Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

"Begin sentences with subjects and verbs," is the first tool in Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer. "Own the tools of your craft," the last. Pithy, entertaining, and always straight-to-the-point, Writing Tools sandwiches 48 more useful tools in-between, on "Nuts and Bolts" (words and sentences) "Special Effects" (tricks of the trade), "Blueprints" (organizational strategies), and "Useful Habits" for successful writers. Informed by Clark’s thirty years as a teacher, writer, and journalist, every tool bears the stamp of his experience and lighthearted wisdom―from the usefulness of the suggestions (Tool 14: "Get the name of the dog") to the clarity of the prose itself.

As fun to read as it is hands-on practical, it can be enjoyed straight-through or used as a reference as students draft, revise, and edit. Spiral-bound, the College Edition lays flat as students work at the computer, and at $16.95 suggested retail (after bookstore mark-up), Writing Tools is considerably less expensive than traditional writing textbooks. With over 30,000 copies sold to the mass-market, the College Edition is the perfect book to accompany a more comprehensive textbook, or for classrooms that don’t use a traditional text at all.

Roy Peter Clark is vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute. He has taught writing at every level―to school-children and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors―for more than 30 years, and has spoken about the craft of writing on The Oprah Winfrey Show, NPR, and Today; at conferences from Singapore to Brazil; and at news organizations from The New York Times to the Sowetan in South Africa. A writer who teaches, and a teacher who writes, he has authored and edited fourteen books about writing and journalism.