Laurie Rozakis

As a public speaking instructor on two college campuses in Buffalo, NY, I'm always searching for books on this tricky and anxiety-producing subject. I recently found this user-friendly manual at the Bookworm, a wonderful used bookstore in East Aurora, NY. Folks who are looking for down-and-dirty practical tips about speaking won't be disappointed. Rozakis covers eveyrthing from coping with speech anxiety to the effective use of speaking outlines. People who are expecting to be drafted to show more deliver toasts, roasts, eulogies or other types of speeches can easily breeze through this book and pinpoint some helpful hints. The author also stresses the importance of crafting riveting introductions and conclusions. There are no scholarly theories served up in this "Idiot's Guide." Instead, it's a practical primer on public speaking. I paid four books for the used book. It's easily worth five times that amount given the laundry list of tips that it provides to aspiring speakers. show less

I can't foresee an instance in which someone would absolutely need this book for a research paper unless they were homeschooled all their lives and suddenly go off to a college that requires them. Most of the advice in this book can be gleaned from school so in a sense the title is apt. I don't know what came over me when I bought it, but it was only eight dollars.

Anyway, the book was printed in 2004 so I can see how someone from 2017 might not be familiar with how to use the Dewey Decimal show more System. I can imagine this book being good for someone that had not gone to school for decades and wants to expand their skill sets or something along those lines.

The book contains plentiful examples of research papers and numerous bits of advice on things like time management and how to cite references. It also contains advice on how to pick topics. So if things like the internet didn't exist this book would be indispensable. show less

In some ways it's tough to see who this book is aimed at. It starts off with the very basics (what's a noun?), so it seems to be aimed at people who really don't know the first thing about grammar, but it moves quickly after that. Perhaps the book is aimed at people who need to brush up on details, or clear up confusions, and Rozakis just felt it necessary to explain the basics first. At any rate, either you'll find the first part of the book interminably boring, or you'll find the rest of show more it confusing.

At first I liked the sense of humor with which this book was written; I thought it was a good way to make boring grammar more interesting. Many of the example sentences are jokes, and the author sprinkles irony and sarcasm liberally throughout. However, even I have heard many of these jokes before. There's little change in the tone or type of humor throughout, and after a while it feels forced and unrelenting. The humor also gets in the way of the information. There are times when the author says things because they're funny, and because of that amusing phrasing she confuses the reader on one grammar point or another.

Sometimes Rozakis just plain moves too fast. She'll briefly explain something and then move on when she hasn't yet given enough of an explanation for me to really know what she's talking about. There are some topics she dealt with that I still don't understand. When she brings up big words from previous chapters, she doesn't stop to remind us of what they mean--she just charges onward. This leaves the reader stranded, flipping back and forth to figure out what's going on.

By this time it probably sounds like I hate this book, and you wouldn't be far from the mark in assuming that. I read it from cover to cover and found it tiresome, frustrating, and downright annoying. However, this book does contain a great deal of in-depth grammar information. Most sections include enough examples to teach you what you need to know. Taken in small doses the humor can be fun (in particular, the humor makes the examples of bad writing less headache-inducing). The index is very handy, and there are some good and unusual sections in here on things like non-sexist language, writing "bad news" letters, and putting together an effective resume.

I think this book would probably make a better reference book than text book.

Full review at ErrantDreams show less

American Literature is a relatively new thing compared to other types of literature. It hasn’t always had the reputation that it possesses now. I mean, we have big names. We have important works. This was not always the case. At one time, Washington Irving lied about his identity due to shame in being an American Writer. It seems that every new generation wants to create a great American Novel, a book that encapsulates all of our issues and problems in an artful manner. However, we show more Americans have created works that have stood the tests of time.

This book is named “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to American Literature.” The book is straightforward. It gives you the tools needed to analyze literature in all of its different flavors. There are three major types of literature; Prose, Poetry, and Drama. The book talks about that and goes through major eras in our literature.

America’s first writers were the Puritans since the Native Americans did not have a written language. All of their myths and legends and stories were passed down through oral transmission. So this book is a sort of basic course in American Literature. It is exactly what it says it is. It makes for a good bunch of references and it provides a number of history lessons. If you don’t have a cultured bone in your body, this might be a good place to start out. The book gives a shorthand coverage of all of these things.

A lot of the chapters just cover one author in depth and explore their works. For example, Chapter 6 covers Edgar Allan Poe. It talks about his works and how they were received in his own day, along with talking about how groundbreaking the stuff he wrote was for the time. The end of each chapter has a section that summarizes the chapter.

Some pieces it includes in their entirety. The Declaration of Independence is one of those works. It also has some pieces of poetry, such as Annabelle Lee by E. A. Poe. The book was published in 1999 so there might be some stuff that the book missed, but this doesn’t really bother me all that much. The biggest disadvantage is that it is a printed piece of material and can’t be updated.

This book was pretty good, but it is difficult to condense the contents of it into this review, so I will stop trying. Perhaps I will read something else related to literature in this series. show less