About the book
Richard A. Lanham's guide is about revising, not original composition. Its core is the Paramedic Method, an easily learned procedure that works one sentence at a time to cut through the obscure, stilted and dense writing Lanham calls the Official Style and turn it into plain English. Lanham also sets out eight simple steps toward clearer prose, and it is designed so that students can carry out steady, detailed revision on their own. The book also takes up business, professional and electronic prose as well as writing for general readers. Meant as a supplement to any course that requires writing, it has been used at every level of higher education and across disciplines.
Basecamp co-founder Jason Fried named it one of his favorite books in a podcast interview, admiring how Lanham takes sentences apart one at a time to simplify them.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Jason Fried (Co-Founder/Basecamp)
One of my favorite books is called Revising Prose.
What’s cool about it is that [the author] dissects things one sentence at a time. His ability to take a sentence and cut it up and explain it and simplify it. I think it’s a wonderful skill and a great book. It’s not really even about writing paragraphs or stories or how to organize and outline stuff. It’s like a sentence at a time and figuring out how to structure things. Love it. Great book. It’s actually – there’s this class I’ve talked about before. I’ve written a blog post about it. This class that I’d want to teach if I ever taught a college class.
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