Longman Guide to Revising Prose: A Quick and Easy Method for Turning Good Writing Into Great Writing

by Richard A. Lanham

True to its title, Revising Prose is about revising, not about original composition. It will not teach you how to pray for inspiration, marshall your thoughts, or find the willpower to glue backside... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0321417666
• ISBN13: 9780321417664
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Longman Publishing Group
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

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If you read this book, you will discover how to recognise passive prose, and how to transform it into active prose. Having read this book, one can recall books read in the past which used tedious stuffy prose, and convert it into better language. Good prose has an operator, an action, and an object. For example, Winston Churchill said: 'We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the shores.' He did not say: 'Hostilities shall be commenced on the coastal perimeter.' One can learn much more than this, the academic style has become somewhat too popular, although there may be appropriate contexts, but if you wish to polish up your prose, and make it vastly more dynamic, you can do this in a matter of hours with this book, and eliminate a lifetime of passive noun styles. Other lessons include using 'is' less, the less you use passive verbs like is, the more powerful, and attention grabbing your prose will become. If you're like me, it will change your whole understanding of writing style, and it will enable you to make your point clearly, briefly and succinctly, in about half the words you normally use. More active prose leads to a more active and clearer mind. The more you use the techniques in this book, the better you will get at not only revising prose but writing prose, as you notice yourself becoming more aware of what you write, and you realise how rewarding revising your words can be. I recommend Analyzing Proseif you can get it at a reasonable price. Most of all, I recommendShakespeare's Wordcraft (Softcover) which explores the language patterns of Shakespeare. Hope this was helpful.