Customer Reviews:
Good Composition Text.......2007-05-25
The university where I teach allows us to choose our own composition text. After much research and personal experience with several composition texts, I use this guide. While I agree that the selected essays do have a liberal slant I do not agree that the writing is too difficult for a freshman to understand.
There is no way that I would assign the entire textbook, cover to cover, for one semester. Even the authors do not suggest this. I use the chapters on reading and writing rhetoric, research, critical data analysis, and writer conferencing with all of my composition classes. Then I pick and choose which specific writing projects/chapters I will use for different levels.
I highly recommend this textbook. It has a lot of acurate and useful information and is a great source for a composition course.
To counterbalance the liberal essays, I add in several others from many different perspectives and fields to allow students to have a wider understanding of the world.
Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing, Brief Edition, The (4th Edition).......2007-01-04
The book contains good up to date information and it has helped me with my College writing class.
Much ado about nothing.......2005-08-11
I have been required to use this text at one school where I teach, and it is a dismal experience. Most of the other instructors feel the same way, but we are overruled by a minority opinion.
The authors do not have a clue that they are writing this book for a freshman college audience. You need advanced reading skills in order to be able to understand some of the chapters in this book. For example, they overly complicate the chapter on writing evaluations.
The readings are also dry and have a noticeably liberal slant. Although, there are a couple of interesting ones, such as the essay about Sesame Street being sexist. However, there are not enough readings to provide good examples for students to use as models.
If I was not forced to use the book, I would not. This is too much money to spend on a book that is not especially useful.
Book Description
More often workplace writing and document design takes a backseat in a company's mission/product. This book offers strategies and tools for document design of ALL types. Readers will extend to visual design the approach they assimilate in their writing and editing. It focuses on the kinds of situations and practical documents that employees encounter daily, with a special focus on audience, purpose, and context of the message. Topics include: perception and design; visual analysis; extra-textual design; pictures, and more. Writers and editors who design documents.
Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Writing, edited by Sam Dragga, Texas Tech University.
Customer Reviews:
Dreadful.......2007-05-21
This book was required for a graduate course in visual communications. The book is written in a style of chest-puffing academic balderdash that renders it useless and unreadable. Crummy paper and truly ugly illustrations add to the miasma. I usually keep classroom texts but I'm selling back this one. I won't get much money though because it's so poorly bound that it looks much more used than it really was. Poor unlucky student who buys it.
Poor quality.......2005-09-12
The content of this book is not bad, but the actual quality of product is horrendous.
I have had this text for about a week and the pages have already become unbound. Some of the pages look like they were printed on a photocopier running out of ink. The text is fine, but the graphs look terrible. One would think that a book about design would have put more thought into their own design and production run.
My gripe is simply that this book is too much money for the truly piss-poor physical quality. $76 for a book whose binding became unglued in the first week? $76 for a text whose pages look like they were printed on with an empty toner cartridge? This is a sick joke! Designing Visual Language is a piece of junk and Allyn & Bacon should be ashamed of themselves for having no quality control.
Addendum...
I'm wondering why people have not found this review helpful. Is it because they want to buy a book that is poorly made? If so, I invite you to buy the book. Unless Allyn & Bacon make some serious changes, you'll soon think, "Maybe his review WAS helpful after all!" but by that time you'll be out $76.
Designing Visual Language.......2001-07-14
It reads kind of like a text book, but the information is very good. I am trying to learn about graphic design in my free time and this book has helped me to better understand the basics of visual communication. I have also reciently read "The non-designers design book", which I also recommend. This book starts at the beginning and helps you to understand what you must do, and take into account in order to make something visually pleasing. It has helped me in my design efforts. The book was lent to me and now I plan on buying it, it was so good. I might even look into the rest of the books in the series. (The Allyn & Bacon series in Technical Communication) All in all a good book. I give it 4 stars
Customer Reviews:
Just like the 4th Edition........2006-02-26
I can't believe they charge so much more for the 4th edition than the 3rd.... I did not notice much difference.
The Cat in America.......2004-01-20
Would like to view this Short Story
Book Description
Advanced technical communication books are becoming more and more available. However, each book is solely devoted to a specialized topic such as technical editing, design, illustration, usability testing, and online documentation. Despite all of these introductory and advanced books, not one is available specifically devoted to the challenges of style in technical communication.
KEY TOPICS: This 12-point approach offers the most current and comprehensive instruction available in achieving an effective style in technical documents. It shows that technical prose style varies from the highly formal to the colloquial, from the pretentious to the plain, and it demonstrates the many stylistic strategies writers should consider for every technical document they write. Anyone who has to write professional and technical documents, specifically, engineers, software developers/consultants, medical writers, professional technical writers.
Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical communication.
Customer Reviews:
Simple and Rather Elementary.......2002-11-12
This text examines various techniques to achieve more concise and memorable prose. However, there are other books on style that would be more beneficial: William Strunk, "Elements of Style." Jones' text is rather costly for a paperback, which is another drawback; however, for the novice technical writer with rudimentary writing skills, this book will suffice.
Great tool for technical writers.......2000-04-28
This book contains comprehensive instruction in writing technical documents. It shows different style tactics for communicating technical pieces. Each chapter has great examples to demonstrate the topic at hand, as well as challenging questions and discussion topics. The author explains topics in a thorough and easy to read way. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in applying style and accuracy to his/her technical documents.
Book Description
The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to effective tutoring. Throughout the book, readers hear the voices of tutors and writers in first-person peer tutor accounts, reflective essays, and transcripts from actual sessions. Within each chapter, techniques, models, and exercises provide instruction appropriate for any level of tutoring. Addresses specialized topics including ESL writers, tutoring online, and troubleshooting, so that students may tailor the guide to their specific needs. Appropriate for anyone who is tutoring other writers, whether in school, literacy or ESL programs gillespie tutoring SMP 2.25.03.doc Page 1 of 1
Book Description
The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice offers, in unparalleled breadth and depth, the major scholarship on writing centers. This up-to-date resource for students, instructors, and scholars anthologizes essays on all major areas of interest to writing center theorists and practitioners. Seven sections provide a comprehensive view of writing centers: history, progress, theorizing the writing center, defining the writing center's place, writing-across-the curriculum, the practice of tutoring, cultural issues, and technology. For writing tutors, educators, or anyone affiliated with writing centers.
Product Description
The most successful college rhetoric published in over a decade, The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing: Brief Edition offers the most progressive and teachable introduction now available to academic and personal writing.
The four-color guide offers engaging instruction in rhetoric and composition, a flexible sequence of comprehensive writing assignments, numerous examples of student and professional writing, and a thorough guide to research. Solidly grounded in current theory and research, yet eminently practical and teachable, The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing: Brief Edition has set the new standard for first-year composition courses in writing, reading, critical thinking, and inquiry.
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Rhetoric
| Words & Language
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
A Writer's Reference
Prentice Hall Reference Guide (6th Edition) (Prentice Hall Reference Guide to Grammar & Usage)
Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts
Developmental Mathematics (7th Edition) (Bittinger Developmental Mathematics Series)
Aviation And the Role of Government.
