All Books
Synopsis: Explorers Wanted to: trek through lion country... learn to scuba dive... uncover lost rainforest cities... and much more! Each book in this exciting new series challenges readers to an expedition into the unknown and is crammed with practical survival advice, real-life explorers' stories, fascinating natural history facts, and the author's own expedition sketches. Bringing to young readers the appealing elements of the bestselling Worst-Case Scenario books and reality TV show hits like Survivor, these books use an interactive format of choices and quizzes to educate in a fun, innovative way.
Publication Date: 04/06/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: Edwidge Danticat, the award-winning, best-selling author of THE FARMING OF BONES and KRIK? KRAK! offers a powerful addition to The Royal Diaries series with the story of Haiti's heroic queen Anacaona.
With her signature narrative grace, Edwidge Danticat brings Haiti's beautiful queen Anacaona to life. Queen Anacaona was the wife of one of her island's rulers, and a composer of songs and poems, making her popular among her people. Haiti was relatively quiet until the Spanish conquistadors discovered the island and began to settle there in 1492.
The Spaniards treated the natives very cruelly, and when the natives revolted, the Spanish governor of Haiti ordered the arrests of several native nobles, including Anacaona, who was eventually captured and executed, to the horror of her people.
With her signature narrative grace, Edwidge Danticat brings Haiti's beautiful queen Anacaona to life. Queen Anacaona was the wife of one of her island's rulers, and a composer of songs and poems, making her popular among her people. Haiti was relatively quiet until the Spanish conquistadors discovered the island and began to settle there in 1492.
The Spaniards treated the natives very cruelly, and when the natives revolted, the Spanish governor of Haiti ordered the arrests of several native nobles, including Anacaona, who was eventually captured and executed, to the horror of her people.
Publication Date: 04/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: All she thought of was the boy with the skateboard ... Sheep and shepherds, little new lambs ... Why? Neema and her best friend, Kate, are freshmen at Wentworth High. In English class they have the notorious Ms. "Bride of Dracula" Dallimore for a teacher. "Learn to fly!" she urges her students. But what are they supposed to write for their essay, "Who Am I?" At home, Neema's great-grandmother, Kalpana, has come for an extended visit all the way to Australia from India. At night she dreams of flying; during the day she cooks Indian food and watches the same Indian video again and again. It should be great having her there, but Neema doesn't speak Hindi, Kalpana doesn't speak English, and Neema's mother can't always be there to translate. Meanwhile, Gull Oliver, the good-looking new boy at school, seems familiar to Neema. At night he flies past her house on his skateboard. Both Neema and Kalpana watch him, drawn to him for different reasons. This rich story weaves realism and fantasy into an unusual portrayal of coming together and finding the essence of who you are.
Publication Date: 04/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: In a groundbreaking work, acclaimed author Barry Denenberg explores the history of the Holocaust and the lives of Anne Frank and her family.
Denenberg presents the complete story of Anne Frank and her family's life, from Frankfurt, Germany, where Anne and Margot were born before the war, up through to their murders at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. When the Franks leave Frankfurt for Amsterdam, they are hoping to find a place where they can resume a normal life, but instead, the family's freedoms are taken away bit by bit. But it is when they see that other Jews are being taken away, and sent to so-called labor camps that the Franks realize they have no choice but to go into hiding; they live in fear for 2 years.
Denenberg presents the complete story of Anne Frank and her family's life, from Frankfurt, Germany, where Anne and Margot were born before the war, up through to their murders at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. When the Franks leave Frankfurt for Amsterdam, they are hoping to find a place where they can resume a normal life, but instead, the family's freedoms are taken away bit by bit. But it is when they see that other Jews are being taken away, and sent to so-called labor camps that the Franks realize they have no choice but to go into hiding; they live in fear for 2 years.
Publication Date: 03/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: A thrilling novel of a young boy's devastation when his father uproots him and moves their family to Russia, where a society of Finnish-Socialists attempt to found a workers' paradise.
Jake's life is turned upside down when his father gets caught up in the Socialist fervor washing over their Finnish mining community in Minnesota. His father decides to move their family to a new, Finnish state inside the Soviet Union, a change that fills Jake with dread. Where his father dreams of creating a worker's paradise, Jake and his family find disappointment and hardship. The story culminates with a thrilling escape--on skis--from Russia to Finland.
