"Practical advice for academics and graduate students who want to hone their skills and liven up their writing." (Book News, Inc., November 2001)

"I admire this book and feel confident that readers will find it useful and a pleasure too. Rankin deftly chooses stories of actual writers and texts-stories that do a lot of work in a short space."
— Peter Elbow, department of English, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

"Faculty and graduate students in all disciplines who are trying to write articles, books, grants, curriculum guides, or other professional documents, will find Rankin's book an imaginative, sensible, and practical guide to strategizing, organizing, addressing audiences, and combining creativity with convention."
— Barbara Walvoord, director, Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, concurrent professor of English, and fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives, University of Notre Dame

"This most engagingly written little book provides a wealth of clear and useful advice about the writing process from formulating a project through planning, drafting, and revising it. Professor Rankin communicates this advice through a dozen intimate stories about writers struggling with articles, proposals, and books, and, with the help of colleagues, bringing them to successful conclusions."
— Joseph M. Williams, professor emeritus, departments of English and Linguistics, The University of Chicago