism and create a beloved community. hooks looks at many issues-among them, spirituality in the classroom, white people looking to end racism, and erotic relationships between professors and students. Spirit, struggle, service, love, the ideals of shared knowledge and shared learning - these values motivate progressive social change.Teachers of vision know that democratic education can never be confined to a classroom. Teaching - so often undervalued in our society -- can be a joyous and inclusive activity. bell hooks shows the way. "When teachers teach with love, combining care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust, we are often able to enter the classroom and go straight to the heart of the matter, which is knowing what to do on any given day to create the best climate for learning."

    What will academic life be like? How do you discover its tacit rules? Develop the habits and networks needed for success? What issues will you encounter if you re a person of color, or a woman? How is higher education changing? In 199 succinct, and often humorous but seriously practical hints, Paul Gray and David E. Drew share their combined experience of many years as faculty and (recovering) administrators to offer insider advice the kind that 's rarely taught or even talked about in graduate school. For instance, Gray and Drew advise you on what you can do to become known in your field and also to be humble about your Ph.D. They also warn you of the danger points along the Ph.D. path, and the possible stumbling blocks with litigious students. Their hints can cover topics as lofty as quantitative and qualitative methods and as mundane but still as important as negotiating campus parking.For easy reference as you climb the academic ladder, the hints are divided into 15 short chapters and 4 appendices covering the stages and responsibilities of faculty life. As the authors state, It is a good life and it is a lifestyle for which you even get paid . These hints will help you both make a valuable contribution to, and get the most from, academe. And if you arereally penurious, persuade a family member or friend to buy this book for you.

    “I started my PhD in September 2003, but it wasn’t long before I realised that it’s much easier to get onto a PhD programme than it is to complete one…”If the aim of a PhD is to develop the skills of a professional academic researcher, how should you go about it? Using the principles of skill development as a foundation, this book provides a unique approach to the most common challenges of PhD research, including:Getting to know the literature in your fieldDeveloping your research ideasBecoming a better academic writerCoping with the stress and unpredictability of researchPublications and presentationsWriting, submitting and defending your thesis

    Using graphics, checklists, and sample forms, this guide readies you for each step of the process, including selecting the committee, getting acclimated to academic writing, preparing for your oral defense, and publishing your research. New features include:A chapter on ethical considerations Expanded coverage of digital data collection and the Internet More detailed information on conducting the literature review A discussion of how to develop a theoretical or conceptual framework

    But a dissertation is written for a committee and a book for the larger world. William Germano's From Dissertation to Book is the essential guide for academic writers who want to revise a doctoral thesis for publication. The author of Getting It Published, Germano draws upon his extensive experience in academic publishing to provide writers with a state-of-the-art view of how to turn a dissertation into a manuscript that publishers will notice.Acknowledging first that not all theses can become books, Germano shows how some dissertations might have a better life as one or more journal articles or as chapters in a newly conceived book. But even dissertations strong enough to be published as books first need to become book manuscripts, and at the heart of From Dissertation to Book is the idea that revising the dissertation is a fundamental process of adapting from one genre of writing to another.Germano offers clear guidance on how to do just this. Writers will find advice on such topics as rethinking the table of contents, taming runaway footnotes, shaping chapter length, and confronting the limitations of jargon, alongside helpful timetables for light or heavy revision. With crisp directives, engaging examples, and a sympathetic eye for the foibles of academic writing, From Dissertation to Book reveals to recent PhD's the process of careful and thoughtful revision—a truly invaluable skill as they grow into their new roles as professional writers.

    Teaching Literature is an inspirational guidebook for all teachers of English and American literature in higher education.- Written by leading academic, prolific author and cultural journalist, Elaine Showalter- Original and provocative reflections on teaching literature in higher education- Encourages teachers to make their classroom practice intellectually exciting- Wide-ranging: covers the practical, theoretical, and methodological aspects of teaching literature- Highly practical - employs real examples from real classes and careers throughoutDraws on 40 years of international teaching experience

    This anthology of classic and cutting-edge statements in literary theory has now been updated to include recent influential texts in the areas of Ethnic Studies, Postcolonialism and International StudiesA definitive collection of classic statements in criticism and new theoretical work from the past few decades All the major schools and methods that make up the dynamic field of literary theory are represented, from Formalism to Postcolonialism Enables students to familiarise themselves with the most recent developments in literary theory and with the traditions from which these new theories derive

    In The Location of Culture, he uses concepts such as mimicry, interstice, hybridity, and liminality to argue that cultural production is always most productive where it is most ambivalent. Speaking in a voice that combines intellectual ease with the belief that theory itself can contribute to practical political change, Bhabha has become one of the leading post-colonial theorists of this era.