Jake's life is turned upside down when his father gets caught up in the Socialist fervor washing over their Finnish mining community in Minnesota. His father decides to move their family to a new, Finnish state inside the Soviet Union, a change that fills Jake with dread. Where his father dreams of creating a worker's paradise, Jake and his family find disappointment and hardship. The story culminates with a thrilling escape--on skis--from Russia to Finland.
Publication Date: 11/01/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: Winner of France's most prestigious children's book award, this vividly drawn novel tells the harrowing tale of a smart, feisty 12-year-old Jewish girl in 11th C. France during the first Crusade.
Feisty and smart, Elvina is not your average 12-year-old. She adores reading ,writing, and studying like the boys. And she detests silly girls' chores, like keeping chicken eggs warm until they hatch. But she is also skilled in the art of healing, a skill that ultimately gets her into trouble.
It's the 11th Century in France, and the Crusades are on a campaign to rid France of the Jews. The Jews live in terror and are on high alert that danger is drawing near to their town. One night, while Elvina is alone in her house, she hears a rap on the door. Can her guardian angel keep her safe?
Feisty and smart, Elvina is not your average 12-year-old. She adores reading ,writing, and studying like the boys. And she detests silly girls' chores, like keeping chicken eggs warm until they hatch. But she is also skilled in the art of healing, a skill that ultimately gets her into trouble.
It's the 11th Century in France, and the Crusades are on a campaign to rid France of the Jews. The Jews live in terror and are on high alert that danger is drawing near to their town. One night, while Elvina is alone in her house, she hears a rap on the door. Can her guardian angel keep her safe?
Publication Date: 09/01/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: One hot summer day, thirteen-year-olds Geri Thomas and Jay Thornton try to find a place to cool off so they seek Blue Pool, a dangerous, off-limits area. The two discover adventures they never bargained for as they foolishly hop a slow freight train to take them up the river road and accidentally start a grass fire. Soon they find themselves being chased through a mammoth cave by two desperate men willing to do almost anything to keep the teens from telling what they've discovered. Geri and Jay's adventures bring them one step closer to maturity and acceptance of responsibility while delivering a solid message that bad decisions can have frightful consequences.
Publication Date: 07/01/01
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: Poems deal with the joys and sorrows of growing up Chinese American, and the prejudice which Chinese Americans sometimes face
Publication Date: 10/01/94
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis:
"The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things.... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads: the suffering, the enormous tragedy of the whole thing."- Shelby Foote, from The Civil War
When the illustrated edition of The Civil War was first published, The New York Time hailed it as "a treasure for the eye and mind." Now Geoffrey Ward's magisterial work of history is available in a text-only edition that interweaves the author's narrative with the voices of the men and women who lived through the cataclysmic trial of our nationhood: not just Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Robert E. Lee, but genteel Southern ladies and escaped slaves, cavalry officers and common foot soldiers who fought in Yankee blue and Rebel gray.
The Civil War also includes essays by our most distinguished historians of the era: Don E. Fehrenbacher, on the war's origins; Barbara J. Fields, on the freeing of the slaves; Shelby Foote, on the war's soldiers and commanders; James M. McPherson, on the political dimensions of the struggle; and C. Vann Woodward, assessing the America that emerged from the war's ashes.
Publication Date: 09/06/94
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: Beginning with Thomas Edison’s childhood, when he set up his first laboratory in his basement as a 10-year-old, and following through his many jobs before he was able to support himself as an inventor, this is the true story of the man who brought the world the phonograph, motion pictures, and even the electric light bulb—revolutionary inventions that forever changed the way people live.
“One of the most critically acclaimed, best-selling children’s book series ever published.”—The New York Times
Margaret Cousins is also the author of the Landmark Book Ben Franklin of
Old Philadelphia.
“One of the most critically acclaimed, best-selling children’s book series ever published.”—The New York Times
Margaret Cousins is also the author of the Landmark Book Ben Franklin of
Old Philadelphia.
Publication Date: 08/12/81
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: Everyone’s single most important possession is our body. If that is not in proper working order, then nothing else in life really matters. Nevertheless, most people have only a vague — and often erroneous — idea of how the body is structured and functions.
The body is indeed complex, meaning that it is composed of numerous systems and subsystems. However, it is nowhere near as complicated as it is often presented.
The key is to describe the body based on only a handful of fundamental principles, i.e. the “architectural plan” that underlies virtually everything it does. Once these principles are clearly understood (they are not difficult), the body’s apparently impenetrable systems and subsystems become almost self-evident.
