A Pocket Style Manual

Ninth Edition

Publication Date: February 08, 2021

Spiral-Bound ISBN: 9781319169541

Pages: 352

GO DIGITAL WITH ACHIEVE

Writing help at a glance.

Available for the first time with Macmillans new online learning tool, Achieve, A Pocket Style Manual provides practical advice for any level of college writing. Straightforward instruction on grammar, style, and punctuation gives students quick answers to their writing questions....

Achieve

Online course materials that will help you in this class. Includes access to e-book and iClicker Student. Learn more about Achieve

Access Length:

Achieve

ISBN: 9781319516178
Achieve for A Pocket Style Manual (2-Term/Twelve-Month Online; International Edition)

$42.95

E-book

Take notes, add highlights, and download our mobile-friendly e-books.

Access Length:

E-book

ISBN: 9781319416447
A Pocket Style Manual

$49.95

$29.97

Spiral-Bound

Keep your book open while you write with spiral-bound texts.

Spiral-Bound

ISBN: 9781319169541
A Pocket Style Manual

COMING SOON

$64.95

Print + Achieve

Combine the printed textbook with the online course in Achieve for a blended learning experience. Includes access to e-book and iClicker Student.

Print + Achieve

ISBN: 9781319518059
A Pocket Style Manual 9e & Achieve for A Pocket Style Manual 9e (2-Term/Twelve-Month Access; International Edition)

COMING SOON

$79.95

Clarity
1 Tighten wordy sentences.
2 Prefer active verbs.
3 Balance parallel ideas.
4 Add needed words.
5 Eliminate distracting shifts.
6 Untangle mixed constructions.
7 Repair misplaced and dangling modifiers.
8 Provide sentence variety.
9 Find an appropriate voice.
Grammar
10 Make subjects and verbs agree.
11 Be alert to other problems with verbs.
12 Use pronouns with care.
13 Use adjectives and adverbs appropriately.
14 Repair sentence fragments.
15 Revise run-on sentences.
16 Consider grammar topics for multilingual writers.
Punctuation
17 The comma
18 The semicolon and the colon
19 The apostrophe
20 Quotation marks
21 Other punctuation marks
Mechanics
22 Capitalization
23 Abbreviations, numbers, and italics
24 Hyphenation
Research
25 Posing a research question
26 Finding appropriate sources
27 Managing information; avoiding plagiarism
28 Evaluating sources
MLA Papers
29 Supporting a thesis
30 Avoiding plagiarism
31 Integrating sources
32 Integrating literary quotations
33 MLA documentation style
34 MLA format; sample research paper
APA Papers
35 Supporting a thesis
36 Avoiding plagiarism
37 Integrating sources
38 APA documentation style
39 APA format; sample research paper
Chicago Papers
40 Supporting a thesis
41 Avoiding plagiarism
42 Integrating sources
43 Chicago documentation style
44 Chicago format; sample pages
CSE Papers
45 CSE documentation style
46 CSE format

Summer 2024 Updates:

New! Exclusive Hacker/Sommers Content: AI Guides for Instructors and Students.
Boost AI literacy with Generative AI and College Writing, a brief resource by Nancy Sommers that helps college writers understand the opportunities and challenges of AI use in academic settings. Separate instructor and student guides offer support for using AI ethically and responsibly, with assessment to help reinforce concepts. Now available in the Achieve courses for A Writer’s Reference, Rules for Writers, A Pocket Style Manual, The Bedford Handbook, and Achieve-Writer’s Help-Hacker.

Ninth Edition Updates (2021):

Achieve with A Pocket Style Manual puts student writing and revision at the core of your course, with a dedicated composition space that guides students through drafting, peer review, source check, reflection, and revision. Developed to support best practices in commenting on student drafts, Achieve is a flexible, integrated suite of tools for designing and facilitating writing assignments, paired with actionable insights that make students’ progress towards outcomes clear and measurable. Fully editable pre-built assignments support the book’s approach, and an e-book is included. For corequisite composition courses, Achieve lets students sign in to their composition and corequisite sections with one easy process–and no additional fees.
“At a glance” pages point students to quick help on everything from prepositions to signal phrases.
New guides to research writing, with topics including integrating quotations and detecting false or misleading sources, advise students on working with sources.
Also available: Pocket Style Manual with Exercises, a new version of the book with additional practice for style, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics, gives students opportunities to strengthen their writing skills.

“A Pocket Style Manual is for the student what a multi-function pocket knife is to the survivalist—a compact, versatile, and practical tool. It’s the one textbook a student can rely on for their college career.”

-Rick Garza, Reedley College

“This is the most useful handbook I have used in thirty years of teaching. It provides the information students need without overwhelming them. It is easy on the pocketbook as well.”

-Pam Stone, North Arkansas College

Diana Hacker

Diana Hacker personally class-tested her handbooks with nearly four thousand students over thirty-five years at Prince George's Community College in Maryland, where she was a member of the English faculty. Hacker handbooks, built on innovation and on a keen understanding of the challenges facing student writers, are the most widely adopted in America. Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin's, include A Writer's Reference, Eleventh Edition (2025); A Pocket Style Manual, Tenth Edition (2025); The Bedford Handbook, Twelfth Edition (2023); Rules for Writers, Tenth Edition (2022); and Writer’s Help 2.0, Hacker Version.

Nancy Sommers

Nancy Sommers, who has taught composition and directed composition programs for thirty years, now teaches in Harvard's Graduate School of Education. She led Harvard's Expository Writing Program for twenty years, directing the first-year writing program and establishing Harvard's WAC program. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well known for her research and publications on student writing. Her articles “Revision Strategies of Student and Experienced Writers” and “Responding to Student Writing” are two of the most widely read and anthologized articles in the field of composition. Recently she has been exploring different audiences through publishing in popular media. Sommers is the lead author on Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin’s, and editor of Tiny Teaching Stories on Macmillan Learning's Bits Blog.

Expand

About Achieve

Achieve is our online learning system backed by extensive development and research, proven to increase student engagement and boost performance. Achieve offers:

Access to the ebook to download, read and virtually annotate for a completely flexible experience.
Course and book-specific resources. Most Achieve courses come our LearningCurve, our adaptive quizzing engine with personalized question sets and clear feedback based on each student’s correct and incorrect answers.
A grade book, assignable assessments with targeted feedback, insights and reporting, instructor resources - all with seamless integration options.

Learn More Schedule Demo Sign into Achieve