The Brief Penguin Handbook (MLA Update)

In The Penguin Handbook, Brief Edition , Faigley rethinks the way handbooks present information and ideas with a reference that's tailored for today's visually and technologically oriented students.

Drawing on student feedback and a wealth of classroom experience to design a handbook that gives students the information they need in a format they will actually use, The Penguin Handbook, Brief Edition, addresses the changing nature of today's students as well as today's writing assignments. This text uses unique, “at-a-glance” documentation pages to help students visually understand how to cite sources, while “Common Errors” boxes for grammar and style help students identify the building blocks necessary for academic writing so that they can successfully employ them in their work. Additional visuals throughout the text help students with everything from how to construct a descriptive paragraph to understanding how visual information can be used in a paper, presentation, or Website.

The Penguin Handbook, Brief Edition, makes major advances over existing handbooks by broadening the context of communication, including concise, practical discussions of verbal and visual texts as well as detailed coverage of writing in its many forms. While an emphasis on the process of academic writing and research is maintained throughout, the book and its Website also include coverage of non-fiction genres―brochures, magazine articles, and letters of application―that are used more typically outside the classroom. In addition, The Penguin Handbook is the first handbook to combine this coverage with three purposes of writing: reflective, informative, and persuasive writing.

Throughout, Lester Faigley's expertise in matters relating to technology is consistently evident, including integrated references to the text's comprehensive and meticulously constructed Web site. This site extends the interactive nature of the text by providing self-scoring exercises linked to the “Common Error” boxes, “ESL Worksheets” for non-native speakers, “Writing in the World” projects linked to the writing process chapters, and more. On everything from Internet research and documenting online sources to cutting-edge chapters on writing for the Web and creating visuals for papers and oral presentations, The Brief Penguin Handbook, Brief Edition, ensures that student writers are adequately prepared for anything they are likely to encounter in today's academic environment and beyond.

When Lester Faigley started college, he thought he was going to become an architect. Instead, he wound up majoring in English and teaching middle school English and history. Three years after he received a Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1976, he joined the faculty of the Department of English at the University of Texas at Austin, where he now holds the Robert Adger Law and Thos. H. Law Professorship in Humanities. He has also been a visiting professor at several universities in the United States and abroad, and he is past chair of College Composition and Communication. Faigley served as the founding Director of both the Division of Rhetoric and Composition and the concentration in Technology, Literacy, and Culture at the University of Texas. He teaches undergraduate writing courses on writing and technology and graduate courses on rhetorical theory, discourse analysis, and issues of literacy and technology. He and his wife Linda have been married for more than three decades, and they have two grown sons. His sports passion is kayaking ― both in rivers and on the ocean.