Product Description: Thousands of overused words and phrases—and alternatives to them—are compiled in this ultimate writer’s reference, composing the perfect companion for those seeking to weed out bland, commonplace content and replace it with crisp, concise prose...read more

Product Description: Today's popular dictionaries often fail to define words correctly or to distinguish between them; some dictionaries even maintain that one word means the same as another simply because people who do not know the correct meanings of the words confuse them...read more

Product Description: The creative world of the writer is uncovered in this captivating exploration of the techniques of poetry revision. An in-depth look at the writing processes of 54 poems, each by a different modern author, is provided, complete with early drafts, subsequent revised versions, and short essays from the poets themselves revealing how and why they made specific changes, as well as their editing secrets...read more

Product Description: Concise alternatives for thousands of common, wordy phrases are provided in this guide to clean, strong prose. Updated and revised with hundreds of new entries, this new edition can tidy up any writer's long-winded phraseology with such helpful replacements as "because" for "based on the fact that," "cease" for "put an end to," and "violate" for "fail to comply with...read more

Product Description: This is the second edition of the book.

Revised and expanded, an accessible and humorous guide to tricky grammar and usage problems provides a wealth of useful tips and sidebars that identify common grammar pitfalls and need-to-know information, in a resource that is presented in a witty and grouchy tone designed to engage both novices and word mavens.

An accessible and humorous guide to tricky grammar and usage problems provides a wealth of useful tips and sidebars that identify common grammar pitfalls and need-to-know information, in a resource that is presented in a witty and grouchy tone designed to engage both novices and word mavens. Original.

Product Description: A guide to clean, strong prose that lists thousands of common, wordy phrases and offers concise alternatives.

Product Description: This compilation of overused words and phrases is the ultimate tool for the writer who seeks to weed out common, tired language and replace it with concise writing. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Vocabula Bound is a collection of twenty-five extraordinary essays about the English language, as well as twenty-five poems, that originally appeared in The Vocabula Review, a journal about the state of the English language. The essays range in topic from the importance of teaching poetry to the "secret nature" of nicknames...read more

Product Description: Cliches. Once they were so original, so fresh. Now, everybody uses them, and if your work depends on lively prose, they're a problem. This book is the solution. Fiske takes you on a tour of the world of "dimwitticisms"; moribund metaphors, torpid terms and wretched redundancies that have all the impact of foam-rubber cannonballs...read more

Provides a look at wordiness, how to spot it, and how to substitue compact alternatives for wordy phrases

Points out common pitfalls of writing, listing thousands of wordy phrases followed by concise alternative expressions