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent is specifically designed to help make the body’s “architectural plan” and fundamental principles stand out in sharp relief.
For example, many books compare the body to a well-oiled machine. By contrast, The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent compares it to a city. Why?
“Today, most people live in cities and have an instinctive understanding of how a complex urban environment works. Moreover, comparing it to a city gives more realistic description of how the body actually works,” says author Philip Yaffe.
The body is not composed of a respiratory system linked to a digestive system linked to a circulatory system linked to a urinary system, etc. Rather, all of its systems interact to achieve a single overriding objective: to ensure the proper functioning of each and every one of the body’s 100 trillion individual cells.
Relating everything back to the individual cell makes the need for systems and their general structures blazing obvious.
An unusual feature of The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent is that it is purposely redundant.
As any teacher knows, saying something once is tantamount to not saying it at all. Key ideas must be frequently repeated to be certain that they don’t get lost in the details. The reader will therefore see pieces of information repeated in many different places. This is to ensure that vital information is always available when and where the reader needs it. He won’t have to go looking for it on an earlier page in order to understand the page he is currently reading.
To add some light relief, the book also contains a chapter on “Funny Facts about the Human Body” and “Quotations about the Body” from scientists, philosophers, poets, and even humorists.
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent is part of the expanding “The Essential Ten Percent” series. The series was launched in 2011 on the premise that many self-instructional books fail to distinguish between:
•Casual Users — those who need to understand and apply only the very basics of a subject.
•Intensive Users — those who need to understand and apply virtually everything.
As a result, most such books tend to make fundamentally simple ideas appear to be unnecessarily complex. And more complex ideas hopelessly impenetrable.
Books in “The Essential Ten Percent Series” rigorously focus on the “casual user” to ensure that simple ideas remain simple and more complex ideas can be decomposed into simpler ones.
The books in “The Essential Ten Percent” series (at February 2012) are:
College-level Writing: The Essential Ten Percent
Public Speaking: The Essential Ten Percent
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent
Word for Windows: The Essential Ten Percent
The body is indeed complex, meaning that it is composed of numerous systems and subsystems. However, it is nowhere near as complicated as it is often presented.
The key is to describe the body based on only a handful of fundamental principles, i.e. the “architectural plan” that underlies virtually everything it does. Once these principles are clearly understood (they are not difficult), the body’s apparently impenetrable systems and subsystems become almost self-evident.
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent is specifically designed to help make the body’s “architectural plan” and fundamental principles stand out in sharp relief.
For example, many books compare the body to a well-oiled machine. By contrast, The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent compares it to a city. Why?
“Today, most people live in cities and have an instinctive understanding of how a complex urban environment works. Moreover, comparing it to a city gives more realistic description of how the body actually works,” says author Philip Yaffe.
The body is not composed of a respiratory system linked to a digestive system linked to a circulatory system linked to a urinary system, etc. Rather, all of its systems interact to achieve a single overriding objective: to ensure the proper functioning of each and every one of the body’s 100 trillion individual cells.
Relating everything back to the individual cell makes the need for systems and their general structures blazing obvious.
An unusual feature of The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent is that it is purposely redundant.
As any teacher knows, saying something once is tantamount to not saying it at all. Key ideas must be frequently repeated to be certain that they don’t get lost in the details. The reader will therefore see pieces of information repeated in many different places. This is to ensure that vital information is always available when and where the reader needs it. He won’t have to go looking for it on an earlier page in order to understand the page he is currently reading.
To add some light relief, the book also contains a chapter on “Funny Facts about the Human Body” and “Quotations about the Body” from scientists, philosophers, poets, and even humorists.
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent is part of the expanding “The Essential Ten Percent” series. The series was launched in 2011 on the premise that many self-instructional books fail to distinguish between:
•Casual Users — those who need to understand and apply only the very basics of a subject.
•Intensive Users — those who need to understand and apply virtually everything.
As a result, most such books tend to make fundamentally simple ideas appear to be unnecessarily complex. And more complex ideas hopelessly impenetrable.
Books in “The Essential Ten Percent Series” rigorously focus on the “casual user” to ensure that simple ideas remain simple and more complex ideas can be decomposed into simpler ones.
