Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises, The (with MyCompLab NEW with E-Book Student Access Code Card), 6/E
Jane E. Aaron, New York University

ISBN-10: 0205661645
ISBN-13: 9780205661640

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 2009
Format: Kit/Package/ShrinkWrap; 624 pp
Status: Temporarily out of stock

Suggested retail price: $64.00
This item is temporarily out of stock and is unavailable for purchase.



The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises packages the authority and currency of its best-selling parent, The Little, Brown Handbook, in a briefer book with spiral binding, tabbed dividers, and now more than 150 exercises.

 

Concise and accessible, The Little, Brown Compact Handbook helps writing students find what they need and then use what they find. It provides clear explanations of the writing process, grammar, usage, critical thinking, and argument. Its thorough, up-to-date coverage of research writing stresses the library as Web gateway, evaluation and synthesis of print and online sources, and intellectual honesty. It provides the latest documentation guidelines in MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE styles.

 

The sixth edition comes in two versions, one with and one without exercises. Otherwise identical, both books build on the handbook’s best-selling features with three main emphases: (1) writing in and out of college, including new chapters on academic writing in general, writing in the disciplines, study skills, online writing, public writing, and oral presentations; (2) visual literacy, including more on creating illustrations and viewing images critically and new coverage of visual argument; (3) research writing, including more on using library subscription services and evaluating Web sites, new annotated sample pages from key source types, and new coverage of annotated bibliographies, Web logs, and finding images.


  • Concise and authoritative reference provides the help students need on the writing process, grammar, usage, research writing, and more.
  • Accessible, self-teaching reference offers carefully constructed reference aids, such as convenient tabbed dividers, “Frequently Asked Questions” (front endpapers), a detailed index, and a preface just for students.
  • Unique approach to terminology includes transparent headings in the text and menus that avoid or explain terms and “Key terms” boxes in the text that provide essential definitions and thus minimize cross-references and page flipping.
  • Extensive, up-to-date discussion of research writing emphasizes managing information, using the library as Web gateway, evaluating and synthesizing sources, avoiding plagiarism, and documenting sources accurately.
  • Concrete help with critical thinking and argument includes techniques of critical reading, specific suggestions for writing arguments, and a sample argument paper.
  • Extensive help for multilingual and multidialect students through unique “Culture<>Language” sections, whichemphasize both rhetorical and grammatical issues. “Culture<>Language” sections are thoroughly integrated into the text so that students aren’t stigmatized and can find what they need without knowing which problems they do and don’t share with native speakers.
  • Integrated coverage of computers and writing includes scores of specific tips throughout the text, ranging from advice on spelling checkers to help with Web searches.
  • Companion Website, integrated with the text, offers a powerful online resource: online versions of most of the handbook’s exercises; more than 1000 additional interactive exercises; more than 30 video tutorials; downloadable checklists from the handbook; hundreds of annotated links to other useful sites; ten documented student research papers from across the curriculum; and (for instructors) password-protected answers to the handbook’s exercises, teaching tips, PowerPointslides, transparency masters, and more.

  • Part 2, “Writing in and out of College,” gives students the tools for analyzing and composing in many different writing situations.
  • New chapters join those on critical thinking and argument:
    • “Academic Writing”: audience, purpose, language, and other concerns.
    • “Study Skills”: managing time, reading for comprehension, and preparing for exams.
    • “Online Writing”: e-mail, online collaboration, and Web composition.
    • “Oral Presentations,” including PowerPoint.
    • “Public Writing”: business documents, job applications, and writing for community work.
  • Part 8, “Writing in the Disciplines,” adds new chapters to those on writing about literature and on documenting sources in MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE styles:
    • “Goals and Requirements of the Disciplines”: methodology, evidence, and other concerns of all disciplines. 
    •  “Writing in Other Disciplines”: specific concerns of the humanities, social sciences, and natural and applied sciences. Extensively revised chapters on research writing keep pace with the dramatic changes in research methods.
  • New material includes:          
    • Guidelines on preparing an annotated bibliography.      
    • More emphasis on library subscription services.
    • Advice on using Web logs as research sources.
    • Coverage of images as research sources, including URLs of image banks.
    • More on evaluating Web sites.
    • Sample pages from key source types, showing students how to find the bibliographic information needed to cite each type.
    • Up-to-the-minute documentation coverage in MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE styles.
    • New material on visual literacy helps students process visual information and use it effectively in their writing.
    • Expanded coverage of using illustrations.
    • Expanded discussion of viewing images critically, using diverse examples.
    • New discussion of using visual arguments.
    • Illustrations in most student papers, showing visual support of ideas.
    • "Culture-Language Guide" (back of the book) orients students with advice on mastering standard American English and indexes all of the book’s integrated material for multilingual and multidialectal students.

