DIANA HACKER personally class-tested her handbooks with nearly four thousand students over 35 years at Prince
George�s Community College in Maryland, where she was a member of the English faculty. Hacker handbooks, built
on innovation and on a keen understanding of the challenges facing student writers, are the most widely adopted
in America. Other Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin�s, include A Writer�s Reference, Sixth
Edition (2007); Rules for Writers, Sixth Edition (2008); and A Pocket Style Manual, Fifth Edition (2008).
NANCY SOMMERS, who has taught composition and directed composition programs for thirty years, now teaches writing
in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well-known
for her research and publications on student writing. Her recent work involves a longitudinal study of undergraduate
writing. Nancy Sommers is co-author of Fields of Reading, Ninth Edition (2010) for Bedford/St. Martin�s.
TOM JEHN teaches composition and directs the Expository Writing program at Harvard University. A recipient of numerous
teaching awards both at Harvard and at the University of Virginia, he also leads seminars on writing instruction
for public high school teachers.
JANE ROSENZWEIG teaches composition and directs the writing center at Harvard University. She has also taught writing
at Yale University and the University of Iowa.
Summary
The Bedford Handbook carries on the Hacker tradition by responding to student writers' needs and to the way
students need their handbook to work. Still a full-size handbook that doubles as a reference, the Handbook features
clear, straightforward advice, hand-edited sentences, a user-friendly index, and a handy format. The eighth edition
combines classic Hacker usability with a next-generation focus on academic writing and research and new navigation
that helps students pull together advice and models for each assignment. Developed with the help of students and
teachers at more than 35 colleges and universities, the new edition reflects the ways students write and revise
in their composition course and beyond. What's more, The Bedford Handbook remains a portable size; it's still a
comprehensive reference that's as easy to consult as it is to carry.
"Many students are intimidated by handbooks. My students will appreciate the new 'making the most' boxes
because they help students realize the value of their handbook."
-- Janet Cook, Hutchinson Community College
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Part I. The Writing Process 1
1 Generating ideas; sketching a plan 2
2 Roughing out an initial draft 32
3 Making global revisions; revising sentences 41
Student Essay
4 Building paragraphs 77
5 Choosing a document design 109
Essay Format
Business Formats
E-Mail
Web Page
Part II. Critical Thinking 137
6 Writing about texts 138
Sample Summary
Sample Analysis
7 Constructing arguments 157
Student Essay
Part III. Clear Sentences 181
8 Coordination and subordination 182
9 Parallelism 194
10 Needed words 201
11 Mixed constructions 207
12 Misplaced and dangling modifiers 213
13 Shifts 224
14 Emphasis 231
15 Variety 240
Part IV. Word Choice 247
16 Wordy sentences 248
17 Appropriate language 256
18 Exact words 270
Part V. Grammatical Sentences 283
19 Sentence fragments 284
20 Run-on sentences 296
21 Subject-verb agreement (is or are, etc.) 308
22 Pronoun-antecedent agreement (singular or plural) 323
23 Pronoun reference (clarity) 331
24 Pronoun case (I or me, etc.) 337
25 Who or whom 346
26 Adjectives and adverbs (good or well, etc.) 352
27 Standard English verb forms 359
28 Verb tense, mood, and voice 376
Part VI. ESL Trouble Spots 389
29 Special problems with verbs 390
30 The articles a, an, and the 405
31 Other trouble spots 413
Part VII. Punctuation 425
32 The comma 426
33 Unnecessary commas 445
34 The semicolon 454
35 The colon 460
36 The apostrophe 463
37 Quotation marks 468
38 End punctuation 476
39 Other punctuation marks: the dash, parentheses, brackets, the ellipsis mark, the slash 480
Part VIII. Mechanics 487
40 Abbreviations 488
41 Numbers 492
42 Italics (underlining) 495
43 Spelling 499
44 The hyphen 509
45 Capital letters 513
Part IX. Researched Writing 519
46 Conducting research 521
47 Selecting and reading sources 546
48 Managing information; avoiding plagiarism 554
49 Planning and drafting the paper 562
50 Citing sources; avoiding plagiarism 569
51 Integrating sources 573
52 Revising your draft 581
53 MLA documentation 584
54 MLA manuscript format 612
Two Sample Mla Papers
Part X. Literature and Other Disciplines 641
55 Writing about literature, with Student Essays 642
56 Documenting sources across the curriculum: APA (social sciences), with Student Essay; Chicago (history and humanities),
with Sample Pages; a list of style manuals 675
Part XI. Grammar Basics 727
57 Parts of speech 728
58 Sentence patterns 745
59 Subordinate word groups 755
60 Sentence types 768
Glossary of Usage 773
Answers to Tutorials and Lettered Exercises 789
Index 1
