It is possible to develop significant skills in order to make the writing process much easier than you think. In "Research Strategies," author William Badke offers a clear, simple, and often humorous roadmap for conducting research and navigating the vast new world of information and technology. In this, the fourth edition, Badke details the entire research paper process from start to finish. "Research Strategies" provides a plethora of insightful and helpful information, including:Finding and narrowing a topic Creating an outline Searching databases Understanding metadata Using library catalogs and journal databases Conducting Internet research Organizing research notes Writing the actual paper"Research Strategies" explains the skills and strategies you need to efficiently and effectively complete a research project from topic to finished product. With the information provided here, research doesn't have to be frustrating or boring. Badke's strategies present a sure path through the amazing and complex new world of information.

    Joan Bolker, midwife to more than one hundred dissertations and co-founder of the Harvard Writing Center, offers invaluable suggestions for the graduate-student writer. Using positive reinforcement, she begins by reminding thesis writers that being able to devote themselves to a project that truly interests them can be a pleasurable adventure. She encourages them to pay close attention to their writing method in order to discover their individual work strategies that promote productivity; to stop feeling fearful that they may disappoint their advisors or family members; and to tailor their theses to their own writing style and personality needs. Using field-tested strategies she assists the student through the entire thesis-writing process, offering advice on choosing a topic and an advisor, on disciplining one's self to work at least fifteen minutes each day; setting short-term deadlines, on revising and defing the thesis, and on life and publication after the dissertation. Bolker makes writing the dissertation an enjoyable challenge.

    But it could also be of great use to the intelligent common reader, the man or woman who wonders why it’s impossible to finish reading certain stories and why others carry the reader in a vivid rush to the end.”—Pete Hamill, author of A Drinking Life In the spirit of Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, comes The Elements of Story, by Francis Flaherty, longtime story editor at The New York Times. A brilliant blend of memoir and how-to, The Elements of Story offers more than 50 principles that emphasize storytelling aspects rather than simply the mechanics of writing—a relentlessly entertaining, totally accessible writing guide for the novice and the professional alike.

    Meetings are a crucial part of all our lives, but too often they go nowhere and waste valuable time. In Six Thinking Hats, Edward de Bono shows how meetings can be transformed to produce quick, decisive results every time. The Six Hats method is a devastatingly simple technique based on the brain's different modes of thinking. The intelligence, experience and information of everyone is harnessed to reach the right conclusions quickly. These principles fundamentally change the way you work and interact. They have been adopted by businesses and governments around the world to end conflict and confusion in favour of harmony and productivity. 'An inspiring man with brilliant ideas. De Bono never ceases to amaze with his clarity of thought' Richard Branson.Edward de Bono invented the concept of lateral thinking. A world-renowned writer and philosopher, he is the leading authority in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. Dr de Bono has written more than 60 books, in 40 languages, with people now teaching his methods worldwide. He has chaired a special summit of Nobel Prize laureates, and been hailed as one of the 250 people who have contributed most to mankind

    Packed with practical, actionable advice, the new fourth edition of Let's Get Digital delivers the very latest best practices on publishing your work and building audience.* Boost your writing career with marketing strategies that are proven to sell more books.* Discover expert tips on platform building, blogging and social media.* Learn which approaches are best for selling fiction vs. non-fiction.* Implement powerful ways to make your ebooks more discoverable.* Increase your visibility by optimizing keywords and categories.* Weigh the pros and cons of Kindle Unlimited, and find out exactly how to tweak your promotional plans depending on whether you stay exclusive to Amazon or opt for wider distribution.And that's just for starters...

    But a poorly done or unbelievable fight scene can ruin a great book in an instant.In Fight Write you'll learn practical tips, terminology, and the science behind crafting realistic fight scenes for your fiction. Broken up into "Rounds," trained fighter and writer Carla Hoch guides you through the many factors you'll need to consider when developing battles and brawls.- In Round 1, you will consider how the Who, When, Where, and Why questions affect what type of fight scene you want to craft. - Round 2 delves into the human factors of biology (think fight or flight and adrenaline) and psychology (aggression and response to injuring or killing another person). - Round 3 explores different fighting styles that are appropriate for different situations: What really happens in fights on the street? What is the vocabulary used to describe these styles? - Round 4 considers weaponry and will guide you to select the best weapon for your characters, including nontraditional weapons of opportunity, while also thinking about the nitty-gritty details of using them. - In Round 5, you'll learn how to accurately describe realistic injuries sustained from the fights and certain weapons, and what kind of injuries will kill a character or render them unable to fight further.By taking into account where your character is in the world, when in history the fight is happening, what the character's motivation for fighting is, and much more, you'll be able write fight scenes unique to your plot and characters, all while satisfying your reader's discerning eye.

