A Hacker handbook has always been a how-to manual for building confidence as a college writer. Diana Hacker conceived A Writer’s Reference as a quick-access innovation in handbook format, and Nancy Sommers continues to reinvent its content for an evolving course emphasizing critical reading and writing. For more than 25 years, the book has allowed students to build confidence and take ownership of their college writing experience.
A Writer’s Reference, Ninth Edition, and LaunchPad for A Writer’s Reference together represent a next-level tool for college writers. What’s most exciting? An emphasis on help that is personal, practical, and digital. A Writer’s Reference is reimagined as a system that helps students target their needs and see their successes; that offers innovative practice with writing, reading, thinking, and research; and that lives in an engaging multimedia environment.
Diagnostics, e-book tools, and custom options allow students and teachers to personalize the handbook. How-to pages, writing guides, student models, and exercises and activities deliver pragmatic, transferable lessons. And with a more interactive e-book, 24 new video tutorials for argument, analysis, research, and citation, and tools that make assigning and assessing a breeze, LaunchPad will be the digital solution that boosts your confidence as well as your students’. A Writer’s Reference, class tested by literally millions of college writers, still offers the right stuff.
Writing well
C COMPOSING AND REVISING
C1 Planning
C2 Drafting
C3 Reviewing, revising, and editing
C4 Preparing a portfolio; reflecting on your writing
C5 Writing paragraphs
A ACADEMIC READING, WRITING, AND SPEAKING
A1 Reading and writing critically
A2 Reading and writing about multimodal texts
A3 Reading arguments
A4 Writing arguments
A5 Speaking confidently
A6 Writing in the disciplines
S SENTENCE STYLE
S1 Parallelism
S2 Needed words
S3 Problems with modifiers
S4 Shifts
S5 Mixed constructions
S6 Sentence emphasis
S7 Sentence variety
WORD CHOICE
W1 Glossary of usage
W2 Wordy sentences
W3 Active verbs
W4 Appropriate language
W5 Exact language
Writing correctly
GRAMMATICAL SENTENCES
G1 Subject-verb agreement
G2 Verb forms, tenses, and moods
G3 Pronouns
G4 Adjectives and adverbs
G5 Sentence fragments
G6 Run-on sentences
MULTILINGUAL WRITERS AND ESL TOPICS
M1 Verbs
M2 Articles
M3 Sentence structure
M4 Using adjectives
M5 Prepositions and idiomatic expressions
M6 Paraphrasing sources effectively
PUNCTUATION AND MECHANICS
P1 The comma
P2 Unnecessary commas
P3 The semicolon and the colon
P4 The apostrophe
P5 Quotation marks
P6 Other punctuation marks
P7 Spelling and hyphenation
P8 Capitalization
P9 Abbreviations and numbers
P10 Italics
BASIC GRAMMAR
B1 Parts of speech
B2 Sentence patterns
B3 Subordinate word groups
B4 Sentence types
Writing with sources
R RESEARCHING
R1 Thinking like a researcher; gathering sources
R2 Managing information; taking notes responsibly
R3 Evaluating sources
MLA Papers
MLA-1 Supporting a thesis
MLA-2 Citing sources; avoiding plagiarism
MLA-3 Integrating sources
MLA-4 Documenting sources
MLA-5 Manuscript format; sample paper
APA and CMS Papers
(Coverage parallels MLA’s)
APA-1
APA-2
APA-3
APA-4
APA-5
CMS -1
CMS -2
CMS -3
CMS -4
CMS -5
INDEX