WRIT 330 - Writing Editing and Publishing
Objective:
The course introduces students to the world of professional, non-fiction writing and focuses on principles of style, the process of editing one’s own and others’ work, and trends in publishing.
Content:
Classes include lectures, some in-class assignments, and discussion. Some of the topics we consider throughout the semester are:
• Grammar, punctuation, and syntax and how to make them work for you instead of against you
• Word use and misuse: a lifelong pursuit and problem• Proofreading, line-by-line editing, and other technical tricks of the trade
• Structure and style and how to recognize and develop them
• Getting started and sticking with it, psychological tricks of the trade
• The theory and practice of revision, revision, revision
• Finding your own voice
• Issues of editorial control and freedom
• The printed word: where it came from and where it is going
During the first half of the semester, each student will write and revise (and revise again) a major piece of non-fiction writing. During the second half of the semester, students will work in teams to write, edit, and produce a newsletter and thereby acquaint themselves with the procedures, pleasures, and problems of publishing.
Expectations:
Students should be prepared for quizzes, a fair amount of reading outside class, and a writing/editing assignment every week. Regular attendance is important because each class builds on the work of the previous class. All assignments should be word-processed. Students who miss any class must arrange to get notes and assignments from another student, not from the instructor.
Grades:
Following is a description of how the instructor assigns grades.
A work at a level of professional excellence
A- work that approaches professional excellence
B+ work at a level of professional competence
B work that approaches professional competence
B- above-average work that remains flawed or fails to fulfill potential
C+ average work that nevertheless shows promise
C average work
D+ below average work
D unacceptable work that is nevertheless turned in
Required Texts:
On Writing Well, William Zinsser
Woe Is I, Patricia T. O’Connor
A Pocket Style Manual, Diana Hacker
Supplemental, Recommended Texts:
A good dictionary such as The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language
Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing, Claire Kehrwald Cook;
The Chicago Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press)
The Associated Press Stylebook (Addison Wesley)
The Transitive Vampire, Karen Gordon (Times Books)
Writing Well, Donald Hall (Little Brown)
Simple and Direct, Jacques Barzun (Harper and Row)
The Art of Fiction, John Gardner (Vintage)
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard (Harper and Row)
Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande (Houghton, Mifflin)
Writing to Learn, William Zinsser (Harper and Row)
One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty (Harvard University Press)
The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage, Theodore Bernstein (Atheneum)
Soule’s Dictionary of English Synonyms, Alfred D. Sheffield, Ed. (Little, Brown)
Modern English Usage, H.W. Fowler (Oxford University Press)
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