Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Clear, comprehensive, user-friendly writing guide, November 27, 1998
By A Customer
Like a lot of college writing guides on the market, Keys for Writers has a convenient, small format and subject tabs that make finding the information you need easy. It's the only guide I know of, though, that packs in all the writing know-how you'll need in college, grad school, and at the start of your career.Anyone can use the brainstorming and organizing tips this book gives you to jump-start a writing assignment. Most writing books lead you through the writing process just as well as this one does, but when it comes to the final draft, most don't go further than style hints and information on what size margins to use. Keys for Writers does much more: it teaches you to write and format everything from argumentative essays, lab reports and writing journals to business letters and resumes, with whole chapters devoted to Chicago and APA formats. Non-native English speakers will also find a chapter specifically designed to help them write--and it covers different cultures' approaches to writing in as much depth as grammar and vocabulary. Sidebars and boxes in every chapter give students valuable information on the writing process, covering everything from common spelling mistakes to how to find their own voice and the different approaches to take in different types of writing (literary, scientific, business...) Definitely a good buy!
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simple to follow, worthwhile to return to, February 17, 2001
I have to look at dozens of these books every semester, and frankly mostly of them are less that impressive. Most lack organization or detail that make them useful or user friendly.This is one of the few books that I find myself referring to and recommending repeatedly. Students from 16-60 tell me that this books is easy to follow. The book is well organized, clear, and consistent. For instance, if you need to find out how to do a Works Cited Page, this book walks you through it in a nearly fool-proof example. After using this book for awhile, I found not only did I prefer using it, but I didn't have to keep explaining to my students how to do basic writing skills. I would tell them where to find something and they would pick it up. Besides basic research information there are a number of tips on writing, structure, and organizing that my students have found helpful. It might be silly, but one of the things I like best about this book is it is small, ring bound, and is tabbed to its major parts. It seems someone finally figured out the key to a good writing reference guide is "easy access".
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Short Assignment #3, October 15, 2003
Keys for writers written by Ann Raimes, is useful reference book for students and scholars of all ages. Hitting on almost all major points of writing today, this book helps with everything from the documentation, grammar, and style. Being written very recently also allows the reader to use the handbook to research things such as how to site a website, website design, and even an area about online discussions. Raimes also goes into an area about multilingual writers. This is very helpful especially when attending a college that a majority of the people do not use English for their first language. Tips for these people on writing are easy to find and follow. Raimes hits many points throughout the whole book making it one of the best reference books for English that I have seen in a long time.
One of the hardest assignments in any age of schooling today is a research paper. There is a certain format that one must follow and many rules on how exactly to write the paper. This handbook helps students in these areas like research, documentation (both APA and MLA), and also punctuation and mechanics. Particularly on pages 125 through 158 I found great examples of documentation using the MLA format, in all types of ways. It is much easier to see an example written as Raimes has done, then to just be given a format. She even goes through how to document one or more authors, speeches and lectures, and translated books. Some of these things I never even knew existed. Many students, myself included find research very hard sometimes. Sure anyone can go onto the Internet type the main words of your search, but what do you do when 143,000 different references come up and which of these references are acceptable to use? On pages 72 through 120 Raimes gives specific examples of what kind of reference to use and where even to find these references. What makes it even nicer is that she breaks down her sources into subject so you can search quickly and efficiently. Research papers, including the one that I have due in December will be much easier to write with the help of this book. Many students do not even know what style means when it comes to writing. I would bet that some thing that style only means the type of cloths you wear. Raimes goes into style very thoroughly. She even hits some great points with her table on the "Five C's of Style," on page 249. This table guides a writer with a series of questions to ask yourself before, after, and during the writing of a paper to keep your thoughts in order. Thoughts such as "is my paper wordy or repetitive," "could any of my language offend the reader," and "am I staying connected throughout the whole piece and not jumping from thought to thought without any transitions." These are often points that a writer overlooks and needs go through every time a paper is written. Hitting on the style aspect as well is the sentence structure through out a paper. Many times a writer will use the same word to start each sentence or misuse pronouns and verbs. This problem is helped in the "Common Sentence Problems" and the "Punctuation, Spelling, and Mechanics" areas of the handbook. These two sections go through some basic points and aspects of writing. Just as any other sport or hobby one must master the basics before becoming really good at what they do, and this is what Raimes hits on perfectly. She tells the writer to go with their ideas, but do not forget these basic rules and format that one must follow in the writing of any paper. Some aspects of the book, not on a structure level that I found to be very good are the price and make up of the book. A book only costing around forty to fifty dollars that is going to get this much use throughout the years of high school, college, and beyond is almost impossible to find these days. I feel that the price was very reasonable and probably was the only book that I purchased the semester without cringing while reaching my hands into my pocket. Also the spiral binding makes it easy for a writer to flip through and keep open on one's desk while writing. The tabs for easy to find aspects and the small make up of the book make it great to carry around in a students backpack without weighing it down. If I had to bring up some negative points of the book I would say that Raimes does not give any exercises for one to practice the skills she is teaching and also a supplemental CD format for the computer would have been helpful. Many students today like to pop in a CD and sit on the computer to go through something. As a whole though I found Raimes' book to be very informative and helpful in my writing process and plan to keep this book very many years to come!
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