 

I. WRITING PROCESS

1. The Writing Situation

a. Assessment

b. Subject

c. Audience

d. Purpose.

2. Invention

a. Journal keeping

b. Observing

c. Freewriting

d. Brainstorming

e. Clustering

f. Asking questions

3. Thesis and Organization

a. Thesis statement

b. Organization

4. Drafting

a. Starting to draft

b. Maintaining momentum

c. Sample first draft

5. Revising and Editing

a. Revising the whole essay

b. Sample revision

c. Editing the revised draft

d. Formatting and proofreading

e. Sample final draft 

f. Collaborating

g. Preparing a writing portfolio

6. Paragraphs

a. Unity

b. Coherence

c. Development

d. Introductions and conclusions

7. Document Design

a. Academic papers

b. Principles of design

c. Elements of design

d. Illustrations

e. Readers with disabilities

II. WRITING IN AND OUT OF COLLEGE

8. Academic Writing.

a. Becoming an academic writer

b. Audience

c. Purpose

d. Structure and format

e. Language

9. Study Skills

a. Time management

b. Listening and note taking in class

c. Reading

d. Exams

10. Critical Thinking and Reading

a. Reading texts

b. Viewing images

11. Argument

a. Elements of argument

b. Reasonableness

c. Organization

d. Visual arguments

e. Sample argument

12. Online Writing

a. Electronic mail

b Online collaboration

c. Web compositions

13. Oral Presentations

a. Organization

b. Delivery

14. Public Writing

a. Business letters and résumés

Sample letter and résumé

b. Memos, reports, and proposals

Sample memo, report, and proposal

c. Community work: flyers, newsletters, brochures

Sample flyer, newsletter, and brochure

III. CLARITY AND STYLE

15. Emphasis

a. Effective subjects and verbs

b. Sentence beginnings and endings

c. Coordination

d. Subordination

16. Parallelism

a. With and, but, or, nor, yet

b. With both...and, not...but, etc.

c. In comparisons

d. With lists, headings, and outlines

17. Variety and Details

a. Sentence length

b. Sentence structure

c. Details

18. Appropriate and Exact Language

a. Appropriate language

b. Exact language

19. Completeness

a. Compounds

b. Needed words

20. Conciseness

a. Focusing on subject and verb

b. Cutting empty words

c. Cutting repetition

d. Reducing clauses and phrases

e. Cutting there is or it is

f. Combining sentences

g. Rewriting jargon

IV. SENTENCE PARTS AND PATTERNS

BASIC GRAMMAR

 

21. Parts of Speech

a. Nouns

b. Pronouns

c. Verbs

d. Adjectives and adverbs

e. Prepositions and conjunctions

f. Interjections

22. The Sentence

a. Subject and predicate

b. Predicate patterns

23. Phrases and Subordinate Clauses 

a. Phrases

b. Subordinate clauses

24. Sentence Types

a. Simple sentences

b. Compound sentences

c. Complex sentences

d. Compound-complex sentences

VERBS

 

25. Forms

a. Sing/sang/sung and other irregular verbs

b. Sit/set; lie/lay; rise/raise

c. -s and -ed forms

d. Be, have, and other helping verbs

e. Verb + gerund or infinitive: stop eating vs. stop to eat

f. Verb + particle: look up, look over, etc.

26. Tenses

a. Present tense: sing

b. Perfect tenses: have/had/will have sung

c. Progressive tenses: is/was/will be singing

d. Consistency

e. Sequence

27. Mood

a. Subjunctive: I wish I were

b. Consistency

28. Voice

a. She wrote it (active) vs. It was written (passive)

b. Consistency

29. Subject-Verb Agreement

a. -s and -es endings

b. Intervening words

c. Subjects with and

d. Subjects with or or nor

e. Everyone and other indefinite pronouns

f. Team and other collective nouns

g. Who, which, that

h. News and other singular nouns ending in -s

i. Inverted word order

j. Is, are, and other linking verbs

k. Titles and words being defined

PRONOUNS

 

30. Case

a. She and I vs. her and me

b. It was she vs. It was her

c. Who vs. whom

d. Other constructions

31. Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

a. Antecedents with and

b. Antecedents with or or nor

c. Everyone, person, and other indefinite words

d. Team and other collective nouns

32. Pronoun Reference

a. Clear reference

b. Close reference

c. Specific reference

d. Definite it and they

e. Appropriate you

f. Consistency

MODIFIERS

 

33. Adjectives and Adverbs

a. Adjective vs. adverb

b. Adjective with linking verb: felt bad

c. Bigger, most talented, and other comparisons

d. Double negatives

e. Present and past participles: boring vs. bored

f. A, an, the, and other determiners

34. Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers

a. Misplaced modifiers

b. Dangling modifiers

SENTENCE FAULTS

 

35. Fragments

a. Tests

b. Revision

c. Acceptable fragments

36. Comma Splices and Fused Sentences

a. Main clauses without and, but, etc.

b. Main clauses with however, for example, etc.