The books in “The Essential Ten Percent” series (at February 2012) are:
College-level Writing: The Essential Ten Percent
Public Speaking: The Essential Ten Percent
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent
Word for Windows: The Essential Ten Percent
Publication Date:
Age Level: Adult
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: The March 2010 edition of the Toastmaster, the monthly magazine of Toastmasters International, published an article titled “The Better You Write It, the Better You Say It.” Toastmasters International is a worldwide club dedicated to helping people improve their speaking and presentation skills. It has over 270,000 members in more than 100 countries. The article makes a couple of crucial points.
Excluding pure entertainment, the objective of most speeches is to convey information, or to promote or defend a point of view. Certain tools, such as vocal variety and body language, can aid this process. But by their very nature they can communicate only emphasis or emotion.
If your words are incapable of getting your message across, then no amount of gestures or vocal variety will do it for you. Thus, when preparing a speech, your first objective must always be to carefully structure your information and look for the best words or phrases to express what you want to say . . . But if writing your speech is the key to success, how should you go about it?”
In line with this analysis, the first purpose of this book is to lay down a few simple ground rules for writing a good speech. Once you have produced a credible, coherent speech, the second objective is to lay down a few equally simple ground rules for delivering it in the most congenial, forceful, persuasive manner possible.
The “theoretical” part of the book takes up only about one-third the total text. It is so short because the fundamental principles of effective public speaking are few and, when explained, are almost self-evident. It is divided into three interrelated sections.
•The Essentials of Good Writing (how to compose a good speech)
•The Essentials of Good Public Speaking (how to effectively deliver a good speech)
•The Essentials of Effective Visual Aids (how to effectively support a good speech)
The “practical” part of the book (two-thirds of the total text) consists of 10 carefully crafted appendices that explore certain key principles and techniques in greater detail, as well as providing some exercises to help you practice them. For example:
•Steve Jobs: Lessons from a Presentation Icon
•The Day I Lost My Fear of Public Speaking
•How to Untie Your Tongue
•Laugh Your Way to Persuasive Communication
Public Speaking: The Essential Ten Percent is part of the expanding “The Essential Ten Percent” series. The series was launched in 2011 on the premise that many self-instructional books fail to distinguish between:
•Casual Users — those who need to understand and apply only the very basics of a subject.
•Intensive Users — those who need to understand and apply virtually everything.
As a result, most such books tend to make fundamentally simple ideas appear to be unnecessarily complex. And more complex ideas hopelessly impenetrable.
Books in “The Essential Ten Percent Series” rigorously focus on the casual user to ensure that simple ideas remain simple and more complex ideas can be decomposed into simpler ones.
"Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood." — Robert Louis Stevenson
Excluding pure entertainment, the objective of most speeches is to convey information, or to promote or defend a point of view. Certain tools, such as vocal variety and body language, can aid this process. But by their very nature they can communicate only emphasis or emotion.
If your words are incapable of getting your message across, then no amount of gestures or vocal variety will do it for you. Thus, when preparing a speech, your first objective must always be to carefully structure your information and look for the best words or phrases to express what you want to say . . . But if writing your speech is the key to success, how should you go about it?”
In line with this analysis, the first purpose of this book is to lay down a few simple ground rules for writing a good speech. Once you have produced a credible, coherent speech, the second objective is to lay down a few equally simple ground rules for delivering it in the most congenial, forceful, persuasive manner possible.
The “theoretical” part of the book takes up only about one-third the total text. It is so short because the fundamental principles of effective public speaking are few and, when explained, are almost self-evident. It is divided into three interrelated sections.
•The Essentials of Good Writing (how to compose a good speech)
•The Essentials of Good Public Speaking (how to effectively deliver a good speech)
•The Essentials of Effective Visual Aids (how to effectively support a good speech)
The “practical” part of the book (two-thirds of the total text) consists of 10 carefully crafted appendices that explore certain key principles and techniques in greater detail, as well as providing some exercises to help you practice them. For example:
•Steve Jobs: Lessons from a Presentation Icon
•The Day I Lost My Fear of Public Speaking
•How to Untie Your Tongue
•Laugh Your Way to Persuasive Communication
Public Speaking: The Essential Ten Percent is part of the expanding “The Essential Ten Percent” series. The series was launched in 2011 on the premise that many self-instructional books fail to distinguish between:
•Casual Users — those who need to understand and apply only the very basics of a subject.
•Intensive Users — those who need to understand and apply virtually everything.
