Another positive side benefit from moving has been the re-arrangement of the now two small libraries at home: one sorted for the office and one for the living room. A great rediscovery has been what some tireless English composition professors pushed hard upon young and fresh Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels) students - The St. Martin's Guide to Writing. Admittedly, this is a book that I skimmed through at the time (Freshman year ‘94/5), but now I am having trouble reading it through since every chapter I am going twice over (something that works best for me as a slow reader, to the great amusement of my wife Victoria), to ensure the precious message is scrupulously ingrained or indoctrinated. Due to workload and a chaotic schedule, in the past, I used to utilize Audio Books to solve the unfortunate lack of my book reading – so much so that I dedicated a first blog, My-Audible.com entirely to this subject.
As a blogger of five years now (albiet with lulls in 2006/7), I have noticed several prolific bloggers mention great sources that inspired/guide their writing, such as The Elements of Style. This resource is at that level and more detailed.
Here is the Google Books review for third party validation.
Rise B. Axelrod, Charles R. Cooper
http://bks2.books.google.ca/books?id=l9TPPwAACAAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&sig=ACfU3U1ZXFGXwp3WRNFtCfz-BAwymFIw1w
The St. Martin's Guide to Writing
Rise B. Axelrod, Charles R. Cooper
Five stars 46 Reviews
Bedford/st Martins, 2010 - 1088 pages
The best-selling college rhetoric for nearly 25 years, The St. Martin’s Guide has achieved an unparalleled record of success by providing practical innovations for the ever-changing composition course. Comprehensive yet flexible, The Guide’s acclaimed step-by-step guides to each type of writing offer sure-fire invention strategies to get students started, combined with thorough advice on critical reading, working with sources, and careful revision. Axelrod and Cooper’s class-tested guidance on visual rhetoric, online teaching and learning, and more is available for instructors who incorporate these topics into their courses — but not intrusive, for those who don’t. The new edition has been re-engineered to reflect and build on the actual writing processes of students and does even more to prepare them for the writing they will do in other college courses.
