Write It Up: Practical Strategies for Writing and Publishing Journal Articles (APA Lifetools: Books for the General Public) .PDF
Hille Katerberg
"How to Write It Up: Practical Strategies for Writing and Publishing Journal Articles" by Paul Silvanus is a great little book on practical journalling strategies. I like that the author encourages students to do more than just write their journal articles, he shows how to put it all together into a coherent and interesting article. Also, he does a good job of making the student aware of potential pitfalls in journal writing and outlines several effective strategies for turning the paper into a "Hollywood Screenplay." And he gives some great practical examples from his own experience as a writer. (There is a small bibliography at the end of this review, which I found to be quite useful.) Really, the book is just a good primer on practical journalling.
The key factor that makes this book so helpful is that it takes a slightly different point of view than most writing instructors in the country who typically send their graduate students off to work on individual literary works and then never give them another chance to develop any kind of writing style. Paul Silvanus approaches his student's writing from a more theoretical level, realizing that the best way to learn how to write is to first understand how language works and develop an understanding of the creative process through which literature is created. This way of thinking leads him to several clever ideas such as having your character act out monologue scenes in some kind of improvised screenplay format-and how to turn these scenes into full-length movies with strong characters and convincing plotlines.
Silvanus also has a great sense of humor and refers to some of his examples of creative writing with a dose of practicality. He gives a humorous take on the "how to" question: "What should you do if you're not sure how to begin writing?" Following the advice he shares, the student gets better results and begins to develop an understanding of how others develop and shape works of art. While reading this book, I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by some of Silvanus' insights into how the creative process really works.