Writing With Power Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process

by Elbow, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780195120189
• ISBN10: 0195120183
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-07-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

A classic handbook for anyone who needs to write,Writing With Powerspeaks to everyone who has wrestled with words while seeking to gain power with them. Here, Peter Elbow emphasizes that the essential activities underlying good writing and the essential exercises promoting it are really not difficult at all. Employing a cookbook approach, Elbow provides the reader (and writer) with various recipes: for getting words down on paper, for revising, for dealing with an audience, for getting feedback on a piece of writing, and still other recipes for approaching the mystery of power in writing. In a new introduction, he offers his reflections on the original edition, discusses the responses from people who have followed his techniques, how his methods may differ from other processes, and how his original topics are still pertinent to today's writer. By taking risks and embracing mistakes, Elbow hopes the writer may somehow find a hold on the creative process and be able to heighten two mentalities--the production of writing and the revision of it.

Author Biography

Peter Elbow is Professor of English and Director of the writing program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Table of Contents

Note to the Reader	p. viii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction to the Second Edition	p. xiii
Some Essentials	p. 3
An Approach to Writing	p. 6
Freewriting	p. 13
Sharing	p. 20
The Direct Writing Process for Getting Words on Paper	p. 26
Quick Revising	p. 32
The Dangerous Method: Trying to Write It Right the First Time	p. 39
More Ways of Getting Words on Paper	p. 47
The Open-Ended Writing Process	p. 50
The Loop Writing Process	p. 59
Metaphors for Priming the Pump2605	p. 78
Working on Writing While Not Thinking about Writing	p. 94
Poetry as No Big Deal	p. 101
More Ways to Revise	p. 121
Thorough Revising	p. 128
Revising with Feedback	p. 139
Cut-And-Paste Revising and the Collage	p. 146
The Lost Step: Getting Rid of Mistakes in Grammar	p. 167
Nausea	p. 173
Audience	p. 177
Other People	p. 181
Audience as Focusing Force	p. 191
Three Tricky Relationships to an Audience	p. 199
Writing for Teachers	p. 216
Feedback	p. 237
Criterion-Based Feedback and Reader-Based Feedback	p. 240
A Catalogue of Criterion-Based Questions	p. 252
A Catalogue of Reader-Based Questions	p. 255
Options for Getting Feedback	p. 264
Power in Writing	p. 279
Writing and Voice	p. 281
How to Get Power through Voice	p. 304
Breathing Experience into Words	p. 314
Breathing Experience into Expository Writing	p. 339
Writing and Magic	p. 357
A Select Annotated Bibliography on Publishing	p. 375
Index	p. 379
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.