In the book, the most useful information in my opinion is the tips on writing a thesis statement. The thesis is main argument of your paper and is important in both an essay and in a quick reference guide. Out of all of the advice in the book I believe that most useful piece is "Does it adequately reflect your reading and the expected shape of your paper?"(57). This applies to the quick reference guide because the quick reference guide is a much different format than the essay. In the quick reference guide you have an introduction with a thesis and then have different headings with at least a paragraph to explain a different aspect of your thesis. Because of this your thesis has to fit the format of the paper and be able to be applied to all of the sub-headings. Another important tip is paragraph structure. It is still important to follow the PIE structure because it is an easy format to follow and an easy way to incorporate an explanation of your ideas. The P part also allows you to introduce the specific idea that is part of the heading for that paragraph. The section can be more specific and address certain evidence or ideas and how they relate to the bigger picture of your quick reference guide.
A portion of the book that is less helpful is the division of paragraphs. In an essay this is very important to distinguish between ideas but in a quick reference guide there is headings in between paragraphs that show a change in ideas and introduce the next paragraph or paragraphs main idea. For the conclusion section, the tip to summarize your claims isn't as helpful for the quick reference guide because of the amount of claims made. A quick reference guide summarizes or explains a whole topic so lots of ideas will be presented. It will be redundant to summarize all of this information a second time. A more important tip for the conclusion is to explain the so what. Why is this quick reference guide important.
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