The Condensed ESL Writer's Handbook is a reference work for ESL students who are taking college-level courses. Because its purpose is to provide help with the broad variety of writing questions students may have when working on school assignments, the text focuses on English for Academic Purposes.

The Condensed version is concise and easily navigated; is accessible with clear and direct explanatory language; and limits its focus to the grammatical and style aspects of writing and reference material.

The 2nd Edition of The Condensed ESL Writer's Handbook has been revised to better align with the exercises in the Workbook for The ESL Writer's Handbook, 2nd Ed. (978-0-472-03726-1). It also features an expanded Section 1 (to include more on pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing), updated exercise items, and completely revised APA and MLA style guides (featuring MLA, 8th Edition). Overall, this handbook has these special features:

The topic selection is based on ESL writers' needs as observed by the authors over many years.
The coverage of topics is more complete than the limited amount usually provided for ESL writers in first language or L1 handbooks.
The explanatory language is appropriate for ESL students, in contrast to the more complex and idiomatic language of other English handbooks.
Many of the text examples and exercise sentences were written by ESL students to help users realize that they too can become effective writers.