Jeniri Amir

Found the first edition of the book in my other house a couple of weeks ago. Have been reading it for weeks for reference on some parts which I read occasionally.

The book take itself as a general guide to writing (articles, newspaper, academic works, fiction, non-fiction etc) but at the first glance, unless you have the mind who can stand very lengthy book on writing on repeats, you'll be fine. But if you are like me, used to taking a lot of things at a small period of time, the book is very flawed in its contexts and contents.

Yes, I know the writer is a professional, but the book is more of a know-it-all instead of informative. In fact its a loooooooooooong justified 1.5 spacing essay with mixed small fonts and no pictures! I do read pictureless non-fiction, I was university student anyway, have you even seen my Virology and Immunology notes? Descriptive mechanism of cellular structure in an inflammation is very boring, you know. But no pictures? what a drone.... Anyway, I think the book might be better it was step by step instead of being preachy about who is who in writing. The author should know items that can be very outdated. Speeches can be forgotten. Politic that changed hands. Plus, as a non-fiction and partially intended as academic writing, where are the references? Sincerely I hope it got revised and had change but I kind of doubt it.

For a writing manual, it does a shoddy job in writing. The paragraph always jumps around referencing out of topic subjects. It doesn't have an appendix NOR subtitles under its index, so its very hard to find what you're looking for in the book that you have to skim every page for it. If you're looking for a specific item, you have to go through random thrown out stuff until you find what you look for. Being published in 2005, I'm surprised that the graphic designer still use Microsoft clip arts on its meager graphics. I dont even do that in 2005.

And the style is too autobiographical that unfortunately you could see the author is a bit too much on himself. I do read it for something like "Sepuluh Teknik Penutup Efektif" and "Keterampilan Menulis Perenggan" but as for rereading. Since its probably my mother's book although she seem never had the time to read it, I had to take care of myself not to underline things in the books for ease of reading. Truthfully, you need a notebook with this book so you could extract the items for it to be usable (like the law acts and such if you're a local author) but overall.. I'm sorry to say, the book is quite a bore. If you own it, just get a highlighter to make your life easier.… (plus d'informations)