37. Mixed Sentences

a. Reason is because and other mixed meanings

b. Tangled grammar

c. Repeated subjects and other parts

V. PUNCTUATION

38. End Punctuation

a. Period

b. Question mark

c. Exclamation point

39. Comma

a. Main clauses with and, but, etc.

b. Introductory elements

c. Nonessential elements

d. Items in a series

e. Two or more adjectives

f. Dates, addresses, place names, numbers

g. With quotations

h. Misuses

40. Semicolon

a. Main clauses without and, but, etc.

b. Main clauses with however, for example, etc.

c. Main clauses or series items with commas

d. Misuses

41. Colon

a. Concluding explanation, series, etc.

b. Salutation; title and subtitle; time

c. Misuses

42. Apostrophe

a. Possession

b. Misuses

c. Contractions

d. Plural abbreviations, etc.

43. Quotation Marks

a. Direct quotations

b. Within quotations

c. Dialog

d. Titles of works

e. Words used in a special sense

f. Misuses

g. With other punctuation

44. Other Marks

a. Dash or dashes

b. Parentheses

c. Ellipsis mark

d. Brackets

e. Slash

VI. SPELLING AND MECHANICS

45. Spelling and the Hyphen

a. Typical spelling problems

b. Spelling rules

c. The hyphen

46. Capital Letters

a. First word of sentence

b. Proper nouns and adjectives

c. Titles of works

d. Online communication

47. Underlining or Italics

a. Underlining vs. italics

b. Titles of works

c. Names of vehicles

d. Foreign words

e. Words or characters named as words

f. Emphasis

g. Online communication

48. Abbreviations

a. Titles with proper names

b. Familiar abbreviations

c. BC, BCE, AD,CE, AM, PM, no., $

d. Latin abbreviations

e. Inc., Bros., Co., &

f. Units of measurement, names, etc.

49. Numbers

a. Numerals vs. words

b. Dates, addresses, etc.

c. Beginning sentences

VII. RESEARCH WRITING

50. Research Strategy

a. Planning

b. Research journal

c. Researchable subject and question

d. Goals for sources

e. Working, annotated bibliography

51. Finding Sources

a. Searching electronically

b. Reference works

c. Books

d. Periodicals

e. The Web

f. Other online sources

g. Government publications

h. Images

i. Your own sources

52. Working with Sources

a. Evaluating sources

b. Synthesizing sources

c. Gathering information

d. Using summary, paraphrase, quotation

e. Integrating sources

53. Avoiding Plagiarism and Documenting Sources

a. Plagiarism and the Internet

b. What not to acknowledge

c. What must be acknowledged

d. Online sources

e. Documenting sources

54. Writing the Paper

a. Focusing and organizing

b. Drafting, revising, and formatting

VIII. WRITING IN THE DISCIPLINES

55. Goals and Requirements of the Disciplines

a. Methods and evidence

b. Writing assignments

c. Tools and language

d. Documentation and format

56. Reading and Writing About Literature

a. Methods and evidence

b. Writing assignments

c. Tools and language

d. Documentation and format

e. Sample analysis of a poem

57. Writing in Other Disciplines

a. Other humanities

b. Social sciences

c. Natural and applied sciences

58. MLA Documentation and Format

Indexes to models

a. Parenthetical text citations

b. List of works cited

c. Format of paper

d. Sample MLA paper

59. APA Documentation and Format

Indexes to models 

a. Parenthetical text citations

b. List of references

c. Format of paper

d. Sample APA paper

60. Chicago Documentation and Format

Index to models

a. Notes and works-cited entries

b. Models

61. CSE Documentation and Format

Index to models 

a. Name-year citations

b. Numbered text citations

c. List of references

Glossary of Usage

 

Index  

Give your students a choice! PearsonChoices products are designed to give your students more value and flexibility by letting them choose from a variety of text and media formats to best match their learning style and their budget.

Pearson Higher Education offers special pricing when you choose to package your text with other student resources. If you're interested in creating a cost-saving package for your students, see the Packages tab.

Pearson Higher Education offers special pricing when you choose to package your text with other student resources. If you're interested in creating a cost-saving package for your students, browse our available packages below, or contact your Pearson Higher Education representative to create your own package.