The Canadian Writer's Handbook. 4th ed.

Sarah Robertson is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

As the authors note in their preface, The Canadian Writer’s Handbook
is intended to help its target audience “write with confidence and
force in a variety of rhetorical situations.” In addition to minor
improvements throughout the book, the fourth edition offers a thoroughly
revised chapter on writing a research paper as well as new exercises,
“many designed particularly for those whose first language is not
English.”

The book is divided into eight major sections: “Understanding
Sentences,” “Parts of Speech,” “Writing Strong Sentences,”
“Punctuation,” “Mechanics and Spelling,” “Diction,”
“Principles of Composition,” and “Research and Writing.”
Interspersed throughout the text are helpful proofreading, writing, and
research tip sidebars. In dealing with documentation, the authors focus
on MLA style but provide adequate coverage of APA style, CSE style, and
Chicago style. The book’s four appendixes include sample student
essays with comments and grades, explanations of marking symbols,
checklists for use in all stages of the writing process, and a
comprehensive list of reference sources.

The authors adopt a generally prescriptive stance, preferring, for
example, more important to more importantly and preserving the
distinctions between such paired words or phrases as
alternate/alternative, compare to/compare with, and comprise/compose.

There are lapses—ranging from the curious use of edn. as an
abbreviation for edition to the inconsistent treatment of inclusive page
numbers in some of the documentation examples—but these are not
sufficient to detract from the book’s overall excellence.