Academic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students - Softcover

David Starkey is Professor of English at Santa Barbara City College, where he currently is Director of both Composition and Creative Writing. He is editor of Teaching Writing Creatively and Genre By Example: Writing What We Teach and author of Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief, one of the best-selling introductory creative-writing textbooks in North America.

“David Starkey delivers clear, ordered advice in a voice so familiar and colloquial that anyone’s anxiety about this often rigid, academic subject will start to calm. He moves seamlessly between examples ranging from everyday experience to the highest levels of great writing, and what I like best is that underneath it all he encourages students to keep creativity and poetic insight alive even as they tackle the challenge of writing rigorous, scholarly papers.” ― Richard Guzman, North Central College

“David Starkey’s Academic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students is a great resource for first-year writing students and faculty who want to move swiftly through essential concepts in order to get down to the brass tacks of the academic essay. Starkey not only invites student readers through conversation, efficiency, and practical wisdom, but he also targets key areas that writing instructors repeatedly discuss in hopes that students will internalize writing as a process and begin to reflect upon their writing in a metacognitive way.” ― Calley Hornbuckle, Columbia College

“Academic Writing Now is easily among the most approachable, comprehensive, and well-organized instructional writing compendiums I’ve ever seen. Everything a teacher could want from such a guide, including sample essays, in-text tips, visual aids, skill-building activities, and intriguing subject matter, is here. But the most distinctive accomplishment here is Starkey’s refreshing tone; he strikes a unique balance between authoritative delivery and conversational empathy. Writing students need a text that understands their familiarities, expectations, and even trepidations while encouraging scholarly excellence. Academic Writing Now manages all of this wonderfully.” ― Jordan Blum, Gwynedd Mercy University

“My students praised (openly and in class!) David Starkey’s book, Academic Writing Now. His friendly tone and straightforward manner toward academic writing made a subject that most of my students found daunting and impenetrable (at first) accessible and engaging. Chapters were informative, complete, yet digestible―they read the book and used it throughout their writing and research. It’s an affordable and useful resource that I recommend to any teacher of first-year college writing.” ― Todd Aldridge, Auburn University