Book(s) to help with writing skills

[annettemcd]

My daughter, a senior in high school, is bright and hard working, but is not a great writer. Right now she is working on essays for college and scholarship applications and needs help.

I think that part of the problem is the amount of communication that she does through text messaging, instant messaging, and e-mail. The abbreviations, fragmented or run-on sentences, and poor grammar and punctuation common to these forms of writing seem to be habit forming. My daughter's writing has actually gotten worse over the last few years.

I would greatly appreciate recommendations on books which would help her improve her writing, especially sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation. She has plenty of writing to do, so she does not need a book with assignments as much as she needs a good, easy-to-use reference book.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

[Unregistered]

I used Grammar the Easy Way, Wnglish the Easy Way and Writing Made Simple to study for the English Praxis. They are easy to understand and a great resource to keep around.

[Unregistered]

Try What's the Rule? grammar guides from whatstherule.com They are available as a book or as 15 laminated binder pages.

I got my binder pages from some college where I taught freshman composition, but the material is suitable for middle school through adult -- which is why I still have mine in my desktop planner where it's handy.

Linda A

[Sanford]

Communication is essential to all human activities. I tell my students that if they cannot communicate their understanding to me on tests, I cannot grade them.

First write on paper the essay.
Then type it in using MS Word or whatever, with spell checker off.
Then spell check it.

Why three steps? Answer: We must do one step at a time. I reiterate this often to my students.

See the book I wrote: "Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better" on amazon.

[LoneStar]

See the book I wrote: "Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better" on amazon.

A colleague of mine is a Rhodes Scholar and a master teacher. Students will often ask him what they can do to improve their SAT verbal scores. Unlike you, he doesn't direct them to any of the books he has authored or co-authored.

Instead, he says: "Read 50 books." Students then reply, "What 50 books?" He responds: "Any 50 books. Reading anything will increase your vocabulary and your writing skills."

[Unregistered]

Instead, he says: "Read 50 books." Students then reply, "What 50 books?" He responds: "Any 50 books. Reading anything will increase your vocabulary and your writing skills."













Although practice is important, it will not increase a person's writing ability by itself.

Most of the writing that adults need to perform falls into the "persuasive" category (except in college, where research writing is more often required). A college entrance essay is within the persuasive genre because your daughter needs to persuade the admissions officer that she is the type of student that they want as part of their university.

When you are selling yourself (or a product) think about what the other person wants and how you (or your product) lines up with those standards. It is important to play to your strengths. For example, let's say that the university wants to recruit students who have a strong work ethic and an ability to think abstractly, but (for arguements sake) your child only has one of those attributes. Write the essay around whichever attribute she actually has and don't mention the other one. In persuasive writing it is important to only use positive statements-this can be a fun game as it is the only time in life that you can selectively ignore the negatives.

It is very difficult to cold sell yourself, so many students prefer to use the narrative format rather than the typical essay format for entrance papers (just be aware that four years later she will need to use the essay style of writing to create a letter of intent/cover letter to find a job). To write a narrative she will need to think of a time where she eithor exhibited/or learned the character trait she is associating herself with. She will need to give the reader a hint about her main point in the begining of the paper and then drive the mesage home in the closing paragraph. It is A-okay to use lines that seem a little cheesy-for example, "As I gazed at the beautiful A+ adorning my paper I came to an important realization. Through hard work and careful planning I can balance my role as a soup kitchen volunteer while meeting my obligations as a student. I will never forget that I am capable of changing the world."

Most people will naturally undersell themselves, so if you oversell yourself you will stand out in a positive way. Remember, it isn't lying just because you omit your flaws. Whenever you sell something the buyer will be actively looking for flaws, but they will usually not be looking for strengths. By only presenting your positive attributes you are actually creating a more balanced picture of yourself.

Anyways, this post sort of went beyond a book recomendation. I hope it is helpful.

[LoneStar]

You missed the point. Anyone who reads a comprehensive amount of literature will be exposed to all different styles of writing, many of which you listed in your post.

Reading, above and beyond anything else, is still the key factor here. If a child has not been exposed to different writing styles by different authors, they have nothing to draw on from their collective knowledge. You can't teach them that in a two-week crash course on how to write a college entrance essay. If you think you can, then you are mistaken, for they will have a very difficult time expressing themselves adequately at the collegiate level, and then again once when they enter the job market when they actually have to verbalize it all in an interview.

[annettemcd]

I wrote the original post of this thread and wanted to make some comments on the responses.

First of all, my daughter is a reader. In fact, I have had teachers in parent/teacher conferences say that whenever she has a free moment, she has her nose buried in a book. Her Kindle is full of books and she carries it with her everywhere. I am amazed that all of her reading has not had more of an influence on her writing.

She is actually good at getting her point across and did well on her college entrance essays and scholarship applications. (She was accepted to Brown University and received $10,000 in scholarship monies.)

BUT, her grammar and basic writing skills still need work. Essays and papers require a fair amount of editing before they are finished.

I truly feel that the amount of written communication done by today's teenagers in the form of texting, chatting, and informal e-mails with no attention to grammar, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. creates some of the problems. Bad habits are hard to break.

I appreciate the titles recommended and will suggest that she consider getting some reference books, so that she is able to edit her own writing and teach herself to write correctly with good sentence structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.

[shubh]

Here are some tips for your daughter:
Using the proper punctuation will ensure that people are reading your sentences correctly.
Expand your knowledge by reading different types of writing.
Avoid wordiness. Say out loud what you are trying to write.
Stay away from jargon your reader may not understand.
Pay attention to grammar and always perform check.
Some good sources for improvement are:
www.time4writing.com/
www.agentstory.net/JuniorAuthors.htm