Language Arts Books

The Writer's Friend also includes valuable information for technical writers looking for assignments.

Reading this book and knowing what editors look for, paves the way to success.

"The Writer's Friend", it truly will become your friend. This book will give you powerful insight into the world of editors. Not only will you learn from the authors' of this book, but you will also learn from a number of editors as they tell you what they like and dislike in submissions. You will learn how to grab an editor's attention and begin earning money selling your articles.

"The Writer's Friend", in addition, gives you information on researching, giving interviews, preparing and submitting query letters, improving your writing skills, getting ideas for stories and articles, and a lot more. Not only did I find this book helpful but I also gained inspiration from it. Everytime I put the book down I found myself at my computer polishing up my articles, stories, and queries; that's how much "The Writer's Friend" inspired and helped me.

This book is a must for all freelance writers. It would even make a great book for teachers to aid them in teaching their courses on freelance writing. After you finish the book you will want to store it by your computer to keep referring to. It not only provides you with resources on and off-line, but an appendix of questions that you can always look back at.

If you find yourself down because of rejections and feel that you should just give up, think again, just pick up a copy of "The Writer's Friend" and you're sure to be back in your spirits of writing and submitting again! I give this book 5 stars for outstanding excellence!

Then, it guides you in how to contact the editors and the keys to make them accept your articles by explaining how they think and what pressures that influence them.

It is a great book to start with. If you are a beginner freelance writer, don't miss this book. It encourage you a lot.

Then, it guides you in how to contact the editors and the keys to make them accept your articles by explaining how they think and what pressures that influence them.

It is a great book to start with. If you are a beginner freelance writer, don't miss this book. It encourage you a lot.

I checked out all the accent training materials I could find from the library and I believe this one to be the best. (I looked at the following: American Accent Guide, American Accent Training, Pronounce It Perfectly in English, American English Pronunciation Program, How to Speak English without an Accent, and EasyAccent. I also looked at Well Said, and do not recommend it for self-teaching.)

So you know who this review is coming from: I'm a native speaker of American English and lifelong linguistics enthusiast. I investigated these accent reduction systems at the request of a non-native speaker looking to improve his accent, and I became fascinated with the variety of offerings out there (many of which were woefully incomplete). Although I have not personally used these systems, I hope my analysis as a native speaker will be helpful to some! Perhaps I'll have more to add later when I see it put to use.

Of the materials I looked at, I prefer Lujan's (the item being reviewed) for the following reasons:

1. It is at the top in comprehensiveness. The only other program I found in the self-teaching category that was comparable was Ann Cook's American Accent Training. (Note: I did not look at Donna Hope's American English Pronunciation, which was mentioned by another reviewer--that may be good as well.) All the others described individual sounds (some less helpfully than others), but in the areas of linking, rhythm, and intonation, their coverage ranged from partial to non-existent, and was sometimes misleading.

2. It has the most accurate and complete method of explaining and transcribing rhythm and intonation, in my opinion. As mentioned, none of the other methods but Cook's covered this area extensively, and I believe it to be extremely important. Both Lujan and Cook indicate the great importance of rhythm and intonation in accent, but have devised different methods of explanation and transcription. I felt Lujan's was more complete, and when I read the examples aloud (and listened to the audio), the transcription matched perfectly in all cases. I did not feel quite as comfortable with Cook's in that regard.

3. It does a good job of offering examples of regional speech which the reader might encounter, while letting the reader know they are non-standard. This is arguably valuable, but what I think is particularly important is *not encouraging* the reader to use unnecessary speech patterns. This is one thing I did not like about Cook's presentation and part of the reason I prefer Lujan's. Cook has a section on merging words together and gives examples and exercises along the lines of "pronounce 'did you' as 'didju'." This is definitely not necessary, and as a native speaker, I do not make these links and find them annoying to hear. Anyone reading Cook's book would do well to ignore this section.

My overall recommendation:
Get Lujan's American Accent Guide. If you are really into it and want something else--which wouldn't be necessary, by the way--or you need a pep talk, get Cook's as well. (But don't start saying "didju"!) I probably wouldn't try to reconcile the chapters on intonation from both of those--I'd just stick with Lujan's. If you are not super motivated to go through a comprehensive program, or want some "light listening" on your off days, you might also get Pronounce It Perfectly in English from the library. It is lacking, but not that bad for basic information (though again, I believe the intonation part is a little inconsistent).

Bottom line:
If you're only going to get one book on improving your accent, get the American Accent Guide. It's good stuff.

On page 56 of her text she says, "If children are pronouncing print but do not understand what they are saying, they are not reading." As an educator, I believe Moustafa's statement summarizes many of the misconceptions children have about good readers. Reading is not just a performance-based activity, but rather more of a means of exploration and a transportation vehicle to knowledge. Moustafa helps teachers and parents understand that children need to see reading as a more natural occurrence that is attainable by all children.