Developmental Exercises to Accompany A Writer's Reference

A good quick reference for the APA style I needed for the duration of my course. It was relatively user friendly and provided the tools necessary for the format I needed. I would'nt spend hours reading it. To be honest, it is a boring book. But if you need something for a quick reference with regard to writing style, quotation format and grammar this is a pretty good all around book.

The exercises in this manual are very good--challenging and appropriate extensions to the concepts introduced in Hacker's book (which is, by the way, an outstanding reference book). However, I would have appreciated answers to all of the exercises, not just some of them. As an English teacher, I can deduce the correct answers, but some of the questions lend themselves to multiple interpretations, and it is not always clear what Hacker and Van Goor have in mind as correct answers. For example, in a section on concise sentences, they suggest that a long sentence can be compressed into ten words (I am estimating, as I do not have the book in front of me). I could come up with an eight-word sentence and a twelve-word sentence, but I was left guessing as to what might be the ten-word sentence they had in mind.

I use this book for tutoring and not classroom teaching, however. I can see the value of the book for high school or college teachers whose students have copies of the book and who are asked to complete the exercises on their own. The lack of a complete answer key, then, can be an asset.