As a result, most such books tend to make fundamentally simple ideas appear to be unnecessarily complex. And more complex ideas hopelessly impenetrable.
Books in “The Essential Ten Percent Series” rigorously focus on the casual user to ensure that simple ideas remain simple and more complex ideas can be decomposed into simpler ones.
"Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood." — Robert Louis Stevenson
Publication Date:
Age Level: Adult
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: I have long believed that learning another language is hindered by the grammar books, whose look and layout make the task seem impossibly difficult. English is my native language and I am a professional writer. Nevertheless, even I sometimes shudder at the sight of an English grammar book.
I recently read one such book for French speakers that declared: In English, more than other languages, it is often difficult to determine to which part of speech certain words belong. Often a word can be an adverb, a proposition, or a conjunction.
These two sentences eloquently exemplify what I believe is wrong with the majority of English grammar books. They are written by grammarians for grammarians, rather than for learners.
The fact that “before” can be an adverb, a conjunction, or a preposition is of little consequence. The important thing is for learners to know the word, and when and how to use it, not what part of speech it represents in any particular circumstance.
Another thing grammar books do is to enunciate a rule, then list 5-10 exceptions that must be memorized. English, like French, has its share of exceptions. However, looked at properly, many of these so-called exceptions do follow the rule, or come closer to following it than their formal grammatical description might suggest. Exceptions are a principal factor that makes learning a language difficult.
Separating false exceptions from real ones therefore should make the task considerably easier.
In this work I have kept grammatical terminology to a minimum, and in fact have changed it where I believe conventional terminology would hinder understanding rather than helping it. I have also reduced the number of exceptions to each rule by looking at the language through the eyes of the native anglophones who actually speak it, rather than through the eyes of grammarians who study and dissect it.
Objectively, English is the easiest of all the major world languages to learn (German, French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) because its grammar is fundamentally simpler. This fact is occasionally mentioned in grammar books; however, it is never really exploited.
The purpose of this book is to help non-native speakers better understand how native anglohones view and use their language, with emphasis on its simplicities and regularities rather than its complexities and exceptions. As an extra aid, false exceptions are always clearly indicated.
In short, the purpose of Actual English is to help you think in English, i.e. help you better understand how native anglophones think about their language when they are actually speaking it.
I recently read one such book for French speakers that declared: In English, more than other languages, it is often difficult to determine to which part of speech certain words belong. Often a word can be an adverb, a proposition, or a conjunction.
These two sentences eloquently exemplify what I believe is wrong with the majority of English grammar books. They are written by grammarians for grammarians, rather than for learners.
The fact that “before” can be an adverb, a conjunction, or a preposition is of little consequence. The important thing is for learners to know the word, and when and how to use it, not what part of speech it represents in any particular circumstance.
Another thing grammar books do is to enunciate a rule, then list 5-10 exceptions that must be memorized. English, like French, has its share of exceptions. However, looked at properly, many of these so-called exceptions do follow the rule, or come closer to following it than their formal grammatical description might suggest. Exceptions are a principal factor that makes learning a language difficult.
Separating false exceptions from real ones therefore should make the task considerably easier.
In this work I have kept grammatical terminology to a minimum, and in fact have changed it where I believe conventional terminology would hinder understanding rather than helping it. I have also reduced the number of exceptions to each rule by looking at the language through the eyes of the native anglophones who actually speak it, rather than through the eyes of grammarians who study and dissect it.
Objectively, English is the easiest of all the major world languages to learn (German, French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) because its grammar is fundamentally simpler. This fact is occasionally mentioned in grammar books; however, it is never really exploited.
The purpose of this book is to help non-native speakers better understand how native anglohones view and use their language, with emphasis on its simplicities and regularities rather than its complexities and exceptions. As an extra aid, false exceptions are always clearly indicated.
In short, the purpose of Actual English is to help you think in English, i.e. help you better understand how native anglophones think about their language when they are actually speaking it.
Publication Date:
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: Literate people are literate because they have been taught how to read and write. Right? Wrong. They have been taught how to read, but many (if not most) have never really been taught how to write.
“I know, because I used to be one of them,” says Philip Yaffe, a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and long-time international marketing communication consultant. ”When I was in high school, I thought I knew how to write, but when I went to college, I was shocked to discover that I didn’t.
