The Writer's Pocket Handbook is a very brief spiral-bound handbook — an inexpensive, handy, and relatively complete reference manual for use in composing papers in all disciplines. Not just a style manual, The Writer's Pocket Handbook begins with “Writing with Purpose,” a unique section in a handbook of this size, which provides information on the rhetorical situation in order to contextualize the reference material that follows.

Process-oriented, authoritative, practical, filled with instructive, hand-edited examples, including the latest 1998 MLA recommendations for documenting electronic sources, The Writer's Pocket Handbook is presented in the same clear, accessible, and polished style that has made such a success of Rosa and Eschholz's The Writer's Brief Handbook.