Most class sessions will be devoted to workshops and/or discussion. Students' writing will be informed by assigned readings involving theoretical issues related to the field; we will discuss those issues both on designated dates and as they arise naturally. Discussion subjects may be grouped into categories of theory, practical matters and craft.

theory: defining nonfiction; current controversies; the genre's history.

practical matters: commercial and academic publishing; the state of the art; the state of the business; presses; agents; how-to manuals; Writer's Digest; the structure of a book proposal; thinking of your proposal in terms of its target audience and its competition.

craft: brainstorming story ideas; identifying and discovering a story in an avalanche of facts; performing library research; locating and using journals, newspapers and newspaper archives; search engines; Lexis-Nexis; performing "people" research; interviewing by telephone, email and instant messenger programs, in-person interviews; the problem of defining character; questions of plagiarism; the reasonable limits of paraphrasing; choosing and maintaining a style; types of styles; journalistic understatement, the "New Journalism"; physical description of places and persons; maintaining narrative drive; balancing fast-paced or smooth narrative flow with presentation of information; choosing and sustaining voice; negotiating the limits of dramatic license; working with editors and other discriminating readers; using criticism constructively.