“Much secondary school writing is aimed at helping students perfect their mechanical skills such as grammar, vocabulary, rhythm, syntax, etc. In college, it is assumed that students already do these things well. The task now is to use these skills to clearly, concisely, and persuasively present or defend an argument or point of view. This is where I and many of my freshman colleagues fell down,” he explains.
College-level Writing: The Essential Ten Percent attempts to rectify the problem by focusing on the truly key ideas and techniques needed to achieve these objectives.
College-level Writing: The Essential Ten Percent displays, explains, and provides exercises for general writing principles and practices that can be adapted to all kinds of college-level writing formats, e.g. book reviews, term papers, research papers, theses, essay exams, etc.
“If you truly understand and master the principles and practices explained in this book, it really won’t matter what format may be imposed on your writing. The format is like the cover of a book. The essential thing is what is inside,” the author says.
As any good teacher knows, saying something once is tantamount to not saying it at all. People may understand something the first time they hear it, but that doesn’t mean that they will necessarily remember it or understand it later. Key ideas must be repeated to ensure comprehension.
College-level Writing: The Essential 10 Percent is therefore purposely redundant. You will see certain pieces of information repeated in many different places. This is done to ensure that vital information is always available when and where you need it. You won’t have to go looking for it on an earlier page in order to understand the page you are currently reading.
Because they are fundamental, the principles and practices taught in this book are also adaptable to business and professional worlds beyond graduation.
Philip Yaffe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1942 and grew up in Los Angeles, where he graduated from the University of California with a degree in mathematics and physics. In his senior year, he was also editor-in-chief of the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s daily student newspaper.
He has more than 40 years of experience in journalism and international marketing communication. At various points in his career, he has been a teacher of journalism, a reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal, an account executive with a major international press relations agency, European marketing communication director with two major international companies, and a founding partner of a specialized marketing communication agency in Brussels, Belgium, where he has lived since 1974.
Other Books by this Author
Word for Windows: The Essential Ten Percent
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent
(to be published in February 2012)
The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking like a Professional
The Gettysburg Collection:
A comprehensive companion to The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking like a Professional
Actual English: English grammar as native speakers really use it
Gentle French: French grammar as native speakers really use it
What’d You Say? / Que Dites-Vous?
Fun with homophones, proverbs, expressions, false friends, and other linguistic oddities in English and French
The Little Book of BIG Mistakes
Science for the Concerned Citizen: What you don’t know CAN hurt you
“I know, because I used to be one of them,” says Philip Yaffe, a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and long-time international marketing communication consultant. ”When I was in high school, I thought I knew how to write, but when I went to college, I was shocked to discover that I didn’t.
“Much secondary school writing is aimed at helping students perfect their mechanical skills such as grammar, vocabulary, rhythm, syntax, etc. In college, it is assumed that students already do these things well. The task now is to use these skills to clearly, concisely, and persuasively present or defend an argument or point of view. This is where I and many of my freshman colleagues fell down,” he explains.
College-level Writing: The Essential Ten Percent attempts to rectify the problem by focusing on the truly key ideas and techniques needed to achieve these objectives.
College-level Writing: The Essential Ten Percent displays, explains, and provides exercises for general writing principles and practices that can be adapted to all kinds of college-level writing formats, e.g. book reviews, term papers, research papers, theses, essay exams, etc.
“If you truly understand and master the principles and practices explained in this book, it really won’t matter what format may be imposed on your writing. The format is like the cover of a book. The essential thing is what is inside,” the author says.
As any good teacher knows, saying something once is tantamount to not saying it at all. People may understand something the first time they hear it, but that doesn’t mean that they will necessarily remember it or understand it later. Key ideas must be repeated to ensure comprehension.
College-level Writing: The Essential 10 Percent is therefore purposely redundant. You will see certain pieces of information repeated in many different places. This is done to ensure that vital information is always available when and where you need it. You won’t have to go looking for it on an earlier page in order to understand the page you are currently reading.
Because they are fundamental, the principles and practices taught in this book are also adaptable to business and professional worlds beyond graduation.
Philip Yaffe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1942 and grew up in Los Angeles, where he graduated from the University of California with a degree in mathematics and physics. In his senior year, he was also editor-in-chief of the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s daily student newspaper.
He has more than 40 years of experience in journalism and international marketing communication. At various points in his career, he has been a teacher of journalism, a reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal, an account executive with a major international press relations agency, European marketing communication director with two major international companies, and a founding partner of a specialized marketing communication agency in Brussels, Belgium, where he has lived since 1974.
