Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Your Bookshelf

I'm going to assume that you don't have much space, so here's a very minimum list of the books you need to have at college (in addition to the required textbooks)

There are several reasons you want actual books, not just online resources. The major one is that internet connections have a nasty habit of failing you at exactly the moment you need to look up "dialectic." They are also slower than having a real book, and don't encourage you to browse up and down the page for similar ideas.

Probably the most important reason is completeness. When I looked up the online discussion of "active and passive voice verbs" in our grammar book, I got a whole 150 words, just enough to tell you how to identify them and that you should probably avoid the passive voice. Hacker's handbook gives 3½ pages, complete with a discussion of places where a passive voice sentence is a better idea, suggestions for editing, and examples. The online resource had exactly one example (and one practice sentence). If you like "college lite," I guess the online grammar thingy is OK, but for those who actually want to learn something, a book is a much better idea.

A Dictionary
Yes, I know that some online dictionaries are quite good (my favorite is Merriam-Webster), but you do need a good, substantial paper dictionary. My favorite in this department is also Merriam-Webster

A Thesaurus
I like the kind that is not made like a dictionary. Roget's International Thesaurus has a system of index numbers at the back that takes you to pages and pages of related ideas, not just a near synonym.

A Grammar Handbook
You probably were required to buy one for Freshman Composition anyhow—but many colleges are going over to online versions. That's a sad thing, because you won't be able to use your handbook after the first year (and those online versions are notoriously difficult to use). Take advantage of the used book mess, and buy yourself a slightly outdated copy of a major handbook. (To give you an idea of price, one book goes for $75 new, but a used previous edition is $3.25.) Here are my recommendations, in order:

  • Rules for Writers by Diana Hacker
  • Little, Brown Handbook by H. Ramsey Fowler and Jane E. Aaron
  • Keys For Writers by Ann Raimes
  • Quick Access Reference for Writers by Lynn Quitman Troyka
  • Prentice Hall Reference Guide to Grammar & Usage by Muriel G. Harris
  • Scribner Handbook for Writers by Robert DiYanni and Pat C. Hoy

If you get into literature

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
by Joseph Gibaldi This is really the mother lode of information for English majors, and it's inexpensive! Buy the most recent edition.

A Bible
I'm listing this for literary reasons, not spiritual ones, though I think a habit of Bible-reading is a good one for you to have. A very large number of literary references and allusions go back to the Bible (almost always to the King James Version).

Shakespeare
For many of the same reasons you bought that Bible. Get your Shakespeare at a used bookstore and find a "Complete Works."

A Literature Anthology
Get a slightly outdated college textbook used (I'm thinking of Norton or Bedford). You'll appreciate the "how-to" sections when you want to write about poetry or drama, and you'll use it to dig up works by some of the standard authors. Some of the more recent college texts are surprisingly unbalanced—one managed to get through English poetry without a single reference to anything Christian (which meant that John Donne and John Milton were forgotten). The standard works are a nice balance.

At the end of your freshman year, don't:

Don't assume that all of your writing is done with. Don't ditch all your writing books. There just might come a time when you need to write a job application letter or a lab report or a scientific paper. It always makes me sad when students figure that Freshman English is a little like chicken pox: makes you sick, but when it's done with you can forget it for the rest of your life. Maybe that's OK for the fools, but you have a duty to yourself not to be a fool.

Keep your basic library and assume that you'll have to write for years and years.

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