The Bedford Handbook: How to become a MLA formattin' fool

I picked up the Bedford Handbook Sixth Edition after I signed up for my English Pop Culture course. Knowing that I would need some extensive help with MLA and APA style formatting, I had hoped this book would provide some insight into these unfamiliar formats.

The Bedford Handbook (by Diana Hacker) is designed to help the college student improve his or her writing skills. This handbook also makes a great reference guide for those who are already competent in college level writing. Note: this review is on the Bedford Handbook Sixth Edition, a seventh edition is now available.

Topics:

The Bedford Handbook covers a variety of English related topics. Topics range from simple subjects such as when to use an "a" or an "an" to more complicated topics such as parallelism and subordinate clauses. Some main topics in this book include the following.

1. The Writing Process~ This section is all about how to effectively explore a topic and how to create a good rough draft. This section also describes in detail how to build effective paragraphs and clear topic sentences. There are variety of exercises and examples to help deliver a successful paper.

2.Document Design~ Explains how to properly format most types of documents, i.e. resumes and letters. This section also gives a good amount of info on how to effectively format your own website.

Clear Sentences~ This section focuses on sentence structure. Here you will find how to repair misplaced and dangling modifiers, how to eliminate distracting shifts, how to link ideas with correlative conjunctions, etc. etc..

Word Choice~Focuses on how to properly use words and avoid wordy sentences. There is also a huge amount of miscellaneous info on how to incorporate phrases, when to use slang, etc. into your sentences

Grammatical Sentences~This section takes up the biggest chunk of the book (nearly 100 pages), and focuses on proper use of verbs, indefinite pronouns, how to eliminate run-on sentences, and how to make subjects and verbs agree


ESL Trouble Spots~ This brief section is specifically designed for people who speak English as a second language. This section provides examples on how to use verbs, two-word verbs, how to use nouns, etc.

Punctuation~ This extensive section focuses on all types of punctuation. There are examples on how to use proper punctuation and gives examples of common errors that are seen from students.

Mechanics~Discusses how to use abbreviations, numbers, italics, capital letters, and hyphens.

Critical thinking~ This section is extremely helpful for doing research papers. In this section there is a huge amount of info on how to write argumentative research papers, writing about texts, evaluating arguments, etc.

Researched Writing~ Gives good advise on places where you should and where you shouldn't look for info while doing research for a paper. This section also explains why some sources are better than others.

Writing MLA Papers~ A detailed chapter that shows how to cite different types of sources i.e. magazine articles, newspapers, cartoons, etc. The MLA section also has some really good examples on how to give in-text citations.

APA papers~ Provides tons of info on how to create a good APA style paper. This section gives examples on how to create a good thesis for APA, APA definitions, and much more.

Chicago papers~ Gives a detailed explanation on how to do a Chicago Style paper. Some sub-topics include supporting a thesis, citing sources, and integrating sources into text.

Grammar Basics- An overview on how to use simple grammar such as verbs, conjunctions, nouns, etc.

My Experience:

The Bedford Handbook has been an imperative tool in my English Pop Culture class. The Bedford Handbook explains how to write MLA/APA types of papers with simple language and goes through each and every process step by step. This is probably one of the least confusing handbooks I have used.

The examples offered in each section are clear and to the point. The font of the text is also fairly large, so reading this book won't be too tiring on the eyes. In some cases the book offers diagrams, that could be better illustrated, but diagrams are better than no diagrams, so I am not complaining.

By following this book's examples for MLA and APA formatting I have never had to rewrite an English paper due to improper citing or anything regarding MLA/APA format for that matter. By following the guidelines in this book for MLA and APA I was able to crank some great papers .

Price:

I purchased my sixth addition at Overstock.com for nearly 60 dollars. Sixty dollars sounds like a lot of money for a book just about writing, but if you are in any type of class where you will need to write a paper, this book is a lifesaver.

Final Thoughts:

The Bedford Handbook is easy to use, accurate, and full of info. I don't simply recommend the Bedford Handbook to English students, I recommend this book to anyone who would like to improve their reading and writing skills. -5 stars-

Thanks for reading!