Art and Formula

Writing this textbook has given me the opportunity to highlight what I deem important, to teach you from my mistakes, and perhaps most importantly, to write joyfully about something that I care about. This has been fun for me, and I hope it's fun for you.

The content is very much a reflection of its author's strengths and weaknesses. It is strong where I tend to be strongest as a writer, and most interested – features, creative nonfiction, interviewing, and opinion work. It is weak where I tend to be the least interested as a writer, and it is where I have drawn most heavily on some exceptional source material that has helped me greatly in the classroom. I owe a debt of gratitude to the talented Union University students whose work I showcase in this book. I wrote this book with student writers and student publications in mind, so it made sense to me to acknowledge excellent work from those publications.

You'll notice it doesn't get close to covering "everything" – especially in the areas of Communication Law, Public Relations, AP Style, and Investigative Journalism. Rather, the goal was to make it narrative, engaging, and digestible.

I believe great writers teach themselves, and college is most about helping writers understand what it is they like to do. The great thing about writing is no one professor or textbook has the secret to success. Success, in this professor's opinion, comes when there is such joy in the work that the student is hungry to read and write more. This book was written humbly, and in that spirit. Enjoy it.