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book
BookPrinted Material
Author Elbow, Peter, author.

Title Writing with power : techniques for mastering the writing process / Peter Elbow.

Publication Info. New York : Oxford University Press, [1998]
©1998

Item Status

Location Call No. Status OPAC Message Public Note Gift Note
 Talbott: Offsite Storage  PE1408 .E39 1998    Available  ---
Edition Second edition.
Description xxvi, 384 pages ; 22 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-377) and index.
Contents Some essentials. An approach to writing -- Freewriting -- Sharing -- The direct writing process for getting words on paper -- Quick revising -- The dangerous method: trying to write it right the first time -- More ways of getting words on paper. The open-ended writing process -- The loop writing process -- Metaphors for priming the pump -- Working on writing while not thinking about writing -- Poetry as no big deal -- More ways to revise. Thorough revising -- Revising with feedback -- Cut-and-paste revising and the collage -- The last step: getting rid of mistakes in grammar -- Nausea -- Audience. Other people -- Audience as focusing force -- Three tricky relationships to an audience -- Writing for teachers -- Feedback. Criterion-based feedback and reader-based feedback -- A catalogue of criterion-based questions -- A catalogue of reader-based questions -- Options for getting feedback -- Power in writing. Writing and voice -- How to get power through voice -- Breathing experience into words -- Breathing experience into expository writing -- Writing and magic.
Summary This volume is a writing handbook that employs a "cookbook approach". The author offers various "recipes" and advice for writing issues such as -- getting words down on paper, for revising, for dealing with an audience, for getting feedback on a piece of writing, and still other "recipes" for approaching the mystery of power in writing. The author is a proponent of "freewriting"--Or, raw writing, writing without concern for the rules of grammar, and writing for the sheer sake of getting words on paper. His strategy involves aggressively seeking counter-arguments to his suggestions, and he often admits that two opposing principles both contain elements of truth. He then gives thoughtful advice on how to cope with such complexity. Many of his guidelines involve dialectical or cyclical practices, e.g. paying attention to breathing life into your prose, but then revising for structure, and then returning once again to make sure you haven't choked the life out of what you've written.
A classic handbook for anyone who needs to write, Writing With Power speaks to everyone who has wrestled with words while seeking to gain power with them. Here, Peter Elbow emphasizes that the essential activities underlying good writing and the essential exercises promoting it are really not difficult at all. Employing a cookbook approach, Elbow provides the reader (and writer) with various recipes: for getting words down on paper, for revising, for dealing with an audience, for getting feedback on a piece of writing, and still other recipes for approaching the mystery of power in writing. In a new introduction, he offers his reflections on the original edition, discusses the responses from people who have followed his techniques, how his methods may differ from other processes, and how his original topics are still pertinent to todays writer. By taking risks and embracing mistakes, Elbow hopes the writer may somehow find a hold on the creative process and be able to heighten two mentalities--the production of writing and the revision of it. From students and teachers to novelists and poets, Writing with Power reminds us that we can celebrate the uses of mystery, chaos, nonplanning, and magic, while achieving analysis, conscious control, explicitness, and care in whatever it is we set down on paper. [from publisher description].
Language English text.
Subject English language -- Rhetoric.
English language -- Rhetoric.
Report writing.
Report writing.
Anglais (Langue) -- Rhétorique.
Rapports -- Rédaction.
ISBN 0195120175 (hardcover)
9780195120172 (hardcover)
0195120183 (paperback)
9780195120189 (paperback)