Other Books by this Author
Word for Windows: The Essential Ten Percent
The Human Body: The Essential Ten Percent
(to be published in February 2012)
The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking like a Professional
The Gettysburg Collection:
A comprehensive companion to The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking like a Professional
Actual English: English grammar as native speakers really use it
Gentle French: French grammar as native speakers really use it
What’d You Say? / Que Dites-Vous?
Fun with homophones, proverbs, expressions, false friends, and other linguistic oddities in English and French
The Little Book of BIG Mistakes
Science for the Concerned Citizen: What you don’t know CAN hurt you
Publication Date:
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: We all live in a world which, if not dominated by science, is certainly strongly influenced by it. Yet most people seem have only a vague, and often erroneous, understanding of what science is all about. This is both sad and dangerous. If we depend on science but don’t really understand it, we are likely to make uninformed decisions with disastrous consequences.
Since this book is directed at people who basically don’t like science — or worse, fear it — it needed to be organized to be as readable and approachable as possible.
To this end, there are no chapters about specific sciences, i.e. everything you really need to know about physics, everything you really need to know about chemistry, everything you really need to know about astronomy, etc. Instead, it takes the form of easy-to-read essays, some of which are based on speeches given to lay audiences, some of which have already been published elsewhere, and some of which are being published here for the first time. Each essay is self-contained, so they can be read. You don’t have to read the first essay first in order to understand the second one, and so on.
In addition to the essays, you will also find a wide variety of quotations about science from well-known scientists such as Einstein and Newton, lesser known scientists, as well as authors, philosophers, poets, etc. Again, each quotation is self-contained. Therefore, they are not categorized into specific sub-headings. However, where necessary, a quotation will be commented on to make certain that Is references and allusions can be easily understood.
Believe it or not, some people find science to be fun; scientists like to laugh at themselves. Science for the Concerned Citizen therefore concludes with several pages of jokes. Again, where necessary, a joke will be commented on to make certain that its references and allusions can be easily understood.
Since this book is directed at people who basically don’t like science — or worse, fear it — it needed to be organized to be as readable and approachable as possible.
To this end, there are no chapters about specific sciences, i.e. everything you really need to know about physics, everything you really need to know about chemistry, everything you really need to know about astronomy, etc. Instead, it takes the form of easy-to-read essays, some of which are based on speeches given to lay audiences, some of which have already been published elsewhere, and some of which are being published here for the first time. Each essay is self-contained, so they can be read. You don’t have to read the first essay first in order to understand the second one, and so on.
In addition to the essays, you will also find a wide variety of quotations about science from well-known scientists such as Einstein and Newton, lesser known scientists, as well as authors, philosophers, poets, etc. Again, each quotation is self-contained. Therefore, they are not categorized into specific sub-headings. However, where necessary, a quotation will be commented on to make certain that Is references and allusions can be easily understood.
Believe it or not, some people find science to be fun; scientists like to laugh at themselves. Science for the Concerned Citizen therefore concludes with several pages of jokes. Again, where necessary, a joke will be commented on to make certain that its references and allusions can be easily understood.
Publication Date:
Age Level: Adult
Genre: Educational
Synopsis: I am a professional writer in English and I speak fluent French. By fluent, I mean that I can carry on a conversation for hours at a time without ever being at a loss for words.
You have probably heard that French is a difficult language to learn. The bad news is, unfortunately this is correct. The good news is, it is much easier to learn if properly approached. Much easier. If your objective is mainly to speak rather than to create chefs-d’oeuvres littéraires, then I believe you will find this book of considerable help.
Objectively, English is an easier language than French because of its demonstrably simpler grammar. But don’t be misled. Certain characteristics of French are simpler than their equivalents in English. By rejoicing in French’s simplicities rather than focusing on its complexities, learning the language can be made more rapid and more enjoyable than you might have expected.
Structurally, Gentle French is designed to achieve two principal objectives:
1. Emphasize those characteristics of French that make it easier than English
2. Simplify the undeniable complexities of French as much as humanly possible, particularly in terms of how native speakers think about their language when they are actually using it.
We are all familiar with grammar books that enunciate a rule, then list 5 -10 exceptions where it doesn’t apply. It is facetiously said that in French, the exception is the rule. However, looked at properly, many of these so-called “exceptions” do follow the rule, or come closer to following it than their formal grammatical description might suggest.
