Keys For Writers is a great book, filled with all kinds of information, ranging from tips on how to write drafts to identifying comma splices.
This is a great book for just about anybody, especially students. I would recommend this to students in high school, and particularly those in university. Keys For Writers doesn't just cover how to write an essay. It also describes how to write lab reports, portfolios, as well as oral reports.
The book is divided into two main sections, which are differentiated based on the color of the tabs in that section. The section with red tabs covers "matters of writing and working with sources", and the blue tabs "deal with nuts-and-bolts issues such as grammar and punctuation".
The five red tabs are labeled "The Writing Process", "Consulting Sources and Doing Research", "Documentation: MLA Style", "Documentation: APA, CBE, Endnotes/Footnotes", and "Special Writing Situations: College and Career.
The five blue tabs are labeled "Style and Sentence Review", "Common Sentence Problems", "For ESL Writers", "Punctuation", and "Format and Mechanics",.
Each of the ten tabs is attached to a divider. On the back side of each divider is an index of all topics covered in that section. This is great for helping the reader find what they are looking for. If this doesn't help, there is an index in the back of the book that is a bit more specific, if you know exactly what you are looking for.
My favorite section is Part 7: "Common Sentence Problems". This covers most errors that people make when writing sentences and tells you how to fix them. Part 5: "Special Writing Situations: College and Career" was especially helpful to me during university. I did Science in university and had to write a lot of lab reports. I didn't buy this book until I was in my third year (it was required for an English course), and I don't know what I did without it.
I really enjoy all of the examples that are given in this book. For example, under "Laboratory Reports" in Part 5, there is an actual excerpt from a lab report showing how it is done correctly. Very helpful!
Another thing I like about this book is it's design; it has ring binding which allows it to lay flat so you don't have to struggle to keep it open.
There are several "KeyTabs" inserted at the back of the book which can be removed and re-inserted elsewhere. If you find a topic that you find helpful and you know you will be using that section again, just take a KeyTab (which is essentially a bookmark) and put it in that section. There is a tab at the top of each KeyTab so you can label it however you want.
So if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to do some writing but you are unsure of how to go about it, check out this book. You'll find that it is an invaluable resource!
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