A Pocket Style Manual

Used by nearly a quarter million students each year, A Pocket Style Manualis a straightforward, inexpensive quick reference, with content flexible enough to suit the needs of writers in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, health professions, business, fine arts, education, and beyond. Its slim format, brief length, and spiral binding make it easy for students to keep A Pocket Style Manualwith them for every writing assignment, in any class. With its signature Hacker handbook quick-reference featureshand-edited sentences, color-coded documentation coverage, user-friendly index entries, and a clean, uncluttered design A Pocket Style Manualhas always provided fast, effective answers to writing and research questions. In the Hacker tradition, new coauthor Nancy Sommers has crafted solutions for the challenges today's college students face. The new edition provides even more help with research writing and supports students in every discipline.

DIANA HACKER personally class-tested her handbooks with nearly four thousand students over 35 years at Prince George's Community College in Maryland, where she was a member of the English faculty. Hacker handbooks, built on innovation and on a keen understanding of the challenges facing student writers, are the most widely adopted in America. Other Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin's, include Rules for Writers, Seventh Edition, A Writer’s Reference, Seventh Edition; and The Bedford Handbook, Eighth Edition.
 
NANCY SOMMERS, who has taught composition and directed composition programs for thirty years, now teaches writing in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well known for her research and publications on student writing. Her recent work involves a longitudinal study of undergraduate writing. Nancy Sommers is coauthor of Fields of Reading, Ninth Edition and is lead author on Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin's.

Clarity 1 Tighten wordy sentences. 2 Prefer active verbs. 3 Balance parallel ideas. 4 Add needed words. 5 Eliminate confusing shifts. 6 Untangle mixed constructions. 7 Repair misplaced and dangling modifiers. 8 Provide sentence variety. 9 Find an appropriate voice.
Grammar 10 Make subjects and verbs agree. 11 Be alert to other problems with verbs. 12 Use pronouns with care. 13 Use adjectives and adverbs appropriately.
 
14 Repair sentence fragments. 15 Revise run-on sentences. 16 Review grammar concerns for multilingual writers. Punctuation 17 The comma 18 The semicolon and the colon 19 The apostrophe 20 Quotation marks 21 Other marks Mechanics 22 Capitalization 23 Abbreviations, numbers, and italics 24 Spelling and the hyphen
Research 25 Posing a research question 26 Finding appropriate sources 27 Evaluating sources
(*new feature on scholarly vs. popular sources) 28 Managing information; avoiding plagiarism
(*new chapter including sample annotated bibliography and chart on avoiding plagiarism)
MLA Papers 29 Supporting a thesis 30 Avoiding plagiarism 31 Integrating nonfiction sources
(*new coverage of synthesis) 32 Integrating literary quotations 33 MLA documentation style
(*new annotated documentation models) 34 MLA manuscript format; sample pages
APA Papers 35 Supporting a thesis 36 Avoiding plagiarism  37 Integrating sources 38 APA documentation style
(*new annotated documentation models) 39 APA manuscript format; sample pages
Chicago Papers 40 Supporting a thesis 41 Avoiding plagiarism  42 Integrating sources 43 Chicago documentation style 44 Chicago manuscript format; sample pages
CSE Papers
(*two new chapters)
45 CSE documentation style 46 CSE manuscript format
Glossaries 47 Glossary of usage 48 Glossary of grammatical terms Index
Charts and lists for quick reference
Checklist for global revision
Visiting the writing center
Revision symbols