Exceptions are the principal factor that makes learning a language difficult. Separating “false exceptions” from real ones therefore should make the task considerably easier, which this book diligently tries to do.
As another way to maximize understanding, Gentle French keeps grammatical terminology to an absolute minimum – and in fact changes it when conventional terminology would hinder understanding, rather than helping it.
To achieve its objectives, the book is divided into five parts.
1. The Psychology of Learning French
This section proposes the proper psychological approach to learning French, and suggests a number of pedagogical artifices to make learning easier and more enjoyable.
2. Seven Ways French Is Easier than English
This section looks at the basic structure and logic of French to highlight fundamental features of French that are demonstrably easier than they are in English.
3. Essentials of French Grammar
This section looks at how the principles enunciated in Parts 1 & 2 work in practice. Constant emphasis is placed on the regularities of French and its similarities to English. To this end, it introduces a new way of categorizing grammar: 1) foundational grammar, 2) explicative grammar, 3) decorative grammar.
4. Particularities
This section examines particular problems English speakers encounter in learning French, such as pronominal verbs, verbs conjugated with être instead of avoir, use of c’est, use of chez, silent letters, etc. It also suggests logical — or at least psychological — ways of dealing with these problems.
5. Ready Reference
This section is a compendium of key reference materials such as basic grammatical terminology, conjugation of key irregular verbs, true friends (vrais amis), false friends (faux amis), common idiomatic expressions, special problems between French and English, etc.
In short, the purpose of the book is to help you think in French, so you will better understand what is going on in the mind of native French speakers when words are actually coming out of their mouths. It is only when you truly begin to think like a Francophone that you can truly begin to speak like one.
You have probably heard that French is a difficult language to learn. The bad news is, unfortunately this is correct. The good news is, it is much easier to learn if properly approached. Much easier. If your objective is mainly to speak rather than to create chefs-d’oeuvres littéraires, then I believe you will find this book of considerable help.
Objectively, English is an easier language than French because of its demonstrably simpler grammar. But don’t be misled. Certain characteristics of French are simpler than their equivalents in English. By rejoicing in French’s simplicities rather than focusing on its complexities, learning the language can be made more rapid and more enjoyable than you might have expected.
Structurally, Gentle French is designed to achieve two principal objectives:
1. Emphasize those characteristics of French that make it easier than English
2. Simplify the undeniable complexities of French as much as humanly possible, particularly in terms of how native speakers think about their language when they are actually using it.
We are all familiar with grammar books that enunciate a rule, then list 5 -10 exceptions where it doesn’t apply. It is facetiously said that in French, the exception is the rule. However, looked at properly, many of these so-called “exceptions” do follow the rule, or come closer to following it than their formal grammatical description might suggest.
Exceptions are the principal factor that makes learning a language difficult. Separating “false exceptions” from real ones therefore should make the task considerably easier, which this book diligently tries to do.
As another way to maximize understanding, Gentle French keeps grammatical terminology to an absolute minimum – and in fact changes it when conventional terminology would hinder understanding, rather than helping it.
To achieve its objectives, the book is divided into five parts.
1. The Psychology of Learning French
This section proposes the proper psychological approach to learning French, and suggests a number of pedagogical artifices to make learning easier and more enjoyable.
2. Seven Ways French Is Easier than English
This section looks at the basic structure and logic of French to highlight fundamental features of French that are demonstrably easier than they are in English.
3. Essentials of French Grammar
This section looks at how the principles enunciated in Parts 1 & 2 work in practice. Constant emphasis is placed on the regularities of French and its similarities to English. To this end, it introduces a new way of categorizing grammar: 1) foundational grammar, 2) explicative grammar, 3) decorative grammar.
4. Particularities
This section examines particular problems English speakers encounter in learning French, such as pronominal verbs, verbs conjugated with être instead of avoir, use of c’est, use of chez, silent letters, etc. It also suggests logical — or at least psychological — ways of dealing with these problems.
5. Ready Reference
This section is a compendium of key reference materials such as basic grammatical terminology, conjugation of key irregular verbs, true friends (vrais amis), false friends (faux amis), common idiomatic expressions, special problems between French and English, etc.
In short, the purpose of the book is to help you think in French, so you will better understand what is going on in the mind of native French speakers when words are actually coming out of their mouths. It is only when you truly begin to think like a Francophone that you can truly begin to speak like one.
Publication Date:
Age Level: Adult
Genre: Educational