A Book Critique

               'Academic Writing: a handbook for international students'  is a book for learners of higher levels of Education which aims at developing writing skills. It was written by Bailey (2006), an experienced professor, who has taught in several countries, such as England, Spain and Japan. Due to its clear layout and rich content, it constitutes a valuable resource for all those non-native speakers who desire to achieve successful academic writing. 

               This book has a transparent design, which makes it easier for learners to understand the writing process. It is divided into four main sections, which are subdivided into sixty-one short  units. Bailey (2006) suggests that this handbook can be used throughout a whole course considering its length and complexity.

               The author regards writing as a process. Although the book provides students with a brief theoretical background of each topic, the author emphasizes practical writing skills. In this light, each unit contains exercises and an answer key. Moreover, this handout fosters integration as it offers a cross-referencing system, which helps students to assimilate the content. 

               As writing is seen as a long-term goal, this book "guides students from the initial stage of understanding essay title [...] to the organisation of the essay and finally proof-reading." (Bailey, 2006, vii). It also provides learners with revision and reference, giving priority to remedial practice of common errors. Another important contribution is that it presents models of writing, which are highly required in the Academic field. Students are encouraged to produce their own pieces to check their progress at the end of the handbook. 

               In this useful study, Bailey has succeeded in his main goal: presenting a book that helps students to go through the path of writing informal sheets to write academic pieces of work.it is clear that by proving writers with interesting, remarkable and useful tools to produce pieces of academic writing, the author has accomplished his main purpose.

Reference

Bailey, S. (2006). Academic Writing: A handbook for international students (2nd ed). Retrieved from http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf