Considering the writers' handbook

On the CHE-sponsored blog Brainstorm, Gina Barreca wrote recently about bad (with the comments here containing many positive recommendations), good, and the best books about writing, which set me to thinking about the writers' handbook often required for FYC classes. A little cost/benefit analysis is in order here, I think: in particular,

• how much are these manuals costing our students?
• what material are we as instructors expecting students to find in these manuals?
• how much are these manuals actually used by students?

Textbook publishers often don't make it easy to find list prices of these books (maybe because the cost doesn't matter to instructors requesting their free desk copies?), but a quick bit of research on the website of one leading publisher shows prices as high as $70! The concise editions that have started to proliferate do provide a more reasonable option, but it's still worth thinking about why and how we expect students to use these supplements.

Now, I haven't studied these books exhaustively, but at first/second/third glances most appear nearly indistinguishable (spriral-bound, tabbed, an "innovative" chapter on visual rhetoric, research chapters tucked non-threateningly at the back). The three main content areas seem to be grammar/usage tuneups, style matters, and the research process. Can our students get this info elsewhere, more completely, more engagingly delivered, more reasonably priced?

From the Internet we have (free) online resources such as Purdue's OWL, the Capital Community College Foundation's Guide to Grammar and Writing, Bedford-St. Martin's Re: Writing, Chuck Guilford's Paradigm Online Writing Assistant, the elegant clarity of Punctuation Made Simple, and the attention-getting (maybe) Grammar Bytes. Also, if you haven't seen it yet, you may want to check out the Rhetoric and Composition Wikibook (if there's something you don't agree with, change it; if you think something is missing, add it). (Many of these online resources include an interactive component as well as explanatory material and multiple examples.)

Mass-market options (most at $15 or less) include Michael Harvey's The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing ($6.95 from Amazon!!; also available here in an online version): Constance Hale's lively Sin and Syntax; and, of course, the classic Elements of Style, most recently released in a gorgeous, cleverly illustrated version (see the illustrator Maira Kalman's site for a taste via video; for the more conservative, the original Strunk text is available here).

For the research process, check out Steven Krause's The Process of Research Writing, offered via Creative Commons licensing. As for MLA citation, do you really expect our students to see the value of remembering all those details when they have available such options as Citation Machine, EasyBib, NoodleBib, and (if yr institution ponies up the fee) RefWorks? (And is it really all about where we put those colons and what we set italic??)

The main issue for me comes down to how (if at all) students will use (any of) these resources. After relying on electronic sources for a while, I thought that students might be more likely to consult a book than a website, so I did require one of those generic handbooks a few semesters ago. Maybe it  comes down more to how the instructor uses the reference rather than the mode of delivery? But in my more cynical moments I wonder if it's  just a romantic delusion to think that a FYC student will take the time to look (in either book or website) to find out whether an indefinite pronoun takes a singular or plural verb (to reveal one of my own grammatical insecurities).

Questions: What's the value in writers' manuals? Which one(s) do you prefer, and/or what are yr criteria for selection? How do you encourage yr students to actually use these books?

 

Comments

[Nick Carbone]

Hi Holly,

I think the central question is one of use. If a student uses a book, then the book has value. For example, even a big $70 book is a good value if its used often. So if a writing instructor asks students to buy that book, then it's important, I think that students learn to use, which means not only requiring them to use it, but teaching them how to use once the course is over. 70 divided by 2 is $35 , the cost per year to a community college student if they keep using that book whenever they do writing at the CC. Or, it's $17.50 a semester. If they keep the book and continue to use it as they write beyond the CC, whether as a transfer student to a 4 year or as life-long learner, the value increases.

But it's about teaching students to use the book. I work for Bedford/St. Martin's, and but when I teach a course (part-time), I tend to use a smaller handbook rather than a bigger one. Mainly because I've tried using alternatives such as the Purdue OWL only (back when I was a graduate student at UMass, Amherst years ago).

I found that the consistency and constancy of a print book; the interface was the same for every student and not subject to browser types; the tone of the work was the same; the editing was consistent (Purdue's handouts are useful, but written by different OWL tutors over time and thus not always consistent in tone and terms.)

A handbook, anyway, is a good reference system; the cross-references are carefully made; the index is accurate; and so on. As a resource, it becomes more valuable as a writer continues to use it and grows as a writer. Other composition textbooks, rhetorics -- like the St. Martin's Guide to College Writing; or the book that Matt's students have made -- that have specific assignments, are less useful after a course.

But anyway, I think you're right: value matters. For me, it's less about price (though less is always better) and more about teaching writers to use what you have them get.

[Holly]

Thanks for the thoughtful response, Nick. It's set my thoughts going in several directions.

First my own disclosure: I've found handbooks of limited usefulness in my own development as a writer (which does not necessarily correspond to what my students may find useful, I know).

I do think it's worthwhile, for those who ask students to purchase such books, to think about when and how we expect students to use them, which is why I posed the question. (And it's not just a dollar-and-cents question, I agree, and I agree that we can't expect students to know how to use them without training.)

I'll stick here to the grammar-and-style side of the aisle; others of you who find handbooks useful for other aspects of the writing and researching process, please feel free to weigh in! Will students use handbooks during drafting (of their own initiative, realizing the need to check out some grammar or style point), or do we see these manuals as a help for students in interpreting teacher comments?

For the second purpose, electronic handbooks seem like a good option, esp. in the context of a web-based tool like Bedford's Comment, where hyperlinks can be provided by the instructor to the relevant grammar info. (Of course, this does not give the student info they can carry beyond the course...)

As for the first, to what extent are these handbooks like dictionaries for those who complain they can't look up the spelling of a word if they don't know how it's spelled? Only (if we hope for students to look things up on their own) it's often a more serious problem: that they don't know that they don't know the correct spelling. (That is, one needs a certain awareness of ignorance combined with an approximate-knowledge in order to use the resource effectively.)

In terms of training students to be able to use these manuals (to know on their own when they need to look something up), I'm pessimistic. I talk to students about developing their own checklist of personal usage "issues," but I'm not sure how well it sticks. I have so many students who can't reliably point out the subject and verb of a simple sentence, let alone be able to see how a compound-complex sentence is constructed. Without the grammatical terminology, it's hard to talk about many matters of correctness (how to explain the difference between coordinating and subordinating conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs? that commas come after introductory subordinate clauses?--my students' eyes would glaze over). For such students, the handbooks often seem intimidating rather than helpful.

No answers here, I'm afraid--only questions...It's a larger issue, though, perhaps to do with how important "correctness" is in FYC (from our perspective within the English department as well as the perspectives college-wide and in the workplace), and how we "teach" it, or help students to learn it.