The five-hundred-word theme

This completely revised, new book takes you systematically through the conception, organization, writing, and revision of an expository theme of five hundred words. Step-by-step exercises in analysis and in writing guide you through the entire process of discovering and limiting a broad subject, organizing the material into introductory and developmental paragraphs, and then revising the final paper. Clear directions catch and hold your interest throughout. Extensive rhetorical material has been added to the chapter "Getting Started" and to the sections on revising the theme, where you are introduced to tone (intention and audience) and to style. New exercises in classification show you how to improve the "discovery phase" of prewriting. Expanded material on introductory paragraphs explains how to get reader acceptance and how to use a "blueprint" for developing your theme. The added self-check sheets on the whole theme and on style will make self-evaluation easier. The new ideas, diagrams, and exercises will improve your mastery of the book's three major subjects: discovery, arrangement, and style. The Five-Hundred-Word Theme is a step-by-step guide to thinking and writing that helps you master theme writing according to simple, clear, and interesting directions. No other book contains the same concise innovations that guide you in writing clearly and easily, putting into imme-diate practice the pointers described for your success. New practical examples and illustrations make the descriptions easy to learn and show you how to complete your writing assignments with greater ease and precision.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.