    If you've ever felt that you had a story inside you - and wanted to know how to write and get it published, this book is for you. This book is intended for amateur and professional writers who may have lost their way. It guarantees inspiration, motivation, effective ways to counter 'writer's block' and provides you with easy, step by step instructions on how to write a short story that will sell.Rob Parnell is the respected author of 28 books on writing. Over the last eleven years Rob has taught over 100,000 students and subscribers from all over the world. His website, The Easy Way to Write, is considered one of the best writer's sites online.In The Easy Way to Write Short Stories That Sell, Rob Parnell explains how the first and best way to progress in a writing career is to master the art of short story writing. Here's what he says:"I don't know about you but at school they told us short story writing was harder than novel writing. For a full time writer this statement is nonsense - but it does show how short story writing is respected and even regarded with some degree of awe."The good news is that I can teach you the easy way to create a very publishable short story - and very quickly."My short story writing course has been downloaded more than any other of my resources - something like 90,000 times in the last ten years. I've completely revised its contents and included an up-to-date listing of all the short story markets currently available to the aspiring short story writer."Plus, to help and encourage new writers, I've added a link to another of my popular courses, The Easy Way to Achieve Writing Success. It's a free e-course available from a link at the end of The Easy Way to Write Short Stories That Sell.Here's what's included in this book:"A thorough examining of the art and craft of short story writing - and how to easily make money writing short stories for publication.PART ONE: MINDSET"We look at mental preparation and having the correct writer's mindset before we start. We examine time management, your self belief mechanisms, and goal setting. PART TWO: THE BASICS"Here we ponder the nature of inspiration and originality. How to come up with ideas, characters and subject matter for your stories. We also discuss more specific writing issues like genre, scope, style and how to deal with them.PART THREE: Construction Time"Here I introduce the 7-Step Story Generator, an easy way to come up with powerful short story ideas in less than ten minutes. In a whole new section I also show how to create instantly compelling characters."We delve in to character's agendas, their interactions, and the consequences of facing and overcoming obstacles. "Plus, how to use the 5-Point Plot Structure, and create compelling stories through the use of proper style and tone, the correct point of view, tense, and the all important twist at the end of your stories."For fan fiction and romance writers I explain the ‘1-2-3-Bang’ theory and other short story structures.PART FOUR: WRITING YOUR STORY"Here we examine the opening paragraph and its importance, professional techniques like fast writing, self-editing, formatting and polishing the final edit.

    How well should you know your characters? Do you need to outline before you write? How important is length? Now Walter Dean Myers, the new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, walks you through the writing process.Includes:Examples from his writing and reading experiencesWalter's six-box and four-box outlines for writing fiction and nonfictionExcerpted pages from Walter's own notebooksAn afterword by Ross Workman, Walter's teen coauthor of kickWriting tips from both Walter and RossAnyone can be a writer, with a little help from Walter Dean Myers!

    His advice is good, couched in brassy prose that is easy to read. He anticipates every conceivable question and issue, including typical charges, marketing oneself, types of available work, and dealing with deadbeats. There are great common-sense tips, too, in the psychology of handling clients who think they're writers, those with limited budgets, and others demanding creativity. Personal anecdotes make the life of the freelancer real; the author includes samples of cold-calling scripts, thank-you notes, and a story or three about starting a writers' group and partnering with other professionals. Book Description Dream of being a well-paid freelance writer? Long to carve out an enviable lifestyle with plenty of freedom, flexibility AND healthy income? But wait a minute…aren't the words "starving" and "writer" forever joined at the hip? Not anymore. How about a writing direction with plenty of work, strong and growing demand for good writers, hourly rates of $50-100+ ($60-75 average) and where all time is billed? No flat fees with vast, open-ended commitments of time. Translation? Less time working to pay bills and more time pursuing your writing passions. We're talking about freelance commercial writing - writing for business entities, large and small - the subject of The Well-Fed Writer, and quite possibly the answer for all aspiring writers who want to turn their love of writing into their living. The book was a triple-book-club-selection (Book-of-the-Month, Quality Paperback Book and Writer's Digest) and earned several prestigious awards in 2001: 1) Second place in the ForeWord magazine Book of the Year Awards (Career Category) 2) Honorable Mention in the Writer's Digest magazine National Self-Published Book Awards 3) Finalist in the Publisher's Marketing Association Ben Franklin Awards (Best First Book). Why commercial writing? In the past decade, two huge trends have sculpted the corporate American landscape: downsizing and outsourcing. Corporations are doing more with less: fewer people, less resources and smaller budgets. The workload is growing - especially with the exploding Internet - and many organizations rely heavily on freelancers to help them handle it. Why do corporations hire freelancers? For good solid economic and creative reasons. With a freelancer, corporations don't have to pay salary, benefits, and vacation time. But they will pay a freelancer $60-80 (average) for their time. In addition, they pay only what they need when they need it. And with a network of freelancers, they get a broad spectrum of fresh talent (hard to get with in-house staff writers used to writing about the same topics day after day) which they can form-fit to their specific writing needs. What's "commercial writing"? Marketing brochures, ad copy, newsletters, direct mail campaigns, video/CD-ROM scripting, speeches, sales sheets, proposals, web content, and so much more. Veteran commercial freelancer Bob Bly, known as the freelance writing "guru" for his 35+ writing titles, says of commercial freelancing: "I know of no other arena of writing so lucrative yet so easy to get started in." The Well-Fed Writer will take you step-by-detailed-step through, indeed, everything you need to know to quickly get your share of this exciting and highly lucrative arena of freelancing.

    Now, in his first book of nonfiction, Percy challenges the notion that literary and genre fiction are somehow mutually exclusive. The title essay is an ode to the kinds of books that make many readers fall in love with fiction: science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, horror, from J.R.R. Tolkien to Anne Rice, Ursula K. Le Guin to Stephen King. Percy's own academic experience banished many of these writers in the name of what is "literary" and what is "genre." Then he discovered Michael Chabon, Aimee Bender, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, and others who employ techniques of genre fiction while remaining literary writers. In fifteen essays on the craft of fiction, Percy looks to disparate sources such as Jaws, Blood Meridian, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to discover how contemporary writers engage issues of plot, suspense, momentum, and the speculative, as well as character, setting, and dialogue. An urgent and entertaining missive on craft, Thrill Me brims with Percy's distinctive blend of anecdotes, advice, and close reading, all in the service of one dictum: Thrill the reader.

    Based on a workshop she presented at regional, national, and online writing conferences, Ms. Hanson draws on examples from books, movies, and plays to demonstrate ways to keep your characters from sitting, standing, or looking out a window as they talk.

    In this practical guide, legendary copywriter Joe Sugarman provides proven guidelines and expert advice on what it takes to write copy that will entice, motivate, and move customers to buy. For anyone who wants to break into the business, this is the ultimate companion resource for unlimited success.

    Expert text includes coverage of various areas, from acid rain and atomic energy, to waste disposal and wetlands. Touches upon the many statutory and common-law regulations shaping the world in which we live.

    Offering practical guidance for literacy educators, curriculum development specialists, and other education professionals and policy makers, this volume considers how we can most effectively improve the quality and content of reading and writing instruction. Leading researchers and practitioners address the eight principles of best practice, providing the most current information on how to enhance students' ability to construct meaning from text independently, draw upon texts to build conceptual understanding, effectively communicate ideas orally and in writing, and develop an intrinsic desire to read and write. This timely book blends state-of-the-art theory and research with workable suggestions based on extensive hands-on experience in the field.

    The authors review their earlier findings and then synthesize what has been learned since 1990 about college's influences on students' learning. The book also discusses the implications of the findings for research, practice, and public policy. This authoritative and comprehensive analysis of the literature on college-impact is required reading for anyone interested in higher education practice, policy, and promise3/4faculty, administrators, researchers, policy analysts, and decision-makers at every level.