References, Citations, and Style Guides

"Clear written communication can be approached as a set of principles, each of which is substantiated by sound underlying reasons. [...] The intention of the book is to: (1) unveil these principles and others, (2) explain the reasoning behind them, and (3) demonstrate their validity through numerous examples gleaned from technical writing. In the book, the author follows the narrow-to-broad (inductive) approach that is more familiar to scientists and engineers. In this approach to technical writing, the scientist or engineer, whether a practitioner or student, would first develop an ability to write clear sentences before combining sentences to form paragraphs and combing paragraphs to make an argument."

Helps both engineers and students improve their writing skills by learning to analyze target audience, tone, and purpose in order to effectively write technical documents

The best-selling new composition book published in this century, in use at more than 1,000 schools, They Say / I Say has essentially defined academic writing, identifying its key rhetorical moves, the most important of which is to summarize what others have said ("they say") to set up one's own argument ("I say"). The book also provides templates to help students make these key moves in their own writing.The Second Edition includes a new chapter on reading that shows students how to read for the larger conversation and two new chapters on the moves that matter in the sciences and social sciences.

In the first half of Clear and Simple, the authors introduce a range of styles--reflexive, practical, plain, contemplative, romantic, prophetic, and others--contrasting them to classic style. Its principles are simple: The writer adopts the pose that the motive is truth, the purpose is presentation, the reader is an intellectual equal, and the occasion is informal. Classic style is at home in everything from business memos to personal letters, from magazine articles to university writing. The second half of the book is a tour of examples--the exquisite and the execrable--showing what has worked and what hasn't. Classic prose is found everywhere: from Thomas Jefferson to Junichirō Tanizaki, from Mark Twain to the observations of an undergraduate.