Far too many writing coursebooks tend to approach matters as if the ultimate goal is for the student writer to create one of the several established essay formats such as problem-solution or cause-effect. With less ambitious but by no means less useful aims, this title is a breath of fresh air. Written to assist students at A2 to B1 level, i.e. those who can already put together a basic but effective text, this new edition of Better Writing takes a step-by-step approach to building paragraphs, working from the mechanics of spelling and punctuation, up to constructing and linking sentences using the correct conjunctions. It's all done admirably well, too. Each of the six lengthy units, with titles like 'What's it like?', 'How things work', and 'How is it made?' works around a function. Beginning with a focus on the sentence, units move quickly on to activities based around grammar point. Unit One, for example, deals with 'have and have not', in which firstly the grammar is clearly outlined, then moves on to tasks in which the language of dimensions is introduced - length, width, height, etc. The next stage for budding writers is to build their own sentences in order to describe objects like a jeep, a suitcase and the Japanese flag. One of the many aspects of Better Writing I admired was the brevity and clarity of the multitude of tasks in every unit. Following the construction of sentences, as explained above, students are introduced to methods of joining ideas in simple but effective style. In order to do so, Unit One focuses on the use of 'with', which is followed swiftly by work on 'when' clauses. As an introduction to work at paragraph level, students are next provided with a noticing task that involves adding the correct punctuation and capital letters to a short text. This is followed by further tasks requiring gap-filling, based largely on items previously taught, i.e. 'with' and 'when'. My only quibble with the author is that the free writing stage, one with which units normally end, is in all six units placed before several useful tasks in vocabulary building. Potential users of this book might disagree; please feel free to contact me. Building upon work in the first three units that cover the passive voice, reported speech, imperatives for giving instructions, plus several more conjunctions such as 'which' and 'although', Better Writing moves from dealing with mostly technical matters onto work covering narration of a story and of course getting students to first write the ending of a story prior to creating one of their own. Tasks for units later in the book are both more challenging - and why should they not be? - but are helped by the addition of several checklists and further noticing tasks. Finally, as if the above wasn't enough to entice anyone involved in teaching writing, each unit ends with a four-page language review, the material from which could be easily adapted to create a pop quiz. Wayne Trotman for EL Gazette, March 2015
