An invaluable resource for teachers, teaching assistants, peer tutors and parents, The Practical Tutor provides a comprehensive guide to improving composition. It explores typical writing problems and their causes, summarizes recent research and thinking in the field of composition, and suggests practical strategies for helping writers overcome their difficulties. Equally useful as a course text and as a reference book for teachers and tutors, it includes exercises for getting acquainted with writers and helping them to generate ideas, shape essays, master basic writing mechanics, write about literature and other texts, and even use computers to improve their work. It also offers suggestions for journal entries, independent writing, class activities, and further reading. Illustrated with representative compositions and sample dialogues between tutors and writers, The Practical Tutor shows, in the most precise terms, how to formulate questions that will spur students at all levels to make their own corrections and to write critically and independently.