Reference Books

You will probably find the following three handbooks helpful. The first explains (in much more detail than the suggestions above) how to construct a cogent, well-researched paper. The second is the most comprehensive and useful style manual in existence. The third focuses on the mechanics of writing.

Barzun, Jacques, and Henry F. Graff. The Modern Researcher. 4th edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

This book is a classic manual on thinking and writing in the Humanities. Aimed primarily at budding historians, it is nonetheless invaluable for all students dealing with facts, concepts, and arguments, not to mention matters of style and the elements of scholarship.

The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Strunk, William. The Elements of Style. 3rd edition. With Revisions, and Introduction, and a Chapter on Writing by E. B. White. New York: Macmillan, 1979.

“Strunk and White” is an excellent, short presentation of the rules of basic grammar, with good advice